The Life Scientific
Summary: Each week, Jim al-Khalili invites a leading scientist to tell us about their life and work. He'll talk to Nobel laureates as well as the next generation of beautiful minds to find out what inspires and motivates them and what their discoveries might do for us.
- Visit Website
- RSS
- Artist: BBC Radio 4
- Copyright: (C) BBC 2014
Podcasts:
Jim Al-Khalili meets neuroscientist Barbara Sahakian. Neurotransmitters are chemicals in the brain which effect our memory and understanding, and neuropharmacology is the study of drugs which can be used in conditions like Alzheimer's disease or depression. But can new treatments improve the performance of surgeons or pilots and could they even be used to make us more entrepreneurial?
Jim Al-Khalili meets the Antarctic scientist, Lloyd Peck. He discovers what it's like to live there and whether the underwater animals can adapt to rising sea temperatures.
Jim al-Khalili talks to Frances Ashcroft about a lifetime spent studying the link between blood sugar and insulin and what goes wrong in people with diabetes.
Jim al-Khalili talks to James Lovelock about elocution lessons, defrosting hamsters and his grand theory of planet earth, Gaia. The idea that from the bottom of the earth’s crust to the upper reaches of the atmosphere, planet earth is one giant inter-connected and self-regulating system.
Jim al-Khalili talks to Angela Gallop, the scientist who provided the vital forensic evidence in the recent trial for the murder of Stephen Lawrence.
Jim al-Khalili talks to CERN physicist, Tejinder Virdee about the search for the elusive Higgs boson or "God" particle at the Large Hadron Collider.
Jim Al-Khalili talks to ecologist John Lawton about how to persuade politicians to take nature seriously.
Jim enters the multiverse with Astronomer Royal Martin Rees. He's worked on the big bang, black holes and the formation of galaxies but wants to know if there's life elsewhere.
Jim Al-Khalili talks to the pioneering health services researcher, Iain Chalmers, who was one of the founders of the Cochrane Collaboration.
What is the future of nanotechnology? Chemist Tony Ryan shows Jim al-Khalili some of its surprising uses.
Jim al-Khalili talks to paleoanthropologist Chris Stringer.
Psychiatrist Robin Murray tells Jim why he has changed his mind about the cause of schizophrenia.
Jim Al-Khalili talks to planetary scientist Colin Pillinger about his mission to find a robot on Mars.
Jim Al-Khaili talks to Professor Lord Robert Winston about IVF, designer babies and why scientists must take ethical responsibilty for the work they do.
Here with the news of the virgin birth - among sue urchins - is physicist, Jim Al-Khalili.
