The Life Scientific

Jim meets pioneering psychologist Uta Frith whose work changed how we view brain disorders.

Physicist Jim Al Khalili meets Sir John Sulston, worm biologist and leader of the British end of the Human Genome Project.

Nicky Clayton reveals how her obsession with birds inspires her research on the cleverness of crows, and her work as scientist in residence at the Rambert Dance Company.

Jim al-Khalili talks to tissue engineer, Molly Stevens, about, among other things, growing bones.

Colin Blakemore is a neuroscientist who specialises in vision and the development of the brain, he pioneered the idea that the brain has the ability to change even in adulthood. But he also fought a 13 year battle with animal rights campaigners.

When Michael Marmot studied Whitehall civil servants he didn’t imagine that someone’s paygrade could predict how long they would live. His challenging results suggest that far from being tough at the top, its much tougher lower down the pecking order. What does this mean for a Britain with public service cuts and rising unemployment.

Jim al-Khalili talks to the astronomer Jocelyn Bell Burnell about missing out a Nobel Prize, sexism in science and a strange smudge in the data from a radio telescope. While others dismissed this smudge as insignificant, Jocelyn revealed a series of strange flashing signals. They might have been evidence of faulty radio telescope or even messages from a little green man; but Jocelyn thought otherwise and her determination to get to the bottom of it all, led to one of the most exciting discoveries in 20th century astronomy, the discovery of pulsars, those dense cores of collapsed stars.

Jim al-Khalili talks to Steven Pinker, a scientist who’s not afraid of controversy. From verbs to violence, many say his popular science books are mind-changing. He explains why toddlers say “holded” not held and “digged” rather than dug; how children’s personalities are shaped largely by their genes and why, he believes the recent rioters had plenty of self-esteem.

Jim al-Khalili interviews Paul Nurse, perhaps the most powerful scientist in Britain today: a Nobel Laureate for his work on how cells multiply and the President of the Royal Society. A working class boy who struggled to get into university, he’s now a pillar of the scientific establishment. If he has to be ruthless, he says he’d rather stab people in the front, than back. What’s behind his meteoric rise.

Welcome to this new BBC podcast. If you subscribe to the podcast feed, you should receive the first episode of this series automatically within the next seven days. To find other podcasts from the BBC, visit www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts.