Ri Science Podcast

Our sense of reward motivates us and is essential for survival, so when the system malfunctions, it can lead to big problems. This month, Ray Dolan, Wolfram Schultz and Peter Dayan, winners of the 2017 Lundbeck Foundation Brain Prize, discuss their ground-breaking work on how the brain recognises and processes reward with Claudia Hammond.

An estimated 700,000 people in Britain are affected by autism. In this Discourse, Dame Stephanie Shirley shares her hands-on experience of the disorder. Dame Stephanie Shirley is an information technology pioneer and philanthropist. Her charitable organisation, The Shirley Foundation, facilitates scientific research aimed at understanding what autism is as opposed to what it looks like.

Aoife McLysaght explores the evolution of new genes, how they sometimes become essential, and the link between new genes and disease including cancer. Aoife's lecture was given as the 2016 JBS Haldane Lecture from the Genetics Society. Aoife McLysaght is a geneticist at Trinity College Dublin. She specialises in the the origin and evolution of new genetic sequences and was the first to discover a set of genes that only occur in humans. She has appeared on TV to discuss her work and is a regular contributor to radio shows on BBC Radio 4 and columns in the Irish Times.

Greg Foot leads a scientific exploration to the top of the tallest mountain and bottom of the deepest ocean, accompanied by mountaineer medic Dan Martin and oceanographer explorer Leigh Marsh. Hear more from Greg Foot on his podcast, The Best Thing Since Sliced Bread: http://gregfoot.com/slicedbreadpod/ Watch the incredible Nautilus explorations live: http://www.nautiluslive.org/ Find out more about Extreme Everest: https://www.xtreme-everest.co.uk/ Greg Foot is a science presenter and a regular contributor for Blue Peter. He is fascinated by exploration in extreme environments and has been to both Everest Base Camp and in submersibles 300m deep. Dan Martin is a mountaineer, medic and the director of the UCL Centre for Altitude, Space and Extreme Environment Medicine. In 2007 he summited Everest and measured the lowest blood oxygen level of any living healthy human (his own!). Leigh Marsh is the lead communications officer for technology at the National Oceanography Centre (NOC) in Southampton. Her remit includes communicating the development and operations of all of the NOC's robotic and autonomous vehicles for scientific exploration of the deep ocean. She is also a visiting research fellow with the University of Southampton.

Professor Anne Ferguson-Smith explains what epigenetics is and how our environment interacts with our genome and if these changes can be passed on to the next generation. What is epigenetic inheritance and why is it important? And why would it matter which parent you inherited a particular gene from? Epigeneticist Anne Ferguson-Smith outlines the implications of parental origin for development, metabolism and the brain. Professor Anne Ferguson-Smith is Head of the Department of Genetics at the University of Cambridge. She is a Wellcome Trust Senior Investigator and her lab focuses on the developmental role of imprinted genes and the epigenetic mechanisms controlling the specific expression of genes depending on their parental origins. Thumbnail image credit: eLife Sciences Publications Ltd, CC BY 4.0

Steve Jones chronicles the remarkable scientific advances made during the French Revolution and ambles through the history of modern science and current research. Paris at the time of the French Revolution was the world capital of science. In this dazzling new insight into the City of Light, Steve Jones takes a sideways look at its history, its revolutionary science and the scholars who laid the foundations, in the age of the guillotine. Steve Jones is professor of genetics at Galton laboratory of University College London, where most of his academic research has been looking at snails and what they can tell us about population genetics. Steve Jones is well known as a regular broadcaster and writer of popular science books, including The Language of the Genes, In the Blood and Y: The Descent of Man. He gave the 1991 Reith Lecture, has written, presented and appeared on TV and radio shows.

In a lightning tour of human reasoning, world-renowned psychologist Richard Nisbett shines a new light on the shadowy world of the way we think – and how we can make our lives, and the lives of those around us, better. Subscribe to the podcast via your podcasting app for free: Just search 'Ri Science Podcast'. Richard Nisbett is Theodore M. Newcomb Distinguished Professor of social psychology and co-director of the Culture and Cognition program at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. "The most influential thinker, in my life, has been the psychologist Richard Nisbett. He basically gave me my view of the world." –Malcolm Gladwell

Have new brain imaging techniques really revealed that women and men are ‘hardwired’ for their gender roles? Or has neuroscience become misappropriated to justify gender gaps? Professor of cognitive neuroimaging Gina Rippon investigates. *Subscribe to the podcast for free by searching 'Ri Science Podcast' in your app of choice* There is a long history of debate about biological sex differences and their part in determining gender roles, with the ‘biology is destiny’ mantra being used to legitimise imbalances in these roles. The tradition is continuing, with new brain imaging techniques being hailed as sources of evidence of the ‘essential’ differences between men and women, and the concept of ‘hardwiring’ sneaking into popular parlance as a brain-based explanation for all kinds of gender gaps. But the field is littered with many problems. Some are the product of ill-informed popular science writing (neurotrash) based on the misunderstanding or misrepresentation of what brain imaging can tell us. Some, unfortunately involve poor science, with scientists using outdated and disproved stereotypes to design and interpret their research (neurosexism). These problems obscure or ignore the ‘neuronews’, the breakthroughs in our understanding of how plastic and permeable our brains are, and how the concept of ‘hard-wiring’ should be condemned to the dustbin of neurohistory. This talk aims to offer ways of rooting out the neurotrash, stamping out the neurosexism and making way for neuronews. Gina Rippon is Professor of Cognitive Neuroimaging at Aston University. Her research involves the application of brain imaging techniques, particularly electroencephalography, (EEG) and magnetoencephalography (MEG), to studies of normal and abnormal cognitive processes. Recorded at the Royal Institution on 20 January 2016. Find out what's on here: http://www.rigb.org/whats-on

Neuroscientist and former addict Marc Lewis makes the case that addiction isn't a disease at all, although it has been recently branded as such. In recent decades doctors have branded addiction a brain disease, and treated it as such. But in this riveting and provocative talk, neuroscientist and former addict Marc Lewis makes the convincing case that addiction isn’t a disease at all. Using personal stories and robust science, he explains how addiction really impacts our brains, and how neuroplasticity and a developmental approach to treatment can help to overcome it. Marc Lewis is a neuroscientist and professor of developmental psychology, recently at the University of Toronto, where he taught and conducted research from 1989 to 2010, and presently at Radboud University in the Netherlands. He is the author or co-author of over 50 journal publications in psychology and neuroscience, editor of an academic book on developmental psychology, and co-author of a book for parents. More recently he has written two books concerning addiction.

Sheila Rowan explains the nature of gravitational waves, where they come from, how we detected them, and what the future of this new era in astronomy might look like. A century ago, Albert Einstein realised that in his new model for space and time in our Universe (his 'General Theory of Relativity'), space could be stretching and squashing in response to the motion of objects. These ripples in space-time - 'Gravitational waves' - are produced by some of the most energetic and dramatic phenomena in our universe, including black holes, neutron stars and supernovae. Close to 100 years after the prediction of the existence of gravitational waves, the advanced detectors of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) recently detected such signals for the first time, starting a new era in astronomy. Sheila Rowan explains the nature of gravitational waves, describes what sources out in the Universe can produce them, explains how they are detected and what the future of this new era in astronomy might look like. Sheila Rowan is a professor in the School of Physics and Astronomy at University of Glasgow. Her research focusses on gravitational wave detection on the ground and in space. Her programme currently includes studies of ultra sensitive mechanical systems; investigation of materials of ultra-low mechanical loss and construction of mechanically-stable optical systems for interferometric applications. You can subscribe to our podcast by searching Ri Science Podcast in your podcasting app of choice, for free.

Professor of Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience Anil Seth looks at the neuroscience of consciousness and how our biology gives rise to the unique experience of being you. Anil provides an insight into the state-of-the-art research in the new science of consciousness. Distinguishing between conscious level, conscious content and conscious self, he describes how new experiments are shedding light on the underlying neural mechanisms in normal life as well as in neurological and psychiatric conditions. Anil Seth is Professor of Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience at the University of Sussex, where he is also Co-Director of the Sackler Centre for Consciousness Science. He is Editor-in-Chief of Neuroscience of Consciousness and is on the steering group and advisory board of the Human Mind Project. He has written popular science books, including 30 Second Brain, and contributes to a variety of media including the New Scientist, The Guardian, and the BBC.

Henry Marsh, author of the bestseller Do No Harm, and Jim Olson, paediatric oncologist from Seattle Children’s Hospital, share their experiences in medicine. Is it possible to light up a cancer cell in the brain? Could scorpion venom be the answer? Dr Jim Olson, Paediatric Haematology Oncology Specialist at Seattle Children's Hospital and a member of the Clinical Research Division at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, is developing a radical new technique in the field of fluorescent image-guided surgery, Tumor Paint, that has the potential to transform the way tumors are removed from the brain - by using a special paint the make the cancerous areas glow. Dr Henry Marsh is a leading British neurosurgeon whose pioneering work in brain tumour surgery has been the subject of major award-winning BBC documentaries. His extraordinary memoir, Do No Harm: Stories of Life, Death and Brain Surgery, is an international best-seller, nominated for eight major UK literary prizes and the Sky Arts South Bank Show 2015 Award recipient for Literature and PEN Ackerley Prize. He was made a CBE in 2010.

Russell Foster, Debra Skene and Stafford Lightman discuss the science of sleep. Why do we need sleep and what are the physiological processes driving our circadian rhythm? When is our circadian clock disrupted and how does this affect our health? Cognitive neuroscientist Vincent Walsh chairs the debate. Subscribe to the podcast for regular talks from the world's sharpest minds. Search Ri Science Podcast in your app of choice.

An evidence-based discussion of the controversial topic of race, as science sees it. Do races even exist, biologically? Adam Rutherford hosts a panel of experts, including Kenan Malik, Aoife McLysaght and Heidi Mirza. Subscribe to the podcast for regular talks from the world's sharpest minds. Search Ri Science Podcast in your app of choice.

Evolutionary biologist Sean B Carroll reveals how a few simple rules govern all life on earth, from the cells in our bodies to populations of animals on the Serengeti. Subscribe to the podcast for regular talks from the world's sharpest minds. Search Ri Science Podcast in your app of choice.