Explorations in the world of science.
Latest episodes
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The Life Scientific: Gillian Forrester
What do the very first writhing movements of babies have in common with orangutans solving problems for food? Well, according to Gillian Forrester they may both offer clues about h…
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The Life Scientific: David Canter
Although books and movies might suggest otherwise, catching criminals is of course less about hunches and gut instinct, and more about gruelling analysis of hard data - including w…
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The Life Scientific: Edith Heard
Imagine looking at a map of a city you thought you knew inside-out, only to discover a collection of tightly knit neighbourhoods that nobody had ever realised existed... Edith Hear…
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The Life Scientific: Ginger Kerrick
What do you do when your childhood dream of becoming an astronaut is grounded at the final hurdle?If you’re physicist Ginger Kerrick, you go on to help run the missions instead.Aft…
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The ocean within us
Here's a little fact you might have heard before: humans are around 70% water. About the same percentage as a sweet potato, incidentally. But what does that actually mean? Sure, th…
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The art of being a Zombie Ant Fungus
An ant becomes infected by a fungus which takes over its nervous system, turning the ant into a vehicle for the fungus’s reproduction and killing the ant in the process. It sounds…
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Women Not Included: Consumer Products
Design is never neutral and small choices can have a big impact. Dr Ella Hubber and journalist Katie Silver explore how consumer products marketed to women are frequently developed…
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Women not included: Medical devices
CPR mannequins, medical implants and surgical tools. These are life changing and lifesaving medical devices. But when they are built around male bodies, what does that mean for eve…
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Women not included: Artificial Intelligence
Dr Ella Hubber and journalist Katie Silver unpack how artificial intelligence is far from neutral, and why that matters. They speak to experts who reveal how some AI is trained wit…
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Women Not Included: Urban Planning
On every street corner, at every bus stop, in every public toilet the message is clear: this city is not built for women. Along with journalist Chhavi Sachdev, Dr Ella Hubber explo…
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Women Not Included: Safety Equipment
Safety equipment is often designed around an “average” male body and Dr Ella Hubber wants to understand the consequences this has for women. Alongside journalist Candice Bailey and…
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Women Not Included: Drugs and clinical trials
After working exclusively with male mice while looking for a treatment for type 1 diabetes, Dr Ella Hubber begins to uncover a much bigger issue: modern medicine is not built equal…
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The friendly virus
Our antibiotics are failing us. In 2025, the UK Government said antibiotic resistance (AMR) contributes to more than 35,000 deaths each year in the UK. Emergency doctors say they a…
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The Life Scientific: Dean Lomax
Have you ever been told you aren't good enough to do something, then gone ahead and proved the naysayers wrong by doing it anyway - in glorious, headline-grabbing style? That is th…
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The Life Scientific: Helen Hastie
What if robots of the future weren’t just clever machines, performing tasks in isolation, but trusted teammates you could have a chat with? That could respond naturally to conversa…
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The Life Scientific: Seth Berkley
Dr Seth Berkley is an epidemiologist and global health leader whose career has been shaped by one central problem: vaccines save lives, but only if people can actually get them. Hi…
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The Life Scientific: Hiranya Peiris
Hiranya Peiris is playing a starring role in a movie that promises to tell perhaps the greatest story of all time. However, it’s a movie with a difference – there’s no director and…
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The Life Scientific: Washington Yotto Ochieng
As a child growing up on the shores of Lake Victoria in western Kenya, Washington Yotto Ochieng once watched a plane cross the night sky and told his mother he wished he could trav…
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The Life Scientific: Lucy Carpenter
Working on a remote tropical island in the Atlantic might sound like some sort of romantic idyll - but trying to conduct scientific research on a windy, isolated volanic outcrop is…
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The Life Scientific: Jens Juul Holst
As recently as a few years ago, the idea of a self-administered injection that would deliver proven weight-loss results might have sounded fantastical. Today, these medications are…