Instant Genius
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Instant Genius
Whether you’re curious about getting healthy, the Big Bang or the science of cooking, find out everything you need to know with Instant Genius. The team behind BBC Science Focus Magazine talk to world-leading experts to bring you a bite-sized masterclass on a new subject each week. New episodes are...
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How to beat the alarming increase in childhood allergies
Currently, around 40 per cent of children in the UK have been diagnosed with an allergy of some form or another – the most common being food allergies...
Our Universe could be trapped inside a black hole with no way out
It sounds like a theory plucked from the page of a science fiction novel, but according to Enrique Gaztañaga from the University of Portsmouth, our en...
The real story behind Jurassic Park’s most controversial dinosaur
Chances are that when most of us think of spinosaurs our minds will turn to the hulking, predatory sail-backed dinosaur that famously took down a T. R...
What neuroscience can tell us about our decisions, destinies and the nature of free will
How much control do we have over our actions and decisions? For most of us, it’s likely that the answer is that, of course, all of the choices we make...
Why we should all be listening to animals more closely
It’s likely that if any of us step and of our front doors and take a moment to listen to what’s going on around us, we’ll hear the vocalisations of do...
How widening our palettes can help feed, and save, the planet
It’s currently thought that around one billion people worldwide aren’t getting enough protein to meet their daily needs. Alongside this, it’s becoming...
Why not getting enough sleep plays havoc with our emotions
Many of us will have experienced changes in our emotional states after failing to get a good night’s sleep. Maybe we find that we lose our temper more...
How to combat the planet’s growing issue of food waste
According to the United Nations, around one-third of all the food currently produced across the planet is being lost or wasted, oftentimes before it e...
The hidden forces driving the AI bubble
This episode was recorded on November 6th 2025.
Artificial intelligence has been the movement of the moment in recent years. Since it bur...
Future of Food: Why the planet is facing a food security crisis and how we can solve it
Recent UN data tells us that currently 670 million people around the world are going hungry. There’s little doubt that food security is one of the mos...
How whales may be using their haunting songs as a navigation system
Along with their vast size and habit of jumping playfully out of the water, whales are renowned for their haunting melodic vocalisations. However, aft...
Future of Food: How personalised nutrition is transforming our understanding of diet and health
Over the past several decades nutritional advice from doctors and expert researchers has largely relied on one-size-fits-all approach – eat five porti...
What we all need to know about menopause
Throughout our lives we all go through several significant periods of change – puberty, young adulthood, middle age, retirement. Each comes with its o...
Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales on what AI and Elon Musk mean for the site's future
Wikipedia. It needs almost no introduction. Few websites are more well-known, more commonly used and more foundational to the web as we know it than t...
How psychedelics could kickstart the next mental health revolution
Hippies, the Beatles, flower power, magic mushrooms, raves and festivals – that’s what most of us associate with psychedelics. But there is mounting e...
Don't miss the upcoming Future of Food miniseries!
What will we all be eating in 2050? How will it be produced? And how can our diets keep us healthier for longer? If these are questions you'd like ans...
How our bodies are host to mysterious cells that came from other people
The commonly held story goes that we all begin life as a single cell in our mother’s womb and go on from there to develop into fully formed adult huma...
How human consciousness emerged from the fundamental processes of nature
Thanks to hundreds of years of scientific progress we now know, that like every other living thing on Earth, human beings are simply assemblages of at...
The hunt for the first stars in the Universe
Stars feel like a fundamental feature of the Universe – as essential as planets, galaxies and space itself. But since we know the Universe had a begin...
The weird and wonderful science behind why humans are different
Humanity is beautifully diverse. Some of that diversity is visible, but hidden beneath the surface, there is also a hidden web of genetic variation th...
The key role psychologists can play in the fight against ecological crime
Chances are that when most of us think about the notion of crime our minds turn to acts committed against an individual – be it theft, fraud or even p...
The psychology of paranormal experiences
Be it a cold, drafty room in a creaky old country house or a still, quiet forest on a dark night, chances are that at one point or another we’ll all h...
Inside the hunt for life-changing medicines
Chances are when we’re treated with medicines in hospital or pick up our prescriptions at the pharmacy, we don’t give much thought about how the drugs...
From asteroids to aliens - how space is threatening our planet
Is our planet under threat from the depths of space? In this episode, we talk to solar physicist Dr Ryan French. Normally, Ryan is busy unravelling th...
Why we treat our pets and possessions like human beings
Many of us treat our pet dogs or cats with the same love and attention that with give to our human babies, some of us give our cars or other prized po...
How bats became one of the planet’s most successful animals
It’s a little-known fact that bats are one of the most successful animals on Earth, with almost 1,500 different species currently identified. Their ag...
Why penguins are one of the planet’s most unique bird species
Thanks to their comical waddle-like way of walking, striking tuxedo-patterned plumage or graceful ability to seemingly ‘fly’ beneath the water, pengui...
Busting the biggest myths in neuroscience
Relatively speaking neuroscience and psychology are young fields of scientific research that only really got going over the last hundred years or so....
The positive tipping points that can help us solve the climate crisis
When it comes to climate change, we often think of tipping points as having a huge negative effect. Be it the loss of ice sheets in the Arctic, the de...
How cats became one of our most-loved domestic pets
From Lewis Carrol’s mysterious grinning Cheshire Cat and Jim Davis’s lazy, lasagne-loving comic strip tabby Garfield to the depictions of big cats fou...
How the health of the oceans is vital for the health of the planet
Despite being a land-based species, the fact is that we humans live on a planet that is largely covered by oceans. The oceans play a key role in regul...
The tiny molecules tackling the planet’s biggest challenges
In this episode, we’re joined by Professor Omar Yaghi – a pioneer of materials chemistry whose inventions are shaping the future of clean energy, clea...
How to build a healthier, longer-living society
The most commonly held narrative states that we’re all ultimately responsible for our own health and wellbeing. While there’s undoubtedly truth in thi...
The psychology of making the most of your time
Be it due to an increasingly demanding workload or responsibilities that need fulfilling at home, these days many of feel that there isn’t enough time...
How to overcome fear, according to a neuroscientist
We all know the feeling: thoughts racing through your mind, nervous flutters in your belly, your heart beating hard in your chest. When your whole bod...
How connecting with nature can help neurodivergent lives
It’s estimated that as many as one in five of the world’s population are neurodivergent. Be it ADHD, autism or dyslexia, these differences in brain fu...
The science behind PMS, and how to beat it
The luteal phase of the menstrual cycle has a really bad reputation. It’s known for premenstrual syndrome, or PMS, when many menstruating people exper...
How the world needs to adapt to a changing climate
We’re no longer living in a world before climate change. Its impacts – from rising sea levels to more extreme weather – are already upon us, and will...
How humans learned to speak and why
Humans’ unique ability to communicate through complex systems of language is one of the key attributes that separates us from the rest of the animal k...
The biggest unsolved mysteries in cosmology
For thousands of years humans have looked out into the night sky and pondered on the mysteries of the vast cosmos that we find ourselves part of. From...