- mehrmals pro WocheErscheinungsrhythmus
- 35 mintypische Länge
- vor 2 Tagenletzte Folge
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 two bite-sized masterclasses on a new subject each week.
New episodes are released every Monday and Friday and you can subscribe to Instant Genius on Apple Podcasts to access all new episodes ad-free and all old episodes of Instant Genius Extra.
Watch full episodes of Instant Genius on BBC Science Focus Magazine's YouTube channel.
Follow us on X: @SFIGPod
Folgen
The often-bizarre history of mind-machine interfaces
Since the discovery of electricity, scientists, inventors and engineers have attempted to figure out ways in which this often-mysterious force could influence our brains and behaviour. History is littered with all manner of wild experiments
Why our brains crave answers and the psychology of explanation
Almost as soon as we are able to speak, we start asking our parents, relatives, and teachers an almost frustratingly large number of ‘why questions’. It’s an essential part of the natural human desire to understand the world in which we liv
Why our online lives are making us sick and how to fix it
Over the last decade or so, it’s become abundantly clear that eating a diet based on ultra-processed food is damaging to our bodily health. Could it be that our information diets, the deluge of content we consume online every day, is having
Why tuning into your body’s natural rhythms is the key to productivity
Sometimes, no matter how busy we are or how hard we work, when we look back on our day, it can seem like we didn’t really achieve very much. Why is this and what can we do to make more effective use of our time? Could the answer be simply t
How maths underpins almost every aspect of our lives
For many of us, maths is simply a subject we studied at school to help us learn how to count, add one thing to another, and carry out everyday tasks such as managing our personal finances. But if we look more deeply, maths has underpinned t
Why bogs are one of the planet’s most undervalued ecosystems
For those of us who live in towns and cities, bogs may seem to be a rare environmental relic left over from times gone by, or perhaps something we’ve only encountered onscreen in spooky fantasy movies. The fact is that these peat-rich, ofte
Why leaves are one of nature’s most versatile creations
From the neatly curated English country garden to the wild jungles of the Amazon, the Earth is host to a staggeringly diverse range of plant life. One of the key reasons for the great evolutionary success of plants is the wide-ranging versa
How to make buildings without harming the Earth
Every built environment we spend our time in, our homes, offices, music venues or sports stadiums – is designed and constructed after hours of consideration about form and function. Oftentimes, less consideration is given to the impact this
Why humans are wired to appreciate beauty
A late summer sunset, a peaceful, verdant forest, or a Shakespearean sonnet – these are all things that move us emotionally thanks to what we perceive as their beauty. But why is this so, why do environments, art, music, and even ideas move
How safety engineers test everyday products to destruction
Whenever we buy a new product or use a service, we simply expect it to work as advertised, usually without giving much thought to how it came to being in the first place. However, behind the scenes, every piece of technology we use, be it a
Why we need to be taking asthma more seriously
Currently, around one in ten of us are living with asthma. For many, the symptoms can be relatively mild, but for others, attacks can be severe, debilitating, and even life-threatening. For the most part, we’ve relied on the same method of
What our evolutionary history can teach us about eating well
These days, supermarket shelves are filled with thousands of different products all vying for our attention; the options are almost endless. However, if we look back in time, we find that our early ancestors simply ate what they were able t
Why Smell is Our Most Overlooked Sense
Though often thought of as the poor cousin to our other senses, our sense of smell has played a key role in human life since its very beginnings. It helps us to determine whether certain foods are safe to eat, protects us from environmental
Are We Living in a Simulation? How to Tell If Reality Is Fake
The possibility that we may be living in a simulation created by a more technologically advanced civilisation has occupied the minds of scientists, philosophers and fiction writers for decades. We may never be able to satisfactorily answer
Why we need to rethink our ideas about laziness
Often in life, we find ourselves being accused of being lazy or accusing others of acting lazily, or maybe even becoming frustrated by what we see as laziness in our own actions. But what do we really mean by the term laziness, why is it vi
Why interpersonal conflict is a natural, healthy part of life
No matter how gently or politely we live our lives, at one point or another, it’s inevitable that we’ll find ourselves in a situation in which we disagree with another person and find ourselves having to defend our opinion or perspective. F
The hidden reasons common knowledge shapes our lives
When we know a certain fact about the world or hold a certain belief how do we know that others also know this, how do we base our thoughts and actions on our knowledge of what we assume others know, and what impact does this have on the wa
Why understanding how time works is the biggest mystery in science
When most of us think about time our minds likely turn to thoughts of the second hand that ticks around a clock, or maybe the occasions we’ve been late to catch a bus. But if we stop to think about what time actually is things quickly get m
How forensic scientists gather vital evidence to solve crimes
Whenever a crime is committed, tiny traces of evidence are left behind at the scene, which, if pieced together correctly, can tell us exactly what happened, when it happened and who was responsible. This is the job of forensic scientists. B
Why the most extreme El Niño event for a century is on its way
Every several years, the surface temperatures of the Pacific Ocean rise, triggering a climate event that has a domino effect on weather patterns across the globe. This is known as El Niño – and this year, meteorologists predict we’re in for
The secret world hidden in the ground below us
Though we’re often not aware of it, the ground beneath our feet is teeming with an abundance of life and activity – from the complex networks of fungi and tangled roots put down deep into the Earth by the plants that live on its surface to
The truth about the Nazi fascination with alternative medicine
It’s widely documented that during the time of the Third Reich, the Nazi Party employed a legion of scientists to aid them in their goals of military superiority and ethnic cleansing – particularly in their pursuit of eugenics and developme
What we’re getting wrong about narcissists
Oftentimes in popular culture we’ll hear the term narcissist used to describe a person who has an inflated opinion of themselves, a big ego or someone who tends to overestimate their own abilities. However, in psychology, narcissistic perso
The latest breakthroughs in Parkinson’s research
Parkinson’s disease currently affects more than 160,000 people in the UK. It’s a complex, progressive condition that typically develops slowly over many years and causes issues with movement, balance, and quality of life, and currently has
How to harness your brain’s underused superpowers
For a large proportion of our lives, our brains seemingly work on autopilot – the many processes the brain controls hum away behind the scenes, helping us to carry out our daily tasks. But in certain scenarios, our attention takes over, giv
How we define intelligent life
What does it mean to be a living organism? What are the driving forces that motivate our thoughts and actions? Are we all simply acting the way we do thanks to the instructions built into our genes and our automatic responses to the environ
Exploring Darwin’s ideas through a queer lens
When Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species in the mid-nineteenth century, his theory of evolution by natural selection turned many of the scientific ideas of the day on their heads. The influence of the book was so profound that
On the frontlines of our fight against dementia
Currently there are around one million people in the UK living with dementia. Despite significant advances in our understanding of the disease over the past several decades an effective cure is yet to be found. However, recent breakthroughs
Why the search for life on Mars is far from over
Way back in 1976, NASA’s Viking landers touched down on Mars to search for potential signs of microbial life that could currently exist on the planet’s surface. Despite the mission making a number of promising discoveries, so far, no furthe
Why rediscovering simple pleasures may be the key to happiness
Every single day of our lives, we’re exposed to a vast multitude of experiences and interactions with the various people, objects and technologies in the wider world that surrounds us. The chances are that many of us give these moment-to-mo
