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Professor Jim Al-Khalili talks to leading scientists about their life and work, finding out what inspires and motivates them and asking what their discoveries might do for us in the future
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Robert Ballard on finding the Titanic and other deep-sea discoveries
Finding the wreck of the Titanic would be a career-defining achievement for most people. For oceanographer Robert Ballard, it's just one chapter in a life packed full of extraordinary marine exploration. Bob located the world-famous shipwre
Gillian Forrester on gesturing gorillas, babbling babies and the origins of human language
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 how we humans developed language. Working with her great ape
David Canter on how psychology can save lives and catch killers
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 when it comes to the psychological side. David Canter is an E
Edith Heard on unravelling the mystery of X-chromosome inactivation
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 Heard has achieved something rather similar with DNA. Edith is a
Ginger Kerrick on manning Nasa's Mission Control and getting to Mars
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. After failing the medical of her astronaut application proces
Dean Lomax on discovering ichthyosaurs and defying nay-sayers
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 the satisfying story of Dr Dean Lomax. Dean grew up in Doncast
Helen Hastie on the future of human-robot relations
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 conversational cues and even explain their work? Making this relatio
Seth Berkley on the importance of vaccinating the world
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. His 40-year career has spanned the global, from helping to bui
Hiranya Peiris on unravelling the story of the universe
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 no script. The Legacy Survey of Space and Time is one of th
Washington Yotto Ochieng on the navigation tech that keeps our world moving
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 travel on it. But he remembers her encouraging him to dream bigg
Lucy Carpenter on how our oceans are destroying ozone
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 no picnic, as Lucy Carpenter can attest! Lucy is an atmopsh
Jens Juul Holst on the gut hormone discovery behind weight-loss drugs
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 a reality and a global phenomenon; hailed in many quarters
Jim Ashworth-Beaumont on how a near-fatal accident made him a better clinician
It's a rare thing to encounter a medical specialist who has experience of his field from the expert and the patient perspective - but not unheard of... Jim Ashworth-Beaumont is an orthotist and prosthetist who spent years helping people ada
Jehane Ragai on the science of authenticating artworks
Ever heard of the unsuccessful Dutch painter who decided to humiliate his critics by forging Vermeers, which the artworld subsequently dubbed 'masterpieces'? Or the businessman who bought a Marc Chagall painting that he displayed with pride
Tony Juniper on parrots, princes and environmental protection
Tony Juniper is an environmentalist who has worn many hats, over the course of his career. After developing a passion for birds in childhood, his first job saw him working to save endangered parrots - including a successful effort to bring
Pierre Friedlingstein on carbon’s pivotal role in climate change
The COP30 climate summit is taking place in the Brazilian city of Belém, a gateway to the Amazon rainforest, which continues to face widespread deforestation. We all know that our climate is changing and that we are largely responsible for
Julia Simner on tasty words and hearing colours
Imagine if you were listening to an opera or a Taylor Swift concert, and as the lights in the auditorium dimmed, the music was accompanied by a rainbow of colours only you could see. Perhaps while listening to your friends talking, you simu
Caroline Smith on meteorites and potential ancient life on Mars
Caroline Smith is passionate about space rocks, whether they’re samples collected from the surface of asteroids and the Moon and hopefully Mars one day soon, or meteorites, those alien rock fragments that have survived their fiery descents
AP De Silva on building molecular fluorescence sensors for healthcare
From humble beginnings in his native Sri Lanka, to a more than 40 year academic career at Queen’s University Belfast, Prof. AP (Amilra Prasanna) De Silva’s research into molecular photosensors has led to a pioneering career in that’s evolve
Peter Knight on quantum technologies
There are problems and tasks so hard and complicated that it would take today’s most powerful supercomputers millions of years to crack them. But in the next decade, we may well have quantum computers which could solve such problems in seco
Eleanor Schofield on conserving Tudor warship the Mary Rose
In July 1545, King Henry VIII watched from Southsea Castle on England's south coast as his fleet sailed out to face the French - only to witness his prized warship, the Mary Rose, sink before his eyes. Raised from the Solent in 1982, the sh
George Church on reimagining woolly mammoths and virus-proofing humans
"My ideas are often labelled as impossible, or useless, or both. Usually when people say that I'm on the right track." George Church is a geneticist, molecular engineer, and one of the pioneers of modern genomics. He's also someone who make
Gareth Collett on a career in bomb disposal
Movies might have us believe that bomb disposal comes down to cutting the right wire. In fact, explosive devices are complex and varied - and learning how to dispose of them safely involves intense training, as well as the ability to stay c
Sonia Gandhi on building model brains to tackle Parkinson’s disease
Many people will be familiar with Parkinson’s disease: the progressive brain disorder that causes symptoms including tremors and slower movement, leading on to serious cognitive problems. You might not know that it’s the fastest-growing neu
Mark O'Shea on close encounters with venomous snakes
How do you feel about snakes? What about highly venomous ones? For Mark O’Shea, close encounters with the world’s most rare and deadly snakes are not only his profession, but his passion. Mark is a Professor of Herpetology - the area of zoo
Kevin Fong on medical planning for Mars and Earth-based emergencies
There can't be many people in the world who've saved lives in hospital emergency rooms and also helped care for the wellbeing of astronauts in space – but Kevin Fong’s career has followed a singular path: from astrophysics and trauma medici
Dame Pratibha Gai on training atoms to do what we want
Chemical reactions are the backbone of modern society: the energy we use, the medicines we take, our housing materials, even the foods we eat, are created by reacting different substances together. If we zoom in, it’s the atoms within these
Catherine Heymans on the lighter side of the dark universe
Have you ever considered the lighter side of dark matter? Comedy has proved an unexpectedly succesful way to engage people with science - as today's guest knows first-hand. Astrophysicist Catherine Heymans is a Professor at the University o
Tim Coulson on how predators shape ecosystems and evolution
As a young man, traveling in Africa, Tim Coulson - now Professor of Zoology at the University of Oxford - became seriously ill with malaria and was told a second bout would probably kill him. Aged only 20, this brush with his own mortality
Claudia de Rham on playing with gravity
Claudia de Rham has rather an unusual relationship with gravity. While she has spent her career exploring its fundamental nature, much of her free time has involved trying to defy it - from scuba diving in the Indian Ocean to piloting small
