Episodes
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Welcome back to a special mini-series of the Pint of Science podcast: Untold Stories. 2023 marks the tenth anniversary of Pint of Science and we decided to chat to people behind the organisation and creation of the festival as well as those that have taken part over the years.
In this episode we talk to two speakers who have presented at Pint of Science, Constance Schéré & Dr Stephen Fay.
How did they hear of Pint of Science? How was it to give a Pint of Science talk? Did it make them want to do more science communication or help in the way they presented their future research?
Find out in this episode as Dr Elodie Chabrol, International Director of Pint of Science asks them these questions.
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The Pint of Science podcast is a part of the Pint of Science Festival, the world's largest science communication festival. Thousands of guests and speakers descend on pubs, cafés and spaces in hundreds of cities worldwide to introduce science in a fun, engaging, and usually pint-fuelled way.
This year, Pint of Science UK celebrates its 10th anniversary, #pint23! We’ll be in pubs and cafés across the country on the evenings of Mon 22nd, Tue 23th and Wed 24th of May 2023!
More about Pint of Science UK at pintofscience.co.uk or on Twitter @pintofscienceMore about Pint of Science worldwide at pintofscience.com or on Twitter @pintsworld -
Welcome back to a special mini-series of the Pint of Science podcast: Untold Stories. 2023 marks the tenth anniversary of Pint of Science and we decided to chat to people behind the organisation and creation of the festival as well as those that have taken part over the years.
We continue the series by talking to two organisers, Dr Cristina Perez & Dr Shaline Fazal.
How did they hear of Pint of Science? What do they do in the festival? What does Pint of Science bring to their lives?
Find out in this episode as Dr Elodie Chabrol, International Director of Pint of Science asks them these questions.
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The Pint of Science podcast is a part of the Pint of Science Festival, the world's largest science communication festival. Thousands of guests and speakers descend on pubs, cafés and spaces in hundreds of cities worldwide to introduce science in a fun, engaging, and usually pint-fuelled way.
This year, Pint of Science UK celebrates its 10th anniversary, #pint23! We’ll be in pubs and cafés across the country on the evenings of Mon 22nd, Tue 23th and Wed 24th of May 2023!
More about Pint of Science UK at pintofscience.co.uk or on Twitter @pintofscienceMore about Pint of Science worldwide at pintofscience.com or on Twitter @pintsworld -
Missing episodes?
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Welcome back to a special mini-series of the Pint of Science podcast: Untold Stories. 2022 marks the tenth edition of Pint of Science and we decided to chat to people behind the organisation and creation of the festival as well as those that have taken part over the years.
We start with the two co-founders, Dr Praveen Paul and Dr Michael Motskin who were research scientists at Imperial College London where they first met and came up with the idea. At the time they hardly knew each other and had no experience of running events or any intention to create an annual festival.
So how did they get the idea of Pint of Science? How did they start? How do they feel now that it's a worldwide event? Find out in this episode as Dr Elodie Chabrol, International Director of Pint of Science asks them these questions.
Like what we do? Be sure to subscribe to us and rate us on your favourite podcasting platform!
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The Pint of Science podcast is a part of the Pint of Science Festival, the world's largest science communication festival. Thousands of guests and speakers descend on pubs, cafés and spaces in hundreds of cities worldwide to introduce science in a fun, engaging, and usually pint-fuelled way.
This year, Pint of Science UK is back for its 10th edition, #pint22! We’ll be in pubs and cafés across the country on the evenings of Mon 9th, Tue 10th and Wed 11th of May 2022!
More about Pint of Science UK at pintofscience.co.uk or on Twitter @pintofscienceMore about Pint of Science worldwide at pintofscience.com or on Twitter @pintsworld -
Welcome to the third and final episode of our very exciting three-part mini series of the Pint of Science podcast, in collaboration with bit.bio, the cell coding company. The series wraps up with Dr Ramy Ibrahim, bit.bio’s Chief Medical Officer and a leading immuno-oncologist.
Ramy explores how the field of immuno-oncology has evolved from fringe research to a 2011 breakthrough, when the US FDA approved the first immune therapy treatments for skin cancers, and on to his work as Chief Medical Officer of the Parker Institute for cancer immunotherapy, researching effective cell therapies for solid tumours.
We explore how bit bio caught his attention about bit.bio is the company's examination of cells themselves and how to reproduce them reliably and on a grand scale, and the incredible possibilities this raises for medical treatments.
Interested in the concept that cells can be reprogrammed? It was certainly an inspiration for the foundation of bit.bio, and you can read a bitesize review of the science that enables the technology to work here: https://bit.bio/resources/bits-of-bio/
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The Pint of Science podcast is a part of the Pint of Science Festival, the world's largest science communication festival. Thousands of guests and speakers descend on pubs in hundreds of cities worldwide to introduce science in a fun, engaging, and usually pint-fuelled way.
For the latest news on Pint of Science UK, visit pintofscience.co.uk. If you're listening from elsewhere in the world, go to pintofscience.com for more information on what's happening in your country.
You can donate and help Pint of Science through these incredibly challenging times. For obvious public health reasons, we are recording remotely at the moment - but we hope to be back in the pub very soon (and very safely).
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Welcome to the second episode of our very exciting three-part mini series of the Pint of Science podcast, in collaboration with bit.bio, the cell coding company.
From Californian surfer to scientist to entrepreneur, today we're talking to Dr Paul Morrill, Chief Business Officer of bit.bio, who discusses their core purpose - to develop the underlying technologies capable of producing consistent batches of every cell type in the human body. He explains that part of their mission is to be able to reliably grow human cells which will allow new drugs and compounds to be tested in context, to help scientists more accurately understand how they will perform in both healthy and diseased human bodies.
Interested in learning more on how bit.bio applies synthetic biology to generate consistent and scalable stem cell derived human cells for research and drug discovery? Listen to the talk, Coding Cells for Life: Consistent and scalable humaniPSC-derived cells for in vitro disease modelling and drug discovery.
Subscribe: Spotify | TuneIn | Stitcher | Apple
The Pint of Science podcast is a part of the Pint of Science Festival, the world's largest science communication festival. Thousands of guests and speakers descend on pubs in hundreds of cities worldwide to introduce science in a fun, engaging, and usually pint-fuelled way.
This year, Pint of Science UK is going live online! We will be going digital from the 17th-20th May in the UK with a great selection and variety of online Pint of Science events.
If you're listening from elsewhere in the world, go to pintofscience.com for more information on what's happening in your country.
You can donate and help Pint of Science through these incredibly challenging times. For obvious public health reasons, we are recording remotely at the moment - but we hope to be back in the pub very soon (and very safely).
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Welcome to the first episode of a very exciting three-part mini series of the Pint of Science podcast, in collaboration with bit.bio, the cell coding company.
The series kicks off with Dr Mark Kotter, founder and CEO of bit.bio. Mark is an academic neurosurgeon and scientist at the University of Cambridge, or more accurately these days, a bio engineer. His research specialises in quite literally reprogramming cells and coding them to perform certain activities, by activating certain combinations of genes to switch them from one identity to another.
Mark and the bit.bio team are working to harness the power of stem cells and turn them into medicines by looking at biology in a different way – treating cells like a piece of software. They have developed a unique control system called opti-ox™, that allows them to jumpstart the potential 'programs' within a cell which tell it how to behave (and what kind of cell to be) very effectively.
Traditionally this has been a slow and small-scale process, but bit.bio's technology allows the production of these cells in quantities large enough that it could revolutionise medical treatments for everything from cancer to spinal and brain injuries.
You can find Mark on Twitter @MarkKotterInterested in precise reprogramming of cells? See the video of bit.bio’s opti-ox™ technology reprogramming stem cells into functional skeletal muscle: https://bit.bio/#opti-ox-technology.
Subscribe: Spotify | TuneIn | Stitcher | Apple
The Pint of Science podcast is a part of the Pint of Science Festival, the world's largest science communication festival. Thousands of guests and speakers descend on pubs in hundreds of cities worldwide to introduce science in a fun, engaging, and usually pint-fuelled way.
This year, Pint of Science is going live online! We will be going digital from the 17th-20th May in the UK with a great selection and variety of online Pint of Science events.
If you're listening from elsewhere in the world, go to www.pintofscience.com for more information on what's happening in your country.
You can donate and help Pint of Science through these incredibly challenging times. For obvious public health reasons, we are recording remotely at the moment - but we hope to be back in the pub very soon (and very safely).
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Welcome to Episode four of a very special mini series of the Pint of Science podcast, in collaboration with Aston University.
In this four episode series, we're meeting with a few of the leading lights of research at the university – some you may know if you've been to a Pint of Science talk, and some you may not. We'll be talking about their research, what makes them tick, how they are changing the world for the better and pushing the boundaries of the understanding of humankind... You know, the day to day stuff.
If you're listening to this and you're maybe inspired to learn more about these scientists' fields or STEM courses in general, head to www.aston.ac.uk for more information.
In episode 4, we’re meeting Professor of Cognitive Neuroimaging Gina Rippon, from the School of Life & Health Sciences at Aston University.
Among her work, Gina specialises in brain development and the idea of the ‘gendered brain’; that it’s predominantly society, rather than our biology, which determines how and why men and women behave differently.
She’s spent much of her career looking at these differences through a scientific brain, and examining how everything from the toys we play with to the problems we solve in our lives lead our brains to slot us into the roles expected of us.
Subscribe: Spotify | TuneIn | Stitcher | Apple
The Pint of Science podcast is a part of the Pint of Science Festival, the world's largest science communication festival. Thousands of guests and speakers descend on pubs in hundreds of cities worldwide to introduce science in a fun, engaging, and usually pint-fuelled way.
This year, Pint of Science is going live online! We will be going digital on the evenings of 7-9th September with a great selection and variety of online Pint of Science events.
You can donate and help Pint of Science through these incredibly challenging times. For obvious public health reasons, we are recording remotely at the moment - but we hope to be back in the pub very soon (and very safely).
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Welcome to Episode three of a very special mini series of the Pint of Science podcast, in collaboration with Aston University.
Over the next four episodes, we're meeting with a few of the leading lights of research at the university – some you may know if you've been to a Pint of Science talk, and some you may not. We'll be talking about their research, what makes them tick, how they are changing the world for the better and pushing the boundaries of the understanding of humankind... You know, the day to day stuff.
If you're listening to this and you're maybe inspired to learn more about these scientists' fields or STEM courses in general, head to www.aston.ac.uk for more information.
In this episode, we’re meeting Dr Eric Hill, senior lecturer and member of Aston University’s Biosciences Research Group.
Eric does something pretty remarkable sounding on a day to day basis –he 3D prints brains. Not the whole thing, but his team uses very sensitive 3D printers and stem cell technology to implant neurons and other brain cells in order to create working models of parts of the brain, which they use to study the cause and effects of early onset Alzheimer’s and other terrible degenerative conditions. It’s an incredible technology which could have wide-reaching effects on diagnosis and scientific research.
We’re also going to be talking about the incredible experience of growing your first beating heart cells in a dish, and the future of stem cell therapies and possible treatments for everything from epilepsy to heart failure in years to come.
Subscribe: Spotify | TuneIn | Stitcher | Apple
The Pint of Science podcast is a part of the Pint of Science Festival, the world's largest science communication festival. Thousands of guests and speakers descend on pubs in hundreds of cities worldwide to introduce science in a fun, engaging, and usually pint-fuelled way.
This year, Pint of Science is going live online! We will be going digital on the evenings of 7-9th September with a great selection and variety of online Pint of Science events.
You can donate and help Pint of Science through these incredibly challenging times. For obvious public health reasons, we are recording remotely at the moment - but we hope to be back in the pub very soon (and very safely).
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Welcome to Episode two of a very special mini series of the Pint of Science podcast, in collaboration with Aston University.
Over the next four episodes, we're meeting with a few of the leading lights of research at the university – some you may know if you've been to a Pint of Science talk, and some you may not. We'll be talking about their research, what makes them tick, how they are changing the world for the better and pushing the boundaries of the understanding of humankind... You know, the day to day stuff.
If you're listening to this and you're maybe inspired to learn more about these scientists' fields or STEM courses in general, head to www.aston.ac.uk for more information.
In episode 2, we’re meeting Dr Rebecca Knibb, of Aston University’s School of Psychology.
Rebecca researches the psychology of allergies, and looks at ways people who suffer with intolerances and other conditions such as asthma can life happier, more confident lives. It’s something which affects millions of people throughout the UK, and can make the most simple activities, like getting on a bus or buying a coffee, a daily ordeal.
Rebecca’s work focusses on helping these people, and their families, as well as assisting in research into future therapies which could potentially save lives, as well as a huge amount of stress and anxiety.
If you're listening to this and you're maybe inspired to learn more about these scientists' fields or STEM courses in general, head to aston.ac.uk for more information.
Subscribe: Spotify | TuneIn | Stitcher | Apple
The Pint of Science podcast is a part of the Pint of Science Festival, the world's largest science communication festival. Thousands of guests and speakers descend on pubs in hundreds of cities worldwide to introduce science in a fun, engaging, and usually pint-fuelled way.
This year, Pint of Science is going live online! We will be going digital on the evenings of 7-9th September with a great selection and variety of online Pint of Science events.
You can donate and help Pint of Science through these incredibly challenging times. For obvious public health reasons, we are recording remotely at the moment - but we hope to be back in the pub very soon (and very safely).
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Welcome to Episode one of a very special mini series of the Pint of Science podcast, in collaboration with Aston University.
Over the next four episodes, we're meeting with a few of the leading lights of research at the university – some you may know if you've been to a Pint of Science talk, and some you may not. We'll be talking about their research, what makes them tick, how they are changing the world for the better and pushing the boundaries of the understanding of humankind... You know, the day to day stuff.
If you're listening to this and you're maybe inspired to learn more about these scientists' fields or STEM courses in general, head to www.aston.ac.uk for more information.
In episode 1, we're meeting a man whose leading the fight against bad bugs and some of the most destructive diseases we're fighting today. Dr Jonathan Cox is leader of the Mycobacterial Research Group at Aston University. He specialises in antibiotic resistant diseases such as Tuberculosis, or TB, and has dedicated his career to finding ways to defeat these hardy bugs. He's also a Pint of Science festival grandee to boot, so pull up a drink of your choice, and get ready for a Pint of Science with Dr Jonathan Cox.
Subscribe: Spotify | TuneIn | Stitcher | Apple
The Pint of Science podcast is a part of the Pint of Science Festival, the world's largest science communication festival. Thousands of guests and speakers descend on pubs in hundreds of cities worldwide to introduce science in a fun, engaging, and usually pint-fuelled way.
This year, Pint of Science is going live online! We will be going digital on the evenings of 7-9th September with a great selection and variety of online Pint of Science events.
You can donate and help Pint of Science through these incredibly challenging times. For obvious public health reasons, we are recording remotely at the moment - but we hope to be back in the pub very soon (and very safely).
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Callam and Jim meet Professor Jim Smith, Environmental Scientist at the School of the Environment, Geography and Geosciences at the University of Portsmouth.
Jim started his career as a physicist, and has spent the last 30 years working in the Chernobyl disaster zone in Ukraine and Belarus. His work is somewhat unusual in combining physics and the science of radioactive decay, with environmental science and the effects of said radiation on wildlife populations.
Jim's something of an expert on what happens to nature when humans are taken out of the picture - as they have been in the Chernobyl exclusion zone and, to an extent, in much of the rest of the world by the Covid-19 lockdown.
Oh, and he's also developed Atomik Vodka, the first spirit made from wheat grown in the exclusion zone.
The Pint of Science podcast meets scientists and science writers at a safe social distance around the UK (and the rest of the world) to find out about their lives, their universe, and everything.
Like what we do? Be sure to subscribe to us and rate us on your favourite podcasting platform!
Subscribe: Spotify | TuneIn | Stitcher | Apple
The Pint of Science podcast is a part of the Pint of Science Festival, the world's largest science communication festival. Thousands of guests and speakers descend on pubs in hundreds of cities worldwide to introduce science in a fun, engaging, and usually pint-fuelled way.
This year, Pint of Science UK is going live online! We will be going digital on the evenings of 7-9th September with a great selection and variety of online Pint of Science events.
You can donate and help Pint of Science through these incredibly challenging times. For obvious public health reasons, we are recording remotely at the moment - but we hope to be back in the pub very soon (and very safely).
More about Pint of Science at pintofscience.co.uk
More about this episode
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Callam and Jim meet Dr Paula Koelemeijer, Global Seismologist and Royal Society University Research Fellow and Lecturer at Royal Holloway University of London. Paula studies the seismic activity of the Earth thousands of kilometres below the surface, but recent events much closer to home have had a surprising positive effect on her work.
Due to the Covid-19 pandemic and much of the world being in lockdown, Seismologists have been getting far clearer signals from within the Earth, because of less disruption from on top of it. Known as Anthropogenic Noise, the racket that humans make by working, travelling and moving around makes the work of those studying the Earth very difficult. With less noise comes significantly clearer signals - from which we can filter out the noise when it eventually returns.
Oh, and we also talk about the earthquakes caused by Lionel Messi scoring, quakes on the Moon and Mars, using tremors to stop elephant poaching, and tracking the shakes caused by Rolling Stones concerts. It really is a wide conversation, this one!
The Pint of Science podcast meets scientists and science writers at a safe social distance around the UK (and the rest of the world) to find out about their lives, their universe, and everything.
Like what we do? Be sure to subscribe to us and rate us on your favourite podcasting platform!
Subscribe: Spotify | TuneIn | Stitcher | Apple
The Pint of Science podcast is a part of the Pint of Science Festival, the world's largest science communication festival. Thousands of guests and speakers descend on pubs in hundreds of cities worldwide to introduce science in a fun, engaging, and usually pint-fuelled way.
You can donate and help Pint of Science through these incredibly challenging times. For obvious public health reasons, we are recording remotely at the moment - but we hope to be back in the pub very soon (and very safely).
More about Pint of Science at pintofscience.co.uk
More about this episode
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We're very excited to have Nick Chater, Professor of Behavioural Science at Warwick Business School, from a safe social distance. Nick is the author of The Mind is Flat: The Illusion of Mental Depth and The Improvised Mind, and an advisor to the UK Government’s Behavioural Insights team (‘The Nudge Unit’). He's also scientist in Residence for BBC Radio 4’s The Human Zoo.
This week, Callam and Jim talk to Nick about the psychology of lockdowns around the world - not why we need to distance, but how we convince people it's a good idea and something they should take part in - as well as how to message effectively, and how to not...
The Pint of Science podcast meets scientists and science writers at a safe social distance around the UK (and the rest of the world) to find out about their lives, their universe, and everything.
Like what we do? Be sure to subscribe to us and rate us on your favourite podcasting platform!
Subscribe: Spotify | TuneIn | Stitcher | Apple
The Pint of Science podcast is a part of the Pint of Science Festival, the world's largest science communication festival. Thousands of guests and speakers descend on pubs in hundreds of cities worldwide to introduce science in a fun, engaging, and usually pint-fuelled way.
You can donate and help Pint of Science through these incredibly challenging times. For obvious public health reasons, we are recording remotely at the moment - but we hope to be back in the pub very soon (and very safely).
More about Pint of Science at pintofscience.co.uk
More about this episode
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In a very special episode, Pint of Science was invited to do something rather different: Spend an afternoon with YouTuber and inventor/engineer Colin Furze. With nearly nine million subscribers, Colin is known worldwide for his incredible (and often a little dangerous) way of turning extreme dreams into real machines. Previous inventions include a real Star Wars AT and land speeder, a jet powered bicycle, and a guitar with a flamethrower on it.
Now, working with BBC Earth and YouTube, he's been tasked with a challenge unlike anything he's done before - levitate science presenter and quite large person Rick Edwards. And we mean levitate him - not just make him fly. Cue an adventure in everything from ultra-sonic suspension to liquid nitrogen-fuelled hoverboards!
You can download the full episode hereThe Pint of science podcast meets scientists and science writers in pubs around the UK to find out about their lives, their universe, and everything. From *how* fruit flies love to *why* humans love, via jumping into volcanoes, winning Olympic medals, where we came from and more!
Like what we do? Be sure to subscribe to us and rate us on your favourite podcasting platform!
Subscribe: Spotify | TuneIn | Stitcher | Apple
The Pint of Science podcast is a part of the Pint of Science Festival, the world's largest science communication festival. Thousands of guests and speakers descend on pubs in hundreds of cities worldwide to introduce science in a fun, engaging, and usually pint-fuelled way.
More about Pint of Science at pintofscience.co.uk
More about this episode
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Welcome back to a very special episode of the Pint of Science podcast! We had a chance to catch up with XKCD creator and author of 'How To' and 'Thing Explainer' Randall Munroe.
Like this episode? Please share it with your friends and on social media!
Randall is the brains and artistic hand behind https://xkcd.com/. His website gets some 70 million hits a month, and is a huge presence online, especially among communities on Reddit. He also has a book out, How To, which explains how to do everyday things in wildly inappropriate but scientifically valid ways.
He was kind enough to give us his time as he passed through Manchester on the How To book tour, so we took him to Pint of Science Podcast favourite The Salutation Pub.
The Pint of science podcast meets scientists and science writers in pubs around the UK to find out about their lives, their universe, and everything. From *how* fruit flies love to *why* humans love, via jumping into volcanoes, winning Olympic medals, where we came from and more!
Like what we do? Be sure to subscribe to us and rate us on your favourite podcasting platform!
Subscribe: Spotify | TuneIn | Stitcher | Apple
The Pint of Science podcast is a part of the Pint of Science Festival, the world's largest science communication festival. Thousands of guests and speakers descend on pubs in hundreds of cities worldwide to introduce science in a fun, engaging, and usually pint-fuelled way.
More about Pint of Science at pintofscience.co.uk
More about this episode
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We were lucky enough to catch up with Dr Raia Hadsell, senior research scientist with world-renowned artificial intelligence research company DeepMind. DeepMind describe their mission as being ‘to push the boundaries of AI, developing programmes that can learn to solve a complex problem without needing to be taught how’. Artificial intelligence is an increasingly important part of our day to day lives and, whatever your feelings on it, it’s only going to become more important over the coming decades. So we were pretty chuffed that Raia was up for a chat!
Due in no small part to the Terminator films, there are sci-fi myths aplenty surrounding the world of AI research. We decided to use today to demystify the subject and get a better insight into what day to day AI research actually looks like for those carrying it out. What we found was that, in many ways, working with AI is like working with a clever and slightly mischievous child… Happy listening, and we’ll be back later this year with series 2!
Welcome back to the Pint of Science podcast. Each week, we meet scientists in pubs around the UK to find out about their lives, their universe, and everything. From *how* fruit flies love to *why* humans love, via jumping into volcanoes, winning Olympic medals, where we came from and more!
Like what we do? Be sure to subscribe to us and rate us on your favourite podcasting platform!
Subscribe: Spotify | TuneIn | Stitcher | Apple
The Pint of Science podcast is a part of the Pint of Science Festival, the world's largest science communication festival. Thousands of guests and speakers descend on pubs in hundreds of cities worldwide to introduce science in a fun, engaging, and usually pint-fuelled way.
This podcast is made possible with the help of our sponsors Brilliant.org. Do check them out, and visit www.brilliant.org/pintofscience/ where the first 200 people who sign up will get 20% off a Premium plan!
About Raia Hadsell, this week's guest:
Originally from California, Raia’s undergraduate degree was in religion and philosophy, but she made the transition to computer science at PhD level, with a thesis entitled ‘Learning Long-range vision for off-road robots’. She worked as a postdoc at Carnegie Mellon University and a research scientist at SRI International, both in the US, before moving to London in 2014 to join the DeepMind team. Follow Raia on Twitter @RaiaHadsell
More about Pint of Science at pintofscience.co.uk
More about this episode
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There’s stuff everywhere. It’s there when you look out the window, it’s there when you’re doing your groceries, it’s even there when you look up into the night sky. But where did all the stuff come from, and what is it made of? What would happen if you broke something down into it’s constituent parts, and then broke those down, and then broke those down? How far could you go?
No, this isn’t a Philomena Cunk episode, this is particle physics with Jeff Forshaw, Professor of Particle Physics at the University of Manchester. His research sees him crunching the data from some of the world’s most fascinating particle physics experiments, and looking for hidden gems of information about the tiny building blocks of our universe.
We found ourselves in the Salutation Pub in Manchester yet again for a lovely chat and a pint (or three) with Jeff, trying to answer the question of whether matter really matters, or if we were quarking up the wrong tree… We talked about whether the Large Hadron Collider could create a black hole (spoiler alert: no), becoming a professor at the tender age of 36, and what it’s like to write books with Brian Cox.
Welcome back to the Pint of Science podcast. Each week, we meet scientists in pubs around the UK to find out about their lives, their universe, and everything. From *how* fruit flies love to *why* humans love, via jumping into volcanoes, winning Olympic medals, where we came from and more!
Like what we do? Be sure to subscribe to us and rate us on your favourite podcasting platform!
The Pint of Science podcast is a part of the Pint of Science Festival, the world's largest science communication festival. Thousands of guests and speakers descend on pubs in hundreds of cities worldwide to introduce science in a fun, engaging, and usually pint-fuelled way.
This podcast is made possible with the help of our sponsors Brilliant.org. Do check them out, and visit www.brilliant.org/pintofscience/ where the first 200 people who sign up will get 20% off a Premium plan!
About Jeff Forshaw, this week’s guest:
After his teenage years in the Northwest building his own golf rankings, Jeff Forshaw took his considerable talents to Oriel College, Oxford, where he earned a first class degree in physics, followed by a PhD in Theoretical Physics from the University of Manchester. His PhD thesis was on ‘the parton content of the photon and photon-induced minijets’, and no that’s not about Dolly Parton or tiny planes, we checked.
Following his PhD, Jeff found himself back in Oxfordshire as a postdoctoral researcher under renowned particle physicist Frank Close. A move back to Manchester saw him becoming professor of particle physics at the young age of 36, where he now looks at data from some of the world’s most important particle physics experiments, including the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Geneva. Jeff met fellow Manchester prof Brian Cox when he lectured Brian on Advanced Quantum Field Theory (despite being around the same age), and they have since written a series of critically-acclaimed popular science books together, including Why does E=MC2?, The Quantum Universe, and Universal: a guide to the cosmos.
He’s also consulted for a host of TV programmes. His public engagement work earned him the Kelvin Medal and Prize for outstanding contribution to public understanding of physics in 2013. For a glimpse of Jeff in action, here’s a clip of him on Newsround explaining why the Higg’s Boson is like cosmic treacle (let’s face it, a children’s news show is about our level for particle physics).
More about Pint of Science at pintofscience.co.uk
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The world is facing an energy crisis – our current energy storage and conversion technologies must continue to evolve to cope with an ever-growing population, but to avert a climate catastrophe science needs to meet those demands in a green and sustainable way. Well, thanks goodness then for people like Professor Saiful Islam, Professor of Materials Chemistry at the University of Bath and our guest for episode 8!
We caught up with Saiful at The Assembly Inn, Bath, to hear about his upbringing in Crouch End (apparently not as cool in the 70s as it is today), his optimistic outlook, his penchant for 3D glasses and how he likes to model... We also got to hear some behind-the-scenes stories from Saiful’s excellent Royal Institution Christmas Lectures (see below for videos), including tales of baking with GBBO star Selasi Gbormittah and nearly taking Richard Dawkins' head clean off with a cannon ball. Be sure to listen right to the end to hear Saiful’s extremely impressive performance in our inaugural ‘Periodic Table Music Quiz’.
Welcome back to the Pint of Science podcast. Each week, we meet scientists in pubs around the UK to find out about their lives, their universe, and everything. From *how* fruit flies love to *why* humans love, via jumping into volcanoes, winning Olympic medals, where we came from and more!
Like what we do? Be sure to subscribe to us and rate us on your favourite podcasting platform!
The Pint of Science podcast is a part of the Pint of Science Festival, the world's largest science communication festival. Thousands of guests and speakers descend on pubs in hundreds of cities worldwide to introduce science in a fun, engaging, and usually pint-fuelled way.
This podcast is made possible with the help of our sponsors Brilliant.org. Do check them out, and visit www.brilliant.org/pintofscience/ where the first 200 people who sign up will get 20% off a Premium plan!
About Saiful Islam, this week's guest:
After a youth sound-tracked by The Stranglers, The Jam and of course The Smiths, Saiful Islam decided to further his scientific education, and bagged himself a BSc and PhD from University College London, under the supervision of Professor Richard Catlow. An exciting post-doc in New York, investigating oxide superconductors, cemented Saiful’s passion for research and he returned to the UK in 1990 to become a lecturer and later reader at the University of Surrey, before eventually making his way to Bath to take up his current position in 2006. He now researches new classes of compounds for rechargeable lithium batteries and next-generation solar cells, with a view to meeting our growing energy demands in a green and sustainable way.
His academic work and his public engagement work have earned him a health list of accolades. Perhaps his highest profile public engagement work was delivering the Royal Institution Christmas Lecturer in 2016, a clip from which you can view right here:
You can also follow Saiful on Twitter (@SaifulChemistry) and contribute to his impressive page of albums and hit singles with chemistry references.
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How do we manage to remain in good health (at least most of the time) in a world full of microorganisms that think our bodies are the equivalent of Magaluf? Does ‘imposter syndrome’ ever go away? And just what the heck is the microbiome!? All of these questions and more were answered when we returned to The Salutation Inn in Manchester for a catch up with Sheena Cruickshank, Professor of Immunology and Public Engagement expert. Sheena works on the immune system, more specifically looking at the cross-talk between different immune cells and how this shapes our immune response when we encounter something that shouldn’t be in our bodies. We sat down for a pint with Sheena to talk about some of the unexpected features of the immune system, the hot topic of the microbiome as well as the glamorous world of faecal transplants, which are exactly what they sound like…
Welcome back to the Pint of Science podcast. Each week, we meet scientists in pubs around the UK to find out about their lives, their universe, and everything. From *how* fruit flies love to *why* humans love, via jumping into volcanoes, winning Olympic medals, where we came from and more!
Like what we do? Be sure to subscribe to us and rate us on your favourite podcasting platform!
The Pint of Science podcast is a part of the Pint of Science Festival, the world's largest science communication festival. Thousands of guests and speakers descend on pubs in hundreds of cities worldwide to introduce science in a fun, engaging, and usually pint-fuelled way.
This podcast is made possible with the help of our sponsors Brilliant.org. Do check them out, and visit www.brilliant.org/pintofscience/ where the first 200 people who sign up will get 20% off a Premium plan!
Professor Sheena Cruickshank completed her Bachelor’s degree at Strathclyde University, and after being tempted to remain in the lab by the promise of free-beer, went on to obtain her PhD in Immunology from the University of Leeds. Since 2007, Sheena has worked in the Department of Immunology, investigating autoimmunity, how immune responses get started, and the communication between immune cells. She is a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, and Public Engagement Secretary for the British Society for Immunology. Her interest in Public Engagement has led to her developing several projects to share research, notable examples including ‘The Worm Wagon’ and ‘Britain Breathing’.
You can follow Sheena on twitter @sheencr.
Thanks to us all having colds on the day of recording, we forgot to get our usual group photo, so instead here is a picture of a hermit crab without its shell.
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This week we share a pint with a scientist who really smells. Sorry, he researches smells. Specifically, he’s interested to know how maggots smell; who says science can’t be glamorous! Our guest for episode 6 is the University of Manchester’s Professor Matthew Cobb, Professor of Zoology, award-winning science communicator extraordinaire and expert on the French Resistance during World War II… A bit of a modern-day polymath!
We made a return visit to Manchester’s very accommodating Salutation Inn, where we spent a fascinating couple of hours learning about (amongst other things): the nature of consciousness; how we can apply our understanding of genetics to give us clues about the sense of smell in Neanderthals; and why it’s better to work with flies than people… Matthew literally arrived armed with a bottled smell, such is his commitment to hands-on (noses-on?) science communication. Enjoy!
Welcome back to the Pint of Science podcast. Each week, we meet scientists in pubs around the UK to find out about their lives, their universe, and everything. From *how* fruit flies love to *why* humans love, via jumping into volcanoes, winning Olympic medals, where we came from and more!
Like what we do? Be sure to subscribe to us and rate us on your favourite podcasting platform!
The Pint of Science podcast is a part of the Pint of Science Festival, the world's largest science communication festival. Thousands of guests and speakers descend on pubs in hundreds of cities worldwide to introduce science in a fun, engaging, and usually pint-fuelled way.
This podcast is made possible with the help of our sponsors Brilliant.org. Do check them out, and visit www.brilliant.org/pintofscience/ where the first 200 people who sign up will get 20% off a Premium plan!
About Matthew Cobb, this week's guest:
Professor Matthew Cobb is Professor of Zoology in the Division of Evolution and Genomic Sciences at the University of Manchester. After obtaining a PhD in Psychology and Genetics from the University of Sheffield, and a stint as a postdoc at the Institute of Psychiatry in London, Matthew moved to France in 1984 – where he stayed for 18 years. The various positions he held in France shaped his research interests in chemical communication and the sense of smell (as well as his historical interests in the French Resistance during World War II). Matthew returned to the UK in 2002 to take up a post as a lecturer at the University of Manchester, where in 2007 he received the University’s award for Teaching Excellence. Alongside his research, Matthew has published two popular science books; The Egg & Sperm Race (2006), and Life’s Greatest Secret (2015). He has also written two historical books on the French Resistance, and regularly writes for The Guardian.
Matthew is great on twitter, follow @matthewcobb for regular fascinating nuggets of science.
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