Why realistic humanoid robots need to learn to lip-sync
In this week's episode of the Science Focus Podcast, commissioning editor Jason Goodyer speaks to Dr Carl Strathearn, a research fellow at the School of Computing at Edinburgh Napier University. He's ...
19 Apr 202129min
How to understand statistics in the news and when to trust them
In this week's episode of the Science Focus Podcast, editor Daniel Bennett speaks to Tom Chivers and David Chivers. Tom is a veteran science journalist and author and David is lecturer in economics at...
12 Apr 20211h 6min
The bizarre biology of the mantis shrimp
What is your favourite animal? If you know anything about the mantis shrimp, it might well be your top pick. Dwelling in shallow tropical waters, these mysterious predators not only wield one of the s...
5 Apr 202122min
The creator of Bellingcat on using the internet to investigate global affairs
In this episode of the Science Focus Podcast, we speak to Elliot Higgins, the founder of Bellingcat. If you haven’t heard that name before, then you might be surprised to know that Bellingcat is behin...
29 Mar 202144min
Prof Avi Loeb on what 'Oumuamua tells us about the problem with modern physics
In 2017, the Pan-STARRS telescope in Hawaii spotted an interstellar object passing by Earth for the first time. Shortly after, Harvard’s Prof Avi Loeb was met with a backlash from the scientific commu...
22 Mar 202144min
Meet the computer scientist teaching an AI to play Dungeons and Dragons
Many of us have had a one-to-one interaction with artificial intelligence. Whether that’s through an automated chat service for customer service, or trying our hand at beating an AI built to play ches...
15 Mar 202138min
International Women’s Day: The forgotten female scientists of history
Today is International Women’s Day, and in this episode of the Science Focus Podcast, online assistant Sara Rigby talks to science historians Anna Reser and Leila McNeill, authors of Forces of Nature:...
8 Mar 202139min
How to maximise your motivation, according to a neuroscientist
As the UK enters its 13th month of lockdown restrictions and home-working, many surveys cite a slump in mental wellbeing and general productivity. But are there any scientific ways we can maximise our...
1 Mar 202128min
