| How do you grow rice faster? |
3 billion people depend on rice for survival & owing to predicted population increases, land that provided enough rice to feed 27 people in 2010 will need to support 43 by 2050. In this week's podcast episode we ask: how do you grow rice faster? |
Jane Langdale |
11 July, 2018 |
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| Is there a faster way to diagnose Tuberculosis? |
Tuberculosis is still one of the top ten causes of death worldwide, with 1.4 million people dying from TB in 2015. If your doctor suspects you have the disease it can take up to 6 weeks to get a diagnosis! |
Philip Fowler |
26 June, 2018 |
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| How do you teach a robot social cues? |
As robots are increasingly deployed in settings requiring social interaction we asked the Big Question: How do you teach a robot social cues? To find out we visited Shimon Whiteson, Associate Professor at the Department of Computer Science |
Shimon Whiteson |
19 June, 2018 |
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| Can you stop Alzheimer’s before it even starts? |
Alzheimer's, is a chronic neurodegenerative disease that usually starts slowly and worsens over time. In this podcast episode we ask: Can you stop Alzheimer's before it even starts? |
Jennifer Lawson |
31 May, 2018 |
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| What is antimatter? |
What is antimatter? Antimatter was one of the most exciting physics discoveries of the 20th century, and has since been picked up by fiction writers such as Dan Brown. But what exactly is it? |
Donal Hill |
17 May, 2018 |
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| Can you cure HIV? |
HIV isn’t a death sentence anymore. People can live long lives with the virus in their body, as long as they have the right combination of drugs. But some researchers want to take the fight against HIV and AIDS even further... |
John Frater |
2 May, 2018 |
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| What do water striders have in common with Game of Thrones? |
On this episode of the Oxford Sparks Big Question’s podcast we visited Dr Jennifer Perry, evolutionary biologist and entomologist to ask: What do water striders have in common with Game of Thrones? Listen here to find out…. |
Jennifer Perry |
17 April, 2018 |
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| How does the brain identify voices? |
In this episode of The Big Questions podcast we joined the experiment to ask: How does he brain identify voices? To find out we interviewed MRI Physicist Stuart Clare and Neuro Scientist Holly Bridge at the Wellcome Centre for Integrative for Neuroimaging |
Stuart Clare, Holly Bridge |
9 April, 2018 |
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| How do you mend a broken heart? |
In this episode of the Oxford Sparks Big Questions podcast we visited Cardiovascular Biologist, Nicola Smart, from the department of physiology, anatomy and genetics to ask: How do you mend a broken heart? |
Nicola Smart |
23 March, 2018 |
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| How do you become an astronaut? |
Millions dream of being an astronaut, but how many of us have what it takes? In this episode of the Oxford Sparks Big Question's podcast, we visit Merritt Moore, quantum physicist from The University of Oxford, to ask: How do you become an astronaut? |
Merritt Moore |
13 March, 2018 |
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| How did Mary Somerville get on the Scottish 10 Pound note? |
In this episode of the Big Questions podcast we are asking: How did Mary Somerville get on the Scottish 10 Pound note? |
Brigitte Stenhouse |
13 March, 2018 |
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| How do you measure a Mars quake? |
In this episode of the Big Questions podcast, we visited Dr Neil Bowles, Jane Hurley and Tristram Warren from the Atmospheric Oceanic & Planetary Physics Department to ask the question: how do you measure a Mars quake? |
Neil Bowles, Jane Hurley, Tristram Warren |
29 January, 2018 |
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| What happens after a storm? |
In our latest episode of the Big Questions podcast we visited Dr Peter Walton, a geography teacher turned fellow of the Environmental Change Institute, at the University of Oxford, to ask: What happens after a storm? |
Peter Walton |
10 January, 2018 |
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| Is vaping better than smoking? |
As many of you set your new year’s resolution to quit smoking and start vaping, we thought we’d ask the question: Is vaping better than smoking? And could it help you quit? |
Jamie Hartmann-Boyce |
9 January, 2018 |
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| How do you survive the office Christmas party? |
‘Tis the season to be merry, so it’s time for the annual Christmas party. For some employers it can be more fraught than fun! In this episode of the Oxford Sparks Big Questions podcast we ask: how do you survive the office Christmas party? |
Robin Dunbar |
9 January, 2018 |
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| Where have all the cicada’s gone? |
In this episode for the Big Questions podcast we went to the New Forest and met up with Professor Alex Rogers, from the department of Computer Sciences from the University of Oxford, to ask: Where have all the cicada’s gone? |
Alex Rogers |
27 November, 2017 |
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| How do you run a marathon with two kids? |
Last month Jessica attempted to break a world record for pushing a double buggy, with two children inside, while running a marathon! |
Jessica Bruce |
8 November, 2017 |
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| How fast is Greenland moving? |
Greenland has some many fascinating facts like it’s the world's largest island, it belongs to Denmark, it actually isn’t that green but mostly covered in ice. But did you know that Greenland is actually on the move? |
Ian Hewitt |
31 August, 2017 |
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| Should I take a selfie with a wild animal? |
Travel companies around the world profit from some of the cruellest types of wildlife tourist attractions on earth. |
Tom Moorhouse |
2 June, 2017 |
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| What does Hollywood get right and wrong when science is in the storyline? |
What does hollywood get right? |
Neil Ashton, Colin Wilson, Eleanor Stride, Jason Nurse, Ingmar Posner |
2 June, 2017 |
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| How open should open data be? |
Open data impacts everybody. Through it we can access healthcare services, understand our governments better and, of course, travel to places more easily. But, how open should open data be? |
Sir Nigel Shadbolt |
2 June, 2017 |
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| What happened to the first soviet scientist to solve a fundamental problem in mathematics? |
New episode for the Oxford Sparks Big questions series. |
Christopher Hollings |
8 May, 2017 |
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| How do you teach a machine to a drive a car? |
Autonomous cars have been a staple of science fiction for years featuring in films like Minority Report and I Robot. But how far away are we really from enjoying a hassle-free driving journey? To find out the answer we visited Dr Ingmar Posner, Associate |
Ingmar Posner |
28 March, 2017 |
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| Will supersonic transport ever make a comeback? |
The Concord is seen as an iconic aircraft and a technological breakthrough – so why can we only see them in museums? In our episode of The Big Questions podcast series we visited Dr Neil Ashton from the E-Research Centre at the University of Oxford to ask |
Neil Ashton |
13 March, 2017 |
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| How do you turn an orange into a grapefruit? |
Flavouring. It’s a global industry and here in Oxford a group of scientists are getting a ‘taste’ of the action by making natural flavours by manipulating enzymes. |
Alize Pennec |
27 February, 2017 |
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| Earthquakes, can we make smarter buildings? |
Major earthquakes across the world have damaged or destroyed numerous buildings, bridges, and other structures. But is there a way of monitoring the building structures to see if it is at risk of falling after an earthquake has struck? |
Orfeas Kypris |
9 February, 2017 |
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| What can a power ballad can teach us about the sex life of a fruit flies? |
Music provides the soundtrack to our lives. The highs, the lows and the heartache. So why wouldn’t it be the same for a fruit fly? On this episode of the Oxford Sparks Big Questions podcast, we mix music with sex education of fruit flies! |
Stuart Wigby, Sally Le Page, Eleanor Bath |
27 January, 2017 |
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| How do we stop our social media obsession from making us a target for crime? |
How vulnerable are we to crime by the statuses we post on our social accounts? |
Jason Nurse |
17 January, 2017 |
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| How do you make scientific equipment space proof? |
Since the 1960’s man has been sending missions to Mars. Some successes, some failures. This hasn’t stopped scientists trying to explore this incredible red planet. |
Colin Wilson |
21 December, 2016 |
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| What would life be like if Parasitoid Wasps didn’t exist? |
Our Festive episode of our Oxford Sparks podcast follows the traditional Christmas story of ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’. |
Christopher Jeffs |
14 December, 2016 |
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| Can bubbles help cure cancer? |
On this episode, can bubbles cure cancer? |
Eleanor Stride |
2 December, 2016 |
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| Are exhausts causing dementia? |
Many people are exposed to exhaust emissions every day in different ways. But what are the harmful effects of these fumes when we breathe them in? Could we see difficulties in other areas of our bodies? What is it doing to our brains? |
Imad Ahmed |
21 November, 2016 |
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| How do you make a reliable weather forecast? |
Latest episode from Oxford Sparks, this episode on how to predict the weather. |
Hannah Christensen |
4 November, 2016 |
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| Is my bacon sandwich really going to kill me? |
Statistician Dr Jennifer Rogers discusses the numbers linked to processed meat and bowel cancer. |
Jennifer Rogers |
25 October, 2016 |
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| The Canary in the Coal Mine: could seabirds be the warning signs for our oceans? |
Dr Annette Fayet tells us about the Manx Shearwater; a little seabird that makes a huge journey. |
Annette Fayet |
28 September, 2016 |
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| 'Light' Part 3 - How does sunlight damage DNA? |
Once we've received our genetic make-up from our parents our genomes are stable, right? What causes mutations in our DNA as we live and grow, and how do our cells repair damage? |
Catherine Green |
3 August, 2016 |
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| 'Light' Part 2 - Harnessing a single photon |
What's the use of just one photon, the smallest bit of light? And what does it take to study it? |
Joelle Boutari |
27 July, 2016 |
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| 'Light' Part 1 - Connecting to the internet through your lights |
Can we receive information through our lighting? |
Dominic O'Brien |
25 July, 2016 |
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| 'Senses' Part 3 - Seeing across the galaxy |
How can you spot what's happening in space billions of light years away from right here on Earth? |
Garret Cotter |
8 July, 2016 |
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| 'Senses' Part 2 - Getting a feel for surgery |
How do you train surgeons to do complex surgeries? How do you measure a trainee's progress? How can you accurately simulate the look and feel of surgery? |
Patrick Garfjeld Roberts |
29 June, 2016 |
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| 'Senses' Part 1 - When the senses collide |
Can sounds change how things taste? How can we alter our experiences by taking advantage of how our senses mingle? |
Charles Spence |
27 June, 2016 |
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| 'Land, Sea and Air' Part 3 - What happens when we fly |
Oxygen levels are slightly lower when you fly on commercial airlines, so what effects does this have on people? Can it cause any problems? |
Thomas Smith |
17 June, 2016 |
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| 'Land, Sea and Air' Part 2 - The state of the oceans |
What's in the deep ocean? And how can we study these remote and extreme ecosystems? And how is climate change affecting ocean ecosystems? |
Alex Rogers |
10 June, 2016 |
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| 'Land, Sea and Air' Part 1 - How mountains are made |
How do we discover the origins of mountains? |
Mike Searle |
27 May, 2016 |
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| 'Learning' part 3 - Learning from Nature |
How can Chemistry take inspiration from nature to create cleaner and more efficient ways of producing and using Hydrogen as a source of clean energy? |
Kylie Vincent |
24 May, 2016 |
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| 'Learning' part 2 - Stimulating learning |
Can a little electrical stimulation help people learn quicker? And how would technology that does this be used? And why would you want to use this over medicines? |
Roi Cohen Kadosh |
13 May, 2016 |
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| 'Learning' part 1 - Sleep for success |
Sleep is really important. But do we realise how important it is, particularly for helping us think straight? Are teenagers lazy? Are their body clocks different? |
Christopher-James Harvey |
5 May, 2016 |
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| 'Relationships' part 3 - Networks: the science of connections |
What is a network and how can you use mathematics to unravel the relationships between a variety of different things? How can this understanding then be applied to a range of different settings? |
Mason Porter |
29 April, 2016 |
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| 'Relationships' part 2 - New fathers |
How do new fathers form relationships with their children? What is the unique role of a father? What do they contribute to the development of their children? What is male post-natal depression? |
Anna Machin |
22 April, 2016 |
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| 'Relationships' part 1 - People and plants: balancing conservation and commerce |
How can working with people to understand how they use their local plants be used to protect them when industry moves in? How do we find and conserve areas of high 'bioquality'? |
William Hawthorne |
12 April, 2016 |
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| 'Killers' part 3 - Mental illness and violence |
Forensic psychiatry can help us understand the causes and best treatments for mentally disordered offenders inside and outside of the prison system |
Seena Fazel |
23 February, 2016 |
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| 'Killers' part 2 - Keeping water flowing with smartphones |
Water pumps are a lifeline for many communities in developing countries. But how can you monitor them all to know whether they're in working order? And can you collect data based on pump usage to provide useful insights into community health? |
David Clifton |
29 January, 2016 |
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| 'Killers' part 1 - Mosquito genomes and malaria control |
Can studying Mosquito population genomes help to stop the spread of Malaria? |
Alistair Miles |
15 December, 2015 |
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| 'Clues' part 3 - Picking apart the genetics of speech and language disorders |
How do you start to pick apart speech at the genetic level? Dr Dianne Newbury explains what Specific Language Impairment is and how her research is unravelling a pretty complicated picture. |
Dianne Newbury |
1 December, 2015 |
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| 'Clues' part 2 - Watching penguins |
How do you understand how large populations of penguins on Antarctica change? And how can you use this information to protect penguins? |
Tom Hart |
16 November, 2015 |
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| 'Clues' part 1 - Predicting volcanic eruptions |
From people on the the ground to satellites in the air - how do we monitor and understand volcanos in an attempt to understand when they might erupt? |
David Pyle |
22 October, 2015 |
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| 'Artificial Intelligence' part 3 - Understanding how we learn language |
Professor Kim Plunkett explains how neuroscientists use artificial intelligence as a tool to model processes in the brain – in particular to understand how infants acquire language. |
Kim Plunkett |
12 June, 2015 |
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| 'Artificial Intelligence' part 2 - How to create machines that learn |
Professor Nando de Freitas explains that understanding how our brains work has helped us create machines that learn, and how these learning machines can be put to completing different tasks. |
Nando de Freitas |
19 May, 2015 |
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| 'Artificial Intelligence' part 1 - Using artificial intelligence to spot patterns |
Professor Stephen Roberts explains how machines, whose job it is simply to learn, can help researchers spot scientific needles in data haystacks, which will help us solve some grand challenges. |
Stephen Roberts |
15 April, 2015 |
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| 'Explosions' part 3 - Health and Big Data |
Professor Gil McVean explains what Big Data is and how it can be used to better understand and treat complex conditions, such as heart disease and dementia. |
Gil McVean |
30 March, 2015 |
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| 'Explosions' part 2 - The origin of animal diversity |
Dr Allison Daley describes what fossils can tell us about the Cambrian Explosion; a period of time 540 million years ago, where there was a vast increase in the different types of animals that existed. |
Allison Daley |
16 March, 2015 |
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| "Explosions" Part 1 - Oppenheimer: father of the atomic bomb |
Professor David Wark, who was scientific adviser for the play ‘Oppenheimer’, explores the science and broad implications of one of the most explosive ideas in Human history: the atomic bomb. |
David Wark |
4 March, 2015 |
|
| "Anomalies" Part 3 - Placebos and pain |
Professor Irene Tracey explains the placebo effect and how it is a normal part of our pain system. |
Irene Tracey, Chris Lintott |
10 February, 2015 |
|
| "Anomalies" Part 2 - Turing Patterns |
Dr Christian Yates describes a phenomenon first noticed by the World War II code-breaker, Alan Turing. |
Christian Yates, Chris Lintott |
26 January, 2015 |
|
| "Anomalies" Part 1 - Tinnitus |
Researcher Joshua Gold explains a condition called tinnitus, most often described as a persistent and annoying sound in one or both ears. |
Joshua Gold, Chris Lintott |
21 January, 2015 |
|
| "Hidden Worlds" Part 3 - The virtual universe |
Dr Andrew Pontzen explains how chains of computers can be set up to simulate billions of years of development of the universe, but in a time period of weeks. |
Andrew Ponzen, Chris Lintott |
5 January, 2015 |
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| "Hidden Worlds" Part 2 - Robert Robinson’s chemical box |
Edward Imrie and Dr Stephen Johnston Edward Imrie and Dr Stephen Johnston talk about a surprising discovery – a collection of boxes, originally containing chocolates and soap, now full of tiny chemical vials thought to date back to the 1930s. |
Edward Imrie, Stephen Johnston |
5 January, 2015 |
|
| "Hidden Worlds" Part 1 - Parallel Worlds |
Dr David Wallace discusses the concept of the multiverse – a physical reality that contains lots of universes, each of which inhabited by different versions of ourselves. |
David Wallace |
15 December, 2014 |
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| "There's no place like home" Part 3 - Exoplanets |
Ruth Angus talks about the search for life outside our solar system. In our own solar system, we have rocky planets towards the centre and gas giant planets further out. |
Ruth Angus |
15 December, 2014 |
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| "There's no place like home" Part 2 - The People of the British Isles |
Bruce Winney describes the influx of humans to the British Isles, including the Romans, Anglo Saxons and Vikings. By comparing and contrasting the genetic make-up of patients, researchers can explore how genetics can influence disease. |
Bruce Winney |
15 December, 2014 |
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| "There’s No Place Like Home" Part 1 - Wytham Woods |
Professor Ben Sheldon describes one of the World’s longest-running ecological studies, into birds in their natural environments. |
Ben Sheldon, Chris Lintott |
20 November, 2014 |
|
| "Matters of Scale" - Complete Episode |
The issues of scale are investigated – from how properties change at very small scales, to the vastness of the Universe. Includes parts 1, 2 and 3. |
Pedro Ferreira, Alan Barr, Sylvia MacLain, Sonia Trigueros |
9 October, 2014 |
|
| "Origins" - Complete Episode |
The subject of origins is explored - from human fertilisation to the Big Bang. Includes parts 1, 2 and 3. |
Jo Dunkley, Alex Halliday, Suzannah Williams, Dagan Wells, Chris Lintott |
9 October, 2014 |
|
| "Matters of Scale" Part 3 - Nanomedicine |
Dr Sonia Trigueros explains how she is using nanotechnologies to create targeted drug delivery systems. Chemotherapy is a particularly harmful treatment, with patients losing their hair and suffering from infections due to damage to their immune systems. |
Sonia Trigueros, Chris Lintott |
8 October, 2014 |
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| "Matters of Scale" Part 2 - Biology and the Problem with Scale |
Dr Sylvia MacLain talks about how water creates a problem when researching biology. Structures can be studied when they are in solid form, but approximately 60% of our bodies are made of water. |
Sylvia MacLain, Chris Lintott |
8 October, 2014 |
|
| "Matters of Scale" Part 1 - Extremes of Scale |
Professors Pedro Ferreira and Alan Barr explain what scale means to them, from particle physics to the visible universe. At the subatomic level, gravity has a surprisingly large effect and particles are so small that they have no size. |
Alan Barr, Pedro Ferreira, Chris Lintott |
8 October, 2014 |
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| "Origins" Part 3 - Origins of Human Life |
Drs Suzannah Williams and Dagan Wells explore the secrets and processes behind human fertilisation. Sperm and eggs must face huge challenges before they even meet. After fertilisation, they go on to form a small ball of cells with huge potential. |
Suzannah Williams, Dagan Wells, Chris Lintott |
7 October, 2014 |
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| "Origins" Part 2 - Origins of Earth and the Solar System |
Professor Alex Halliday explains how planets form from nothing but an area of space full of dust. Tiny differences between the elements that make up meteorites can give you an idea of how old they are and which part of the solar system they came from. |
Alex Halliday, Chris Lintott |
7 October, 2014 |
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| "Origins" Part 1 - Origins of the Universe |
Professor Jo Dunkley explains how we can look back in time at the light from the early Universe. This ultra-cold light can be used to create a picture from soon after the Big Bang. |
Jo Dunkley, Chris Lintott |
7 October, 2014 |
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