Wheat, soy, corn, potatoes—did we really domesticate the best crops nature had to offer? In this episode of the podcast, I speak with geneticist Padraic J. Flood, who specializes in population and quantitative genetics. Padraic left academia and a position in vertical farming to pursue a dream: the domestication of the Aardaker.The Aardaker is a small, unassuming plant native to moist temperate regions of Europe and Western Asia. It produces edible tubers similar to potatoes, but unlike...

In this episode I speak with Professor Thomas Metzinger about how our strong, consciously experienced subjectivity emerges out of objective events in the natural world. According to Thomas, no such things as selves really exist in the world: nobody ever had or was a self. All that exists are what he calls `phenomenal' selves which our brains fabricate. In this episode I try to unpack what this means exactly, and what the implications are.  Note: The first question of this interview has been...

Why is alcohol use so widespread? The usual thinking is that despite its negative effects, alcohol is pleasurable and that is why we drink it. But this can't be the whole story because if alcohol is really so bad then cultures that prohibit drinking should dominate over those that like to drink, or you might think that a genetic mutation that makes drinking less pleasurable would spread rapidly through the population. In this conversation I discuss this mystery with sinologist and philosopher...

This is a conversation with Stephen Wolfram about his proposed theory of everything. Stephen is a British-American computer scientist, mathematician, physicist, and CEO of Wolfram Research. He also created Mathematica, and Wolfram|Alpha & Wolfram Language, and is the Author of 'A New Kind of Science' as well as a number of other books. Stephen's attempt to derive all of the laws of nature (including gravitation, statistical mechanics, and general relativity) rests on two key ideas:  1....

Housing regulation is often put in place for good reasons, namely comfort, safety, environmental protection, availability of utilities and services, and more. With each additional regulation, however, restrictions are being placed on what you can build, where you can build, and how quickly you can build it. Professor Bryan Caplan argues that our current mess of regulations dramatically increases the price of housing, by limiting supply. This, he argues, has disastrous effects on fertility,...

Julia Berezutskaya is one of the worlds leading researchers working in the area of brain computer interfaces. She is part of the brain-computer interface group (dept. Neurology & Neurosurgery) at UMC Utrecht, where she works at the intersection of fundamental and clinical neuroscience research. A key goal of her work on the computational modeling of cognitive and neurobiological processes is to one day allow for the decoding of naturalistic human speech from the brain signals of patients...

Carl Bender is an applied mathematician and mathematical physicist holding positions at Washington University in St. Louis, the University of Heidelberg, Imperial College, London. He was also one of my own favorite lecturers. He taught me about perturbation theory and asymptotic series which are powerful mathematical tools for solving difficult problems in physics. I invited Carl on to the podcast to discuss complex numbers, and their application in physics. At a conceptual level Carl talks...

What role should Nuclear Power play in energy production? This episode of the podcast explores the case for Nuclear Energy. I speak with Rachel Slaybaugh, who was an Associate Professor of Nuclear Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, and a Division Director at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. She also served as a Program Director at the Department of Energy’s ARPA‑E, where she created the nuclear fission program. She is currently a partner at DCVC. We discuss three...

On this episode of the podcast I speak with UCL Honorary Professor of Economics and ISRS Distinguished Research Fellow Steve keen. Steve famously predicted the 2008 market crash. He is also known for his criticism of modern economic theory, which he views as being inconsistent, unscientific, and empirically unsupported. He is currently working on a new science of economics built upon incontrovertible facts. We discuss the history of economic theory, the problems with neoclassical economics,...

On this episode of the Podcast I speak with economist and public policy analyst Jeffrey Sachs. Jeffrey is Director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University and President of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network. He served as Special Advisor to the UN Secretary General for almost two decades, and is co-founder and chief strategist of the Millennium Promise Alliance, a nonprofit organization dedicated to ending extreme poverty and hunger. In this conversation...

In this episode of the podcast I speak with David Shapiro about some of the threats associated with AI development. We discuss the impact that generative AI will have on truth, trust in evidence, and divisive narratives. Who will pay for AI, and how will that determine the path of its development? Will artificial relationships and generated adult content lead to new forms of sexual addiction and social isolation? What impact will AI have on cyber security, and what will weaponized AI look...

What is narcissism, and why do so many successful people seem to be narcissists? In this conversation I speak with Professor Mitja Back from the university of Muenster, who is one of the worlds leading experts on the topic of Narcissism. We discuss narcissism as a personality trait, how narcissistic traits develop (nature vs nurture), relationship breakdown, narcissism on social media, and the link between narcissism and success. ►Watch On YouTube: https://youtu.be/JXDs3TbIiEk   ►For more...

In this conversation I speak with Professor Kerstin Göpfrich, who works at Heidelberg University at the Center for Molecular Biology (ZMBH), and who is also leading the Max Planck Research Group for the Biophysical Engineering of Life. Kerstin is attempting to construct living cells from scratch, piece by piece from non-living materials. So far she has created cell membranes, cytoskeletons, linkers for connecting cytoskeletons to the cell membrane, a mechanism for cell division, microscopic...

This conversation is about the history of life and earth. I speak with evolutionary biologist and author Olivia Judson, who is best known for her book 'Dr. Tatiana's sex advice to all creation''. Oliva thinks of the history of life on earth in terms of 5 energy epochs, in which life has worked out how to make use of different kinds of energy. These epochs are geochemistry, light, oxygen, flesh, and fire. Olivia explains her fascination with the transformation of life over time, and with what...

NOTE: From 0:01:07-0:02:36 the sound quality is lower than the rest of the episode as you are hearing the backup recording.    This conversation is about democracy and scientific literacy. In 2023 Germany shut down the last of its nuclear plants, and is now bringing back several mothballed coal plants to keep the lights on over winter. Was this a smart decision given the scientific consensus that we need to cut carbon emissions? Similar questions can be asked about the banning of GMO crops,...

In this conversation I speak with Dr. Gary Linkov about the ethics and practice of plastic surgery. Gary is a double board certified facial plastic surgeon who specializes in lip lift surgeries and hair restoration. He is also renowned for carrying out complex nasal surgery for US war veterans in need, and for teaching rhinoplasty procedures to the NYU head and neck surgery residents.   Plastic surgery is controversial. On the one hand critics claim that it leads to unhealthy beauty...

In this conversation I discuss distributed and decentralized organizations with Jean-Philippe Vergne, who is an associate professor of strategy at University College London. We focus on the development of blockchain technology, which at least in theory should allow for new forms of organization that don't rely on centralized authorities to function. The initial dream was that blockchain technology would drive innovation, provide transparency, limit abuses of power, and provide access to...

What is the future of our oceans? On this episode of the Podcast I speak with Dr. Shawn Robinson about marine ecology, aquaculture, and the politics and economics of what ends up on your plate. Shawn is a marine ecologist who did his graduate work at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia on the giant Pacific octopus (MSc) and at the University of British Columbia on biological oceanography off Vancouver Island (PhD). He began his career as a research scientist in 1988 with the Dept....

In only 250 years since colonization, Australia has seen the extinction of 38 species of mammals. Much of the devastation to Australia's native wildlife has been caused or exacerbated by the introduction of invasive pests like cats, dogs, cane toads, camels, and rabbits. A key question is whether science will one day be able to return Australia to its original state? In this conversation I speak with Dr. Stephen Frankenberg about genetic biocontrol and de-extinction. We focus on the use of...

Progress in AI development seems to be accelerating, and we might be living through a period in human history that is every bit as significant as the agricultural and industrial revolutions. We might be witnessing the dawn of synthetic general intelligence. In this conversation I speak with David Shapiro who is an AI researcher and YouTube content creator. We discuss the current state of the art LLMs, and the inevitable rise of autonomous AI given current global economic competition. We cover...

Now that the dust has settled to a certain extent, how did we do with the pandemic? Which countries handled the situation best? Did we learn anything? How well did scientists do, and how well did the public, politicians, and the media do? In this episode of the podcast I speak with Australian immunologist and author Peter Doherty. Peter has won a range of distinguished prizes for his research including the Albert Lasker prize for basic medical research and the Nobel Prize in Physiology or...

It is easy to take peace for granted. In this episode of the podcast I speak with John Kornblum about the hard work that diplomats do in the background to maintain peace between nations. John specializes in European and east–west relations, and played a defining role in many of the important events leading up to the end of the Cold War, and those that led to the current post-cold war security environment. These included the Quadripartite negotiations on Berlin, the Helsinki Final Act, the...

Most of us live nowhere near where our food comes from. which means that the food that we have access to is dictated by conderations like does it travel well, and does it have a long shelf life. Our supply chains also lead to sprawling monocrops, pesticide overuse, and agricultural runoff, as well as biodiversity loss, and a range of other problems. But this might all change in the near future with vertical farming. In this episode of the Podcast I speak with Dr. Vivian Correa Galvis about...

In this episode of the Podcast I speak with Professor Munjed Al Muderis about a new technology that is allowing amputees to walk again. Osseointegration is the direct structural and functional connection between living bone and the surface of a load-bearing artificial implant. While dental implants have long been standard, surgeons are now starting to use this technology to reconstruct missing limbs. We cover some of the technical details of these kinds of surgeries, the complications, and...