Whether you’re curious about getting healthy, the Big Bang or the science of cooking, find out everything you need to know with Instant Genius. The team behind BBC Science Focus Magazine talk to world-leading experts to bring you two bite-sized masterclasses on a new subject each week. New episodes are released every Monday and Friday and you can subscribe to Instant Genius on Apple Podcasts to access all new episodes ad-free and all old episodes of Instant Genius Extra. Watch full episodes of Instant Genius on BBC Science Focus Magazine's YouTube channel. Follow us on X: @SFIGPod
633 episodes transcribedRelatively speaking neuroscience and psychology are young fields of scientific research that only really got going over the last hundred years or so....
When it comes to climate change, we often think of tipping points as having a huge negative effect. Be it the loss of ice sheets in the Arctic, the de...
From Lewis Carrol’s mysterious grinning Cheshire Cat and Jim Davis’s lazy, lasagne-loving comic strip tabby Garfield to the depictions of big cats fou...
Despite being a land-based species, the fact is that we humans live on a planet that is largely covered by oceans. The oceans play a key role in regul...
In this episode, we’re joined by Professor Omar Yaghi – a pioneer of materials chemistry whose inventions are shaping the future of clean energy, clea...
The most commonly held narrative states that we’re all ultimately responsible for our own health and wellbeing. While there’s undoubtedly truth in thi...
Be it due to an increasingly demanding workload or responsibilities that need fulfilling at home, these days many of feel that there isn’t enough time...
We all know the feeling: thoughts racing through your mind, nervous flutters in your belly, your heart beating hard in your chest. When your whole bod...
It’s estimated that as many as one in five of the world’s population are neurodivergent. Be it ADHD, autism or dyslexia, these differences in brain fu...
The luteal phase of the menstrual cycle has a really bad reputation. It’s known for premenstrual syndrome, or PMS, when many menstruating people exper...
We’re no longer living in a world before climate change. Its impacts – from rising sea levels to more extreme weather – are already upon us, and will...
Humans’ unique ability to communicate through complex systems of language is one of the key attributes that separates us from the rest of the animal k...
For thousands of years humans have looked out into the night sky and pondered on the mysteries of the vast cosmos that we find ourselves part of. From...
If most of us were asked what we thought was meant by the word ‘technology’ chances are the first thing that would come to mind are inventions such as...
Dementia doesn’t have to be terrifying. We tend to think of neurocognitive decline as something to be feared and avoided, but as the population ages,...
Every day we all breathe in thousands of litres of air, it is, of course essential for our continued existence. But did you know that the air that sur...
Rapid advances in technology over the past several decades have impacted almost every area of our lives. It could be argued that innovations in medici...
Why do some people become radicalised, while others remain resistant to extreme ideas? What makes one mind more vulnerable to harsh doctrines than ano...
Be it at school or in the workplace, many of us are under more and more pressure to work harder for longer to ensure that we’re performing at our best...
Anyone who has studied maths even briefly will no doubt be familiar with the ‘equals’ sign. But there’s much more to this seemingly simple symbol and...
