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BBC Inside Science

BBC Inside Science

By: BBC Inside Science
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A weekly programme that illuminates the mysteries and challenges the controversies behind the science that's changing our world.Copyright BBC Inside Science Science
Episodes
  • How is AI going to change science?

    How is AI going to change science?
    Jun 4 2026
    Are we moving away from science as a strictly human endeavour? This is the view of Pushmeet Kohli, head of AI for Science at Google DeepMind. He joins Tom Whipple to discuss the use of the AI tool Co-Scientist as a collaborator in the lab, and the challenges in making Artificial Intelligence that works in science. Clare Bryant from the University of Cambridge also joins the conversation. And Steve Brusatte, Professor of Palaeontology at the University of Edinburgh, joins the program to talk about his new book, The Story of Birds, tracing a 150‑million‑year journey from small, feathered dinosaurs to the birds of today. Plus, science journalist Caroline Steel joins us to discuss the latest scientific discoveries that you might have missed. Presenter: Tom Whipple Producers: Dan Welsh and Kate White Editor: Martin Smith Production Co-ordinator: Jana Bennett-Holesworth

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    26 mins
  • Plankton's untapped potential

    Plankton's untapped potential
    May 28 2026
    From Hay Festival 2026, a dive into a big year for our oceans, with plankton specialist Vincent Doumeizel and physicist turned oceanographer Helen Czerski.Vincent is author of the Power of Plankton, which describes the crucial history and future of plankton and planktonic life on our planet. Helen's book The Blue Machine looks at the physical oceanic processes that shape the world.Presented by Tom Whipple Produced by Alex Mansfield

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    27 mins
  • El Niño is nigh, but so what?

    El Niño is nigh, but so what?
    May 21 2026
    With 2023’s El Niño – a recurring pattern of extreme weather across the pacific basin - still leaving a bad taste in people's mouth, 2026 sees an El Niño stirring in the Pacific Ocean and there are warnings that this will be one of the strongest yet.Roland Pease speaks with Amanda Maycock, a climatologist from Leeds University, to discuss what this climate phenomenon is and how it will impact the world from October to early next year. He also hears from Scott Evans from the American Museum of Natural History, who has been exploring the Mackenzie mountains of Canada’s Northwest Territory to better understand the biology and ecology of life on earth before anything we might recognize - from the Ediacara era. This was before the explosion of different animal types with hard shells and bones in the later, Cambrian, time. In certain places around the world, much older rocks from the ancient ocean floor reveal an ecosystem abounding with soft, squidgy animal wierdness. In Canada Scott has found a new trove of these fossils, but from far deeper below the surface of those ancient seas. Did animal life begin deep in the darkest depths rather than paddling in pools nearer the land?Today, over 5 billion years later, bottom trawling, a common fishing method involving dragging heavy nets across the bottom of the seafloor, is an environmentally destructive process that rips up everything in its path to maximise catch. We talked to Amanda Vincent, a professor at the Institute for the Oceans and fisheries of the British Columbia university and founder of the international Project Seahorse conservation group, about what bottom-trawl bans can achieve, in the light of results published about a renaissance of biodiversity off the coast of Scotland in an area where trawling has been banned for several years.Plus, we talk to science journalist Gareth Mitchell, who explains how bottom trawling can also have negative consequences on technology, as well as other science news you may have missed, including updates on solar storms and robotic wolf shortages in Japan.Presenter: Roland Pease Producers: Alex Mansfield and Dan Welsh Editor: Martin Smith Production Co-ordinator: Jana Bennett-Holesworth

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    26 mins
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