Instant Genius BBC Science Focus

We humans are never truly alone. This is because our bodies are colonised by vast numbers of microscopic organisms that can be found living everywhere from the surface of our skin to deep within our guts.

Collectively, this population of microbes is known as the human microbiome, and they play a key role in maintaining our health and wellbeing.

In this episode we catch up with Dr James Kinross, a colorectal surgeon and researcher based and Imperial College London and author of the new book Dark Matter: The new science of the microbiome.

He tells us about the fascinating ways that our microbiomes can impact our brain health, regulate our emotions and if we could ever use them to make an effective love potion.
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The existence of flight in the animal kingdom is something that many of us take for granted. But on closer inspection, it can perhaps be thought of as one of the miracles of nature.

In this episode we catch up with the writer Lev Parikian about his book Taking Flight: How animals learned to fly and transformed life on Earth, which was shortlisted for Royal Society Trivedi Science Book Prize.

He tells us about how flight has evolved independently in four separate groups of animals, how bats became the only mammals capable of powered flight, and how some birds ended up losing the ability to fly altogether.
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The internet is full of false facts and misinformation, but how can you tell what is real or fake? We spoke to Alex Edmans, author of May Contain Lies, who gives us tips on how to separate the real from the false.
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In the short time since its launch in 2021, the James Webb Space Telescope has produced some absolutely breathtaking images of the cosmos. And there’s much more to come.

In this episode I speak to the head of Space Science at the UK Space Agency Dr Caroline Harper about her new book Unseen Universe: New secrets of the cosmos revealed by the James Webb Space Telescope.

We talk about some of the highlights of the telescope has delivered so far, including incredibly detailed images of Jupiter, its Moon and some of the most distant stars and galaxies ever observed, how it can look for extra-terrestrial life on exoplanets, and also about some of the future space missions that Dr Harper is most excited about.
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Have you ever had a difficult decision to make and after much thought and deliberation decided that you should sleep on it and see how you feel in the morning? I’d venture most of us have at one point or another. But is there any science to back up this common habit?

In this episode, the second of a two-part series, I speak to neurosurgeon and bestselling author Rahul Jandial about his new book This is Why You Dream: What your sleeping brain reveals about your waking life.

We talk about the strange phenomenon of sleep paralysis, how the dreaming brain can work alongside the waking brain to help us solve problems, and what we can learn from the weird and wonderful phenomenon of lucid dreaming.
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The chances are most of us will remember at least one dream we’ve had recently. But where do dreams come from, why is their content often universal across different cultures, and what can we learn from studying nightmares?

In this episode, the first of a series of two, I speak to neurosurgeon and bestselling author Rahul Jandial about his new book This is Why You Dream: What your sleeping brain reveals about your waking life.

We talk about what’s going on in the different areas of our brains when we dream, how the dreaming brain differs from the waking brain, and the intimate links that exist between our emotions, imagination and ability to dream.
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