Instant Genius BBC Science Focus

These days, pretty much every move we make online is tracked in one way or another. Whether it’s through our social media accounts or online shopping habits, algorithms are getting better at painting a picture of who we are and how we think. But why do we let this happen?

In this episode we catch up with science broadcaster and writer Timandra Harkness to talk about her new book, Technology is not the Problem.

She tells us how various online agencies keep tabs on us, whether we should be worried about it, and why sometimes it can be too hard to resist buying that expensive pair of shoes you keep getting ads for.
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Black holes are surely one of the most fascinating and mysterious phenomena in the known Universe. But few people know that the story behind their discovery, and the cast of dogged, often ignored scientists behind it, is just as interesting.

In this episode we catch up with the award-winning science writer and long-time BBC Science Focus contributor Marcus Chown. We talk about his new book A Crack in Everything: How black holes came in from the cold and took cosmic centre stage.

He takes us through the gripping story that saw black holes go from being a mere mathematical curiosity to one of the most talked about cosmic objects ever observed.
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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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