Babbage from The Economist

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Babbage from The Economist

Babbage is our weekly podcast on science and technology, named after Charles Babbage—a 19th-century polymath and grandfather of computing. Host Alok Jha talks to our correspondents about the innovations, discoveries and gadgetry shaping the world. Published every Wednesday. If you’re already a subscriber to The Economist, you’ll have full access to all our shows as part of your subscription. For more information about Economist Podcasts+, including how to get access, please visit our FAQs page here https://myaccount.economist.com/s/article/What-is-Economist-Podcasts

  1. 5 DAYS AGO • SUBSCRIBERS ONLY

    Game on: AI is coming for sport

    Data has transformed sport in recent decades—from identifying the best place to shoot from in basketball and football, to helping recruit the perfect baseball player. The new age of AI, which can utilise vast amounts of data on players, promises even deeper insights. Teams are experimenting with AI tools that can help pick the best players and prepare the best tactics for individual matches. Perhaps one day these models may even be able to predict injuries. AI models could transform sport—and the experiments with games could also inform the future of AI itself. Host: Alok Jha, The Economist’s science and technology editor. Contributors: The Economist’s Abby Bertics; James Tozer of Prospect Sporting Insights; Patrick Lucey of Stats Perform; Petar Veličković of Google DeepMind. Transcripts of our podcasts are available via economist.com/podcasts. Listen to what matters most, from global politics and business to science and technology—subscribe to Economist Podcasts+. For more information about how to access Economist Podcasts+, please visit our FAQs page or watch our video explaining how to link your account.

    38 min

  2. 22 JAN • SUBSCRIBERS ONLY

    Chromosome 21: the surprising link between Down’s syndrome and Alzheimer’s

    Since the 1980s, the average life expectancy of a person with Down’s syndrome has more than doubled, from less than 30 to well into their 60s. Living longer, though, has revealed a tragic twist—the vast majority of people with Down’s will go on to develop Alzheimer’s disease by the age of 65. That’s because people with Down's syndrome, who have an extra copy of chromosome 21, produce increased amounts of beta-amyloid, a protein that is implicated as a possible cause of Alzheimer’s. To make things worse, people with Down’s syndrome often cannot access the dementia drugs that might help them—doctors are reluctant to prescribe them because people with Down’s haven't been allowed to take part in the clinical trials for Alzheimer’s drugs. People with Down’s think that should change. In doing so, could scientists unlock the mystery of Alzheimer’s itself? Alok Jha, The Economist’s science and technology editor and Emilie Steinmark, our science correspondent, follow the story of Kate Olmstead, who has Down’s syndrome, and her mother, Amy. Emilie also interviews John Hardy, a neuroscientist at University College London who proposed the amyloid hypothesis for Alzheimer’s in the 1990s. Thanks also to Frank Stephens of the Global Down Syndrome Foundation. Transcripts of our podcasts are available via economist.com/podcasts. Listen to what matters most, from global politics and business to science and technology—subscribe to Economist Podcasts+. For more information about how to access Economist Podcasts+, please visit our FAQs page or watch our video explaining how to link your account.

    40 min

  3. 15 JAN • SUBSCRIBERS ONLY

    Gary Marcus: a sceptical take on AI in 2025

    From the release of AI agents to claims that artificial general intelligence has (finally!) been achieved, 2025 will probably be another blockbuster year for AI. That sense of continuous progress is not shared by everyone, however. Generative AI, based on large language models (LLMs), struggles with reasoning, reliability and truthfulness. While progress has been made in those domains, sceptics argue that the limitations of LLMs will fundamentally restrict the future of AI. In this episode, Alok Jha, The Economist’s science and technology editor, interviews Gary Marcus, one of modern AI’s most energetic critics. They discuss what to expect in 2025 and why Gary is pushing for researchers to work on a much wider range of scientific ideas (in other words, beyond deep learning) to enable AI to reach its full potential. Gary Marcus is a professor emeritus in cognitive science at New York University and the author of “Taming Silicon Valley”, a book advocating for a more responsible approach to the development of AI. For more on this topic, check out our series on the science that built the AI revolution, as well as our episodes on AGI. Transcripts of our podcasts are available via economist.com/podcasts. Listen to what matters most, from global politics and business to science and technology—subscribe to Economist Podcasts+. For more information about how to access Economist Podcasts+, please visit our FAQs page or watch our video explaining how to link your account.

    37 min

  4. 8 JAN • SUBSCRIBERS ONLY

    New year, new you: are your resolutions backed by science?

    It wouldn’t be January without new year’s resolutions. Pledges to get in shape or cut back on vices are often guided by a plethora of wellness trends doing the rounds on social media and elsewhere. But what does science have to say about all those good intentions you might have? This week, we examine the evidence behind three popular ideas: does intermittent fasting work? Will melatonin fight your post-holiday jet lag? And can you breathe your stress away? Host: Alok Jha, The Economist’s science and technology editor. Contributors: The Economist’s science correspondents Tim Cross, Emilie Steinmark and Ainslie Johnstone. For more guides to health and wellness like these, check out “Well informed”, a new weekly series in The Economist’s science and technology section. Transcripts of our podcasts are available via economist.com/podcasts. Listen to what matters most, from global politics and business to science and technology—subscribe to Economist Podcasts+. For more information about how to access Economist Podcasts+, please visit our FAQs page or watch our video explaining how to link your account.

    35 min

  5. 1 JAN • SUBSCRIBERS ONLY

    Turning the phage: viruses that can kill superbugs (revisited)

    Bacteriophages, or “phages”, are viruses that can infect bacteria. With the number of bacteria that can evade antibiotics growing worryingly large, interest in using phages as therapies against drug-resistant infections has been rising. As we reported in 2023, phages have been used in Georgia for over a century, but they’re not approved for use in most other countries. Now, more than a year later, we’re asking: what would it take to bring a phage-therapy revolution to the rest of the world? In this episode, The Economist’s Gilead Amit travels to the University of Leicester’s Centre for Bacteriophage Research in Britain to meet co-directors Martha Clokie and Andy Millard. We also revisit Gilead’s 2023 trip to the Eliava Institute in Georgia, where he met Mzia Kutateladze and her team, as well as Barry Rud, a patient at the institute. Are phages finally about to get the attention they deserve? Transcripts of our podcasts are available via economist.com/podcasts. Listen to what matters most, from global politics and business to science and technology—subscribe to Economist Podcasts+. For more information about how to access Economist Podcasts+, please visit our FAQs page or watch our video explaining how to link your account.

    47 min

  6. 18/12/2024 • SUBSCRIBERS ONLY

    OK computer: how voice AI will change the world

    Talking to computers can be frustrating—ask anyone who’s been on the phone recently to automated customer services. A decade ago, the arrival of voice assistants such as Amazon’s Alexa or Apple’s Siri was supposed to mark a new era in how humans interacted with machines, but their limitations quickly became apparent. In recent months, though, computerised voices seem to have moved light-years ahead. You can now have a conversation with OpenAI’s ChatGPT. You can clone your own voice. You can even generate and interact with a personalised podcast, where AI presenters will discuss any documents you like. The voice AI revolution has finally arrived. How will it change the way we interact with the digital world? Host: Alok Jha, The Economist’s science and technology editor. Contributors: Alex Hern, our AI correspondent; Vasco Pedro of Unbabel; Mati Staniszewski of ElevenLabs; Steven Johnson of Google Labs. For more on this topic, listen to our sister podcast “The Weekend Intelligence”, which asked: can AI help us communicate with the dead? Transcripts of our podcasts are available via economist.com/podcasts. Listen to what matters most, from global politics and business to science and technology—subscribe to Economist Podcasts+. For more information about how to access Economist Podcasts+, please visit our FAQs page or watch our video explaining how to link your account.

    44 min

  7. 11/12/2024 • SUBSCRIBERS ONLY

    Acoustic shock: how noise pollution disrupts ocean life

    Sound is central to life underwater. The list of marine creatures that are known to rely on sound for navigation, communication and much more is growing, as is the awareness of the complex ways in which they use it. But as humanity has extended its footprint into the seas, it has done so noisily. The soundscape of the ocean has been thrown out of balance and researchers are now developing new technologies—from bubble screens to “acoustic black holes”—to protect marine life from the excessive noise. Host: Alok Jha, The Economist’s science and technology editor. Contributors: Moira Donovan, a journalist who writes for The Economist; Amorina Kingdon, science writer and author of “Sing Like Fish”, and Tom Smith of University College London. Special thanks to John Hildebrand of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. This episode features audio from Sea Search. Transcripts of our podcasts are available via economist.com/podcasts. Listen to what matters most, from global politics and business to science and technology—subscribe to Economist Podcasts+. For more information about how to access Economist Podcasts+, please visit our FAQs page or watch our video explaining how to link your account.

    40 min

  8. 04/12/2024 • SUBSCRIBERS ONLY

    The Human Cell Atlas: mapping the body's building blocks

    An adult human body is thought to consist of more than 37trn cells, of more than 5,000 distinct types. Surprisingly little is known about some of these fundamental biological building blocks. Through cutting-edge sequencing technology and enormous AI models, the Human Cell Atlas project is meticulously identifying and locating every type of cell in a person over the course of their lifetime. As a result, researchers are building an invaluable resource for studying development, disease and potential treatments—from digital twins of the human body to transplantable, lab-grown organs. We pay a visit to the Wellcome Sanger Institute and speak to the founder of the initiative. Host: Alok Jha, The Economist’s science and technology editor, with senior editor Geoff Carr. Contributors: Sarah Teichmann of the University of Cambridge; Liz Easthope, Katy Tudor, Muzlifah Haniffa, Nadav Yayon and Veronika Kedlian of the Wellcome Sanger Institute. Transcripts of our podcasts are available via economist.com/podcasts. Listen to what matters most, from global politics and business to science and technology—subscribe to Economist Podcasts+ For more information about how to access Economist Podcasts+, please visit our FAQs page or watch our video explaining how to link your account.

    36 min
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  • How did two old, unpopular men end up running for the world's most demanding job? It’s the question John Prideaux, The Economist’s US editor, gets asked the most. And the answer lies in the peculiar politics of the baby boomers.  Since 1992, every American president bar one has been a white man born in the 1940s. That run looks likely to span 36 years - not far off the age of the median American. This cohort was born with aces in their pockets. Their parents defeated Nazism and won the cold war. They hit the jobs market at an unmatched period of wealth creation. They have benefitted from giant leaps in technology, and in racial and gender equality.  And yet, their last act in politics sees the two main parties accusing each other of wrecking American democracy. As the boomers near the end of their political journey, John Prideaux, The Economist’s US editor, sets out to make sense of their inheritance and their legacy.  Launching July 2024. To listen to the full series, subscribe to Economist Podcasts+. If you’re already a subscriber to The Economist, you have full access to all our shows as part of your subscription. For more information about how to access Economist Podcasts+, please visit our FAQs page or watch our video explaining how to link your account.

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  • Arkady Ostrovsky travels across Europe and the Middle East speaking to free-thinking Russians who left when the shelling of Ukraine began in 2022 in this eight-part series. For them the war meant the future of Russia itself was now in doubt. Now they have to rebuild their lives and their hopes for Russia from exile. Can they get their country back? Their stories help solve the mystery of why this senseless war began – and how it might end. Sign up for Economist Podcasts+ at www.economist.com/podcastsplus If you’re already a subscriber to The Economist, you’ll have full access to all our shows as part of your subscription.

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About

Babbage is our weekly podcast on science and technology, named after Charles Babbage—a 19th-century polymath and grandfather of computing. Host Alok Jha talks to our correspondents about the innovations, discoveries and gadgetry shaping the world. Published every Wednesday. If you’re already a subscriber to The Economist, you’ll have full access to all our shows as part of your subscription. For more information about Economist Podcasts+, including how to get access, please visit our FAQs page here https://myaccount.economist.com/s/article/What-is-Economist-Podcasts

Information

  • Channel
    The Economist
  • Creator
    The Economist
  • Years Active
    2012 - 2025
  • Episodes
    518
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    Copyright © The Economist Newspaper Limited 2023. All rights reserved.
  • Show Website
    Babbage from The Economist
  • Provider
    The Economist Newspaper Limited

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