Latest Podcasts

In this episode, the TN team rounds up some of the best and weirdest science from the last month. Hear how elephants and naked mole rats fight cancer, how immunotherapy is getting a microbial boost from poop transplants and why researchers think our sleep patterns might be affected by the phases of the moon.

In this episode, we explore data integrity – a pillar of good science. We hear from our expert speakers how modern labs can improve their data and, of course, what happens when mistakes or fraud compromises data integrity.

2020 has been a memorable year in science for many reasons, most of them bad. As we finally begin to see some chinks of light at the end of this incredibly long year, the Opinionated Science team look back at some of the biggest stories of the year that were nothing to do with COVID-19, including brain implants, inherited trauma and millions of tons of microplastics.

This episode is a COVID-19 podcast with a first-hand focus. Podcast host Ruairi Mackenzie discusses his experience with symptomatic COVID-19. And we also look at the data around COVID-19 risk and age and discuss the emerging problems posed by long COVID.

In this episode, the team discusses the growing movement for sustainable science. Research has a yeti-sized ecological footprint, and here we follow the tracks from ozone-destroying CFCs and energy-guzzling freezers through to a new future for science that promises to make labs eco-friendly at last.

In this episode, the team take a deep dive into the world of biohacking. Practitioners of this DIY biology have big goals: making genetic technologies available to all, bypassing government regulation of drugs and (on the fringes of the movement) achieving immortality.

In this episode, the TN team discusses three promising vaccine candidates being developed for COVID-19. We take a deep dive into the data from these vaccine trials to try and work out what successes can be celebrated and what unanswered questions still remain.

Advances in genetic testing have come with a lot of ethical baggage. In this podcast we discuss how clinical testing can throw up surprise results for doctor and patient, the test data that is helping fight COVID-19 and how one of our own editors responded to receiving her genetic risk scores.

In this episode, we review the evidence surrounding vagus nerve stimulation (VNS), a therapy approved for epilepsy and depression that backers now want to use to treat a host of other conditions, include autoimmune disease and heart failure. How can scientists fill in the gaps in the VNS knowledge base?

In this episode, the Technology Networks team investigates the placebo effect. Why have placebo treatments become more effective at treating patients in the last few decades (but only in the USA) and what do powerful placebos mean for clinical trials?