Infective Heredity

In less than four years, mathematician Steve Strogatz watched AI go from flailing at basic arithmetic to solving problems that baffle the world’s best mathematicians. In September of 2026, Open AI announced it had solved a Millennium Prize Problem, one of math’s highest achieveme ...  Show more

In this short episode, first aired in 2011, a neurologist issues a dare to a ragtime piano player and a famous conductor. When the two men face off in an fMRI machine, the challenge is so unimaginably difficult that one man instantly gives up. But the other achieves a musical fea ...  Show more

From whole populations to individual cancers, we're taking a look at genes and evolution. We're also talking about dogs and their diseases, shining a light on Van Gogh's sunflowers, and wondering whether the USB-sized DNA sequence is hope or hype. Plus we've got our gene of the m ...  Show more

The way we die has been utterly transformed. There have been around 10,000 generations of human beings, but only in the last 3 or 4 have infectious diseases not been an expected and accepted cause of death. What drove the most deadly infectious diseases? Was technological progr ...  Show more

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss mutation in genetics and evolution. When lying mortally ill with cancer, the British geneticist J.B.S. Haldane penned the following lines: Cancer's a Funny Thing:I wish I had the voice of HomerTo sing of rectal carcinoma,Which kills a lot more chap ...  Show more

CONTROVERSIAL SUBJECTS AND THE FACTS CAN BE TENSE - WE ARE ASAPSCIENCE HERE TO MAKE THINGS MAKE SENSE. Inbreeding is weirdly an important concept to understand in biology, so today we break down the history of incest and what happens when species inbreed. It is a fascinating q ...