Episodes

  • A Little History Of The Earth
    Dec 11 2025

    Tim and Syma chat with Jamie Woodward, Professor of Physical Geography, at the University of Manchester about the history of our home planet.

    They cover 4.5 billion in 30 minutes, discussing snowball earths, the emergence of life, how earth shaped and vice versa, and a little on what the future might hold.

    Jamie’s new book “A little history of the earth” is published by Yale and is available from all good booksellers. And Amazon.
    https://amzn.eu/d/6EttzXL


    If you are a business and would like to take advantage and leverage the power of the fast growing podcast ad stream market, and in particular sponsoring 'Science Of The Times', please drop us a line - streamingspirespodcasts@gmail.com
    Advertising via podcasts is a cost efficient way of reaching a wider market.

    Show More Show Less
    32 mins
  • The Rise and Decline of Us
    Dec 8 2025

    Tim and Syma chat with Henry Gee about his two most recent books “The Decline and Fall of the Human Empire: Why our Species is on the Edge of Extinction” and “A (Very) Short History of Life On Earth: 4.6 Billion Years in 12 Chapters”. We learn about giant lizards, the dinosaurs they evolved to become, and how we came to be, before discussing how it all might end. Will be it next week or thousands of years?
    Listen to find out.

    If you are a business and would like to take advantage and leverage the power of the fast growing podcast ad stream market, and in particular sponsoring 'Science Of The Times', please drop us a line - streamingspirespodcasts@gmail.com
    Advertising via podcasts is a cost efficient way of reaching a wider market.

    Show More Show Less
    30 mins
  • Cracking The Code Of Chronic Pain
    Nov 27 2025

    Chronic pain is a blight on the lives on many. Recent research has found genes associated with chronic pain, and this has led to the identification of a key protein, paving the way for the possibility of drugs to effectively treat it.

    Tim and Syma are joined by Professor Simon Newstead and Professor David Bennet in this fascinating episode.

    If you are a business and would like to take advantage and leverage the power of the fast growing podcast ad stream market, and in particular sponsoring 'Science Of The Times', please drop us a line - streamingspirespodcasts@gmail.com
    Advertising via podcasts is a cost efficient way of reaching a wider market.

    Show More Show Less
    39 mins
  • The Microbial Majority
    Nov 13 2025

    Inside your stomach, on your skin, in your mouth, and up your nose are bacteria. They are abundant and they play a significant role in making you, you. Join Tim and Syma as they talk to Aura Raulo and Eveliina Hanski, two early career researcher who are fascinated by the microbiome and how it impacts everything from the food we choose to eat to our social relationships.

    If you are a business and would like to take advantage and leverage the power of the fast growing podcast ad stream market, and in particular sponsoring 'Science Of The Times', please drop us a line - streamingspirespodcasts@gmail.com
    Advertising via podcasts is a cost efficient way of reaching a wider market.

    Show More Show Less
    36 mins
  • Entangled Futures: The Science and Promise of Quantum Computing
    Oct 30 2025

    Synthesis:

    Quantum computing has been argued to be the next big thing in computing. But what exactly is it, and is the hype justified?

    We talk to Professor Ian Walmsley who leads has recently been appointed as the head of Oxford Quantum Institute.

    Due to a few quantum issues yet to be solved, we conduct the interview in 0 and 1s rather than qubits.

    If you are a business and would like to take advantage and leverage the power of the fast growing podcast ad stream market, and in particular sponsoring 'Science Of The Times', please drop us a line - streamingspirespodcasts@gmail.com
    Advertising via podcasts is a cost efficient way of reaching a wider market.

    Show More Show Less
    32 mins
  • What’s it like to be a bat? How do they see the world?
    Oct 9 2025

    Tim and Syma talk to Yossi Yovel who is bringing together the disparate disciplines of ecology and neuroscience to help understand how animals see the world and communicate. Much of his work has focused on bats, who use echolocation to paint a picture of the world. But he also talks about the noises that plants make, and how moths and other insects use those noises. There is a whole cachophony of noises we pay no attention to that other animals use. Listen as Yossi tells us a little bit about what it is like to be a bat!

    Our sponsor for this episode is Grace and Garbo! Thank you.
    https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/GraceandGarbo
    'At Grace and Garbo we are passionate about vintage knitwear. From classic fair isle, to one-of-a-kind artisan hand knits and vibrant mohair. Visit our Etsy store, Grace and Garbo, for our unique collection of vintage knitwear'

    If you are a business and would like to take advantage and leverage the power of the fast growing podcast ad stream market, and in particular sponsoring 'Science Of The Times', please drop us a line - streamingspirespodcasts@gmail.com
    Advertising via podcasts is a cost efficient way of reaching a wider market.

    Show More Show Less
    38 mins
  • Playing Lego with chemistry to build structures that could save the environment.
    Oct 3 2025

    Omar Yaghi is a chemist with an extraordinary vision. The pioneer of MOFs (metal organic frameworks) - materials built from the molecular equivalent of LEGO bricks. He tells Tim and Syma about his humble beginnings in a cramped room in Amman, Jordan- where the conditions were limited, but his vision certainly wasn’t.

    A chance encounter with a chemical model building kit, set him on a pathway of discovery.

    Flying in the face of conventional chemical wisdom, he built large, well defined, ultra porous chemicals structures from individual building blocks. These structures are now being explored to salvage water from arid enviroments, to extract carbon dioxide from the environment and keep it locked away so it cannot amplify the ‘greenhouse effect’.

    His vision and the new chemistry it has produced has the potential to combat global warming, to provide clean drinking water and remove harmful plastics from the environment.

    If you are a business and would like to take advantage and leverage the power of the fast growing podcast ad stream market, and in particular sponsoring 'Science Of The Times', please drop us a line - streamingspirespodcasts@gmail.com
    Advertising via podcasts is a cost efficient way of reaching a wider market.

    Show More Show Less
    39 mins
  • Avian Affairs
    Sep 25 2025

    Syma and Tim talk to Professor Joan Strassmann about the social life of birds. We cover a range of topics she writes about in her excellent new book, including flocking, social roosting, mating together, and raising chicks in a commune. Learn about redshanks seeking safety in numbers to neotropical cuckoos building communal nests and then pushing out the eggs of other females.


    Strassmann’s book is called “The Social Life of Birds: Flocks, Communes and Families”.

    It is published by Headline Press in the UK and Tarcher in the US.https://www.amazon.co.uk/Social-Lives-Birds-Joan-Strassmann-ebook/dp/B0DFTY5184/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2R65LGBAPF9YJ&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.imkNYnQMu1aTowV-UccyvA.B8ehnVRInjZzzwS4mm79Lwd7mKpMfhazgmKOQNNgY6U&dib_tag=se&keywords=the+social+life+of+birds&qid=1754064334&sprefix=the+social+life+of+birds%2Caps%2C84&sr=8-1

    If you are a business and would like to take advantage and leverage the power of the fast growing podcast ad stream market, and in particular sponsoring 'Science Of The Times', please drop us a line - streamingspirespodcasts@gmail.com
    Advertising via podcasts is a cost efficient way of reaching a wider market.


    Show More Show Less
    38 mins