IFLScience - The Big Questions

Large language models, often called artificial intelligence (AI), are everywhere nowadays. There is potential in the use of this form of AI, but also many drawbacks. Lots of excitement, plenty of concerns. The biggest worry? That AI could become conscious. Maybe they already are… 

Host Dr Alfredo Carpineti speaks to Dr Alex Hanna, sociologist and director of research at the Distributed AI Research Institute, to talk about the big claims surrounding these computational approaches. 

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As global temperatures continue to rise, heatwaves, wildfires, droughts, floods, and storms are becoming more numerous, lasting longer, and affecting places that were never built to withstand them. Understandably, many people feel unsettled by this growing uncertainty - but are these disasters inevitable?

Join Dr Russell Moul as he talks to Dr Samantha Montano, a disasterologist and emergency management expert, about the ways in which disasters are changing and how societies respond to them.

They discuss who is most at risk, how climate change is reshaping planning and preparedness, why Hollywood so often gets human responses to disasters wrong, and how we can all adapt to extremes that are becoming part of the background rather than the exception.

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Like what you heard? Get 25% off All Access annual memberships with code SCI25* and start funding independent science journalism today. 

*Terms & Conditions: 25% OFF PROMO CODE: SCI25 offer for 1 billing period of an All Access Subscription: Annual paid subscription. New users only. Offer subject to change or cancellation at any time. Subscription auto-renews at full amount unless cancelled. You can cancel at any time. Membership paid subscriptions are only available in Canada, the United States (excluding Puerto Rico and US territories), the United Kingdom, and Australia. Our standard terms & conditions apply.

The world of taxonomy is a puzzling one. Some species names are grand, some are funny, some are seemingly unoriginal. Others are a hat tip to Indigenous Peoples or geographical places, while some isolate a single scientist or celebrity. This got us wondering, how exactly do you name a species?

To find out, Senior Science Writer Rachael Funnell sat down with Professor Paul Barrett, a palaeontologist at London’s Natural History Museum who has seen taxonomy from the other side, naming new species himself. He even has a dinosaur named in his honor. So what does it take to name a new species?

You can listen to this episode and subscribe to the podcast on all your favorite podcast apps: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Podbean, Amazon Music, and more.

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Like what you heard? Get 25% off All Access annual memberships with code SCI25* and start funding independent science journalism today. 

 *Terms & Conditions: 25% OFF PROMO CODE: SCI25 offer for 1 billing period of an All Access Subscription: Annual paid subscription. New users only. Offer subject to change or cancellation at any time. Subscription auto-renews at full amount unless cancelled. You can cancel at any time. Membership paid subscriptions are only available in Canada, the United States (excluding Puerto Rico and US territories), the United Kingdom, and Australia. Our standard terms & conditions apply.

Amid all the recent noise around generative AI, it’s easy to overlook the fact that there are scientists across almost any field you could think of who have been using artificial intelligence in their work – sometimes for decades. This technology is being leveraged to explore some of the most weighty and complex problems facing humanity, and medical research is no exception to this.

Host Laura Simmons speaks to Professor Florian Markowetz, Professor of Computational Oncology at the University of Cambridge and Senior Group Leader at the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute, to ask what may be one of the biggest questions of all: could AI find a cure for cancer?

You can listen to this episode and subscribe to the podcast on all your favorite podcast apps: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Podbean, Amazon Music, and more.

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Like what you heard? Get 25% off All Access annual memberships with code SCI25* and start funding independent science journalism today. 

 

*Terms & Conditions: 25% OFF PROMO CODE: SCI25 offer for 1 billing period of an All Access Subscription: Annual paid subscription. New users only. Offer subject to change or cancellation at any time. Subscription auto-renews at full amount unless cancelled. You can cancel at any time. Membership paid subscriptions are only available in Canada, the United States (excluding Puerto Rico and US territories), the United Kingdom, and Australia. Our standard terms & conditions apply.

We don’t know if life exists beyond Earth. If it does, we don’t know if these lifeforms have technology like us or maybe even better. Perhaps they could detect us? Despite the unknowns, humans have sent messages to the stars in an attempt to communicate with hypothetical aliens. 

Host Dr Alfredo Carpineti speaks to Dr Vishal Gajjar, an astronomer with the SETI Institute, about should we, not just can we, actively message aliens and how we are already pretty noticeable to anything out there if they were looking too. 

You can listen to this episode and subscribe to the podcast on all your favorite podcast apps: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Podbean, Amazon Music, and more.

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Like what you heard? Get 25% off All Access annual memberships with code SCI25* and start funding independent science journalism today. 

 

*Terms & Conditions: 25% OFF PROMO CODE: SCI25 offer for 1 billing period of an All Access Subscription: Annual paid subscription. New users only. Offer subject to change or cancellation at any time. Subscription auto-renews at full amount unless cancelled. You can cancel at any time. Membership paid subscriptions are only available in Canada, the United States (excluding Puerto Rico and US territories), the United Kingdom, and Australia. Our standard terms & conditions apply.