This week, we're digging into how living creatures – including us – sense and respond to magnetic fields with quantum biologist Margaret Ahmad of the University of Sorbonne in Paris. For decades, biologists knew about striking examples of species apparently navigating by Earth’s magnetic field, from monarch butterflies to loggerhead turtles to racing pigeons. Yet for years, many physicists said any ‘magnetosense’ was impossible, insisting the Earth’s field is far too weak to affect any biological processes within living cells. And yet, life really had found a way, and Margaret was one of the key researchers who showed how.Back in the 1990s, she discovered a blue light receptor in plants, part of a mysterious family of proteins called cryptochromes, and she has since has pioneered research showing how these receptors don’t just sense light but magnetic fields, too. Through quantum physical effects, these proteins magnify impossibly weak magnetic signals into measurable biological responses in a cell. For Margaret, this connection with the magnetic fields around us is a fundamental characteristic of all life, that should transform our thinking about everything from bird migration, to plant growth, to health effects in humans – and might even lead to revolutionary medical treatments. I spoke to her about her research, what it’s like doing science ‘out on a limb’, as she puts it, and what to do when the evidence leads you off the beaten track… Margaret Ahmad at Sorbonne Universityhttps://www.ibps.sorbonne-universite.fr/en/ibps/directory/17216-Margaret-AhmadHypersensitivity to man-made electromagnetic fields: 2024 case reporthttps://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39108419/2024 review on cryptochromeshttps://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38495372/ New Scientist story I wrote about Ahmad’s work in 2020 (£)https://www.newscientist.com/article/2251835 2021 review on the bird magnetic compasshttps://www.frontiersin.org/journals/physiology/articles/10.3389/fphys.2021.667000/full Roswitha Wiltschko’s labhttps://www.goethe-university-frankfurt.de/47093824/Physiology_and_Ecology_of_Behaviour Some bacteria sense magnetic fields via magnetite crystals. It's possible these play a role in other species too, maybe even humanshttps://www.eneuro.org/content/6/2/ENEURO.0483-18.2019.abstract *** To support us, please rate & review the show!*** Subscribe for new episodes every Mon*** Follow us on Instagram @wildthoughts_pod*** Edited highlights on YouTubehttps://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhB4lyBDyjTkWeO0GERti8zC2AoHil9lu Where The Wild Thoughts Are is produced by Julian Mayers at Yada Yadahttps://www.yada-yada.net/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Herculaneum scrolls: Cracking the impossible
This week, we delve into one of the ancient world's biggest mysteries: the Herculaneum scrolls. Computer scientist Brent Seales of the University of Kentucky talks about a journey that has taken him from Mars to Beowulf to the Dead Sea and beyond. AI has been key to finally reading what's inside the scrolls -- but this is a story about human ingenuity, and what it takes to make an impossible dream come true. These are hundreds of Greek and Latin papyri, buried by the Vesuvius eruption in 79 AD and dug up in the 1700s. The scrolls were crushed and carbonised; when anyone tried to read them, they crumbled. Scholars had to accept the rest would never be opened. This is the only intact library we have from the classical world – complete texts, direct from the pens of ancient scribes. Yet we can’t read them. Until now. These unopenable scrolls are now being read, through the Vesuvius Challenge, which offers prizes for teams using AI to find the ink in X-ray scans. I’ve written several articles on this, and the pace of discovery has been jawdropping: scholars could soon read the whole library. But solving this problem hasn't just been about switching on AI. For me, the truly fascinating story is the 20 years of imagination, invention and persuasion that led to this point, all essentially due to one man who persevered even when everyone else thought the idea was crazy.Brent Sealeshttps://educelab.engr.uky.edu/w-brent-seales Vesuvius Challengehttps://scrollprize.org/ Schmidt Scienceshttps://www.schmidtsciences.org/focus-area-ai/My articles:Scaling up the Vesuvius Challenge: Apr 2025https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-01087-yAI could rewrite history: Jan 2025https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-04161-zFirst passages revealed: Feb 2024https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-00346-8Brent Seales' quest: Jul 2018https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/buried-ash-vesuvius-scrolls-are-being-read-new-xray-technique-180969358/ Journal papers:Reading En-Gedi scrollhttps://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/sciadv.1601247 Recovering Herculaneum inkhttps://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0215775*** To support us, please rate & review the show!*** Subscribe for new episodes every Mon*** Follow us on Instagram @wildthoughts_pod*** Edited highlights on YouTubehttps://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhB4lyBDyjTkWeO0GERti8zC2AoHil9lu WTWTA is produced by Julian Mayers at Yada Yadahttps://www.yada-yada.net/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Epilepsy, ecstasy and the nature of reality
This week, we’re exploring the secrets of bliss – with neurologist and epilepsy specialist Fabienne Picard of the Medical School of Geneva. Fabienne became fascinated by a rare condition called “ecstatic seizure” after reading the work of 19th century Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky. He used his own experiences with epilepsy as inspiration, in particular a profound and intriguing feeling that would strike him just before the seizure itself. He wrote about how, for a few moments, all of his doubts and anxieties disappeared, and the world felt perfectly vivid and clear. “I feel entirely in harmony with myself and the whole world,” he wrote, “and this feeling is so strong and so delightful that for a few seconds of such bliss one would gladly give up ten years of one’s life, if not one’s whole life.” Fabienne asked her patients whether any of them had similar experiences, and found that some did, they’d just never had the opportunity to talk about it in conventional consultations. She has identified dozens of new cases, which has enabled her to pin down which part of the brain is involved, and even trigger this feeling in people who don’t have this kind of epilepsy. I spoke to Fabienne about her patients, what she thinks is happening in their brains, and whether we might all one day be able to benefit from such episodes of bliss -- without the devastating seizures that follow.LINKS Fabienne’s home page at University Hospitals of Genevahttps://www.hug.ch/en/neurology/dr-fabienne-picard Ecstatic or mystical experience through epilepsy: 2023 paper by Fabienne & colleagueshttps://direct.mit.edu/jocn/article/35/9/1372/116669/Ecstatic-or-Mystical-Experience-through-Epilepsy Insular stimulation produces mental clarity and bliss: 2022 paper by Fabienne & colleagueshttps://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ana.26282Epilepsy and ecstatic experiences: 2021 paper by Fabienne & colleagueshttps://www.mdpi.com/2076-3425/11/11/1384Fabienne’s talk to the Buddhist monks at Plum Villagehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M16k8Djz29A&t=1957s Epilepsy in the artistic creation of Dostoevsky: 2014 reviewhttps://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2173580814000686 Dostoevsky’s epilepsy: 1990 case reporthttps://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2161565/ *** Subscribe for new episodes every Monday.*** Follow us on Instagram @wildthoughts_pod*** Find edited highlights on YouTubehttps://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhB4lyBDyjTkWeO0GERti8zC2AoHil9lu Where The Wild Thoughts Are is produced by Julian Mayers at Yada Yadahttps://www.yada-yada.net/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Is there life on Venus?
In the search for alien life, we don’t always hear much about Venus. There’s a lot of effort going into detecting possible signs of life on Mars, and looking for potentially habitable planets beyond our solar system. Venus seems a crazy place to look for aliens: its surface is burning hot, hot enough to melt lead; and it has clouds made of concentrated acid. But could a very different kind of life from ours be living in those cloud droplets? My guest is astronomer Jane Greaves, from the University of Cardiff. A few years ago, she used a telescope in Hawaii to scan Venus’s clouds for a molecule called phosphine. On earth, phosphine is rare, its only natural source is microbes in certain oxygen-starved environments. We don’t currently know of any way it could be made on Venus, apart from life, but Jane figured why not just have a look anyway. And she found it… Some findings immediately touch a nerve. Researchers immediately criticised her work, attacking the team scientifically and personally. But Jane and her colleagues have been working to gather more data and they’re building an ever-stronger picture that phosphine really is there in the clouds. That would mean either some really fascinating chemistry we’ve never thought of before – or potential life. And this just adds to a list of mysterious features on Venus, from strange particles in the clouds; to gases in amounts very different from what we’d expect; to something unexplained that is absorbing huge amounts of energy from the solar radiation hitting the planet... Jane and I chat about her latest results, and what she thinks about the chances of life elsewhere, as well as the importance of going against the grain sometimes, to explore questions others might think are too crazy to ask.Jane Greaves at Cardiff Universityhttps://profiles.cardiff.ac.uk/staff/greavesj1Jane and team’s 2020 paper reporting phosphine in Venus’s cloudshttps://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-020-1174-4The team’s response to criticisms of the 2020 paperhttps://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-021-01424-xGuardian story on 2024 evidence for Venus phosphine & maybe ammoniahttps://www.liebertpub.com/doi/full/10.1089/ast.2023.00822024 review of unexplained features on Venushttps://www.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/ast.2022.00602024 paper showing amino acids are stable in sulfuric acidhttps://www.liebertpub.com/doi/full/10.1089/ast.2023.0082*** Subscribe for new episodes every Monday*** Follow us on Instagram @wildthoughts_pod*** Edited highlights on YouTubehttps://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhB4lyBDyjTkWeO0GERti8zC2AoHil9lu Where The Wild Thoughts Are is produced by Julian Mayers at Yada Yadahttps://www.yada-yada.net/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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What if there are no laws of physics?
When physicists investigate the very smallest components of reality – atoms and subatomic particles – they famously find all sorts of things that make no sense. Particles can apparently be in different places at once, and they have different properties depending on how we measure them. Spooky effects seem to act instantaneously, across vast distances. The decisions we make can even alter journeys that particles have already made. Researchers have come up with different interpretations for what these weird results might mean. Maybe mysterious waves we can’t measure are guiding the course of the entire universe. Or maybe there are countless parallel universes, hosting different versions of ourselves... What if none of these ideas is wild enough? My guest in this episode, quantum physicist Chris Fuchs from the University of Massachusetts, thinks physicists are still being boxed in by their assumptions about reality. Chris has pioneered a new interpretation of quantum mechanics, called QBism, which says that the probabilities and predictions of quantum physics were never describing physical entities out there in the world. Instead, he says, they are telling us about… us. QBism is seen by many physicists as extreme, but it’s also wild, lawless, freeing and I love it! Our tour of the QBist universe took us from starships and black holes to party games, gambling and free will. Enjoy.‘Introducing QBism’: 2014 paper by Chris Fuchshttps://www.researchgate.net/profile/Christopher-Fuchs/publication/300478790_Introducing_QBism/links/575027c008aefe968db723df/Introducing-QBism.pdf‘QBism: Where next?’ 2023 research paper on the future of QBismhttps://arxiv.org/abs/2303.01446Nautilus feature article on Chris Fuchs and QBismhttps://nautil.us/my-quantum-leap-238433/Excerpt on QBism from Through the Wormhole with Morgan Freemanhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQvCTZgNRNwDocumentary on QBism produced by the Essentia Foundationhttps://youtu.be/nSqDMtHoaT0 *** Subscribe for new episodes every Monday*** Follow us on Instagram @wildthoughts_pod*** Edited highlights on YouTubehttps://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhB4lyBDyjTkWeO0GERti8zC2AoHil9lu Where The Wild Thoughts Are is produced by Julian Mayers at Yada Yada https://www.yada-yada.net/. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
We’re talking about science. But not just any science...Each episode, journalist Jo Marchant meets researchers who are doing things differently: challenging our assumptions, stretching our minds, and changing how we see the world.We’ll be pushing boundaries from cosmology and quantum physics to neuroscience, archaeology, ecology… Jo’s guests are asking deep questions, chasing outrageous dreams, and exploring the world in completely new ways.As well as learning about their pioneering ideas, we’ll hear their personal stories: what inspires their leaps of imagination; how they keep going despite the obstacles; the importance of thinking differently; and why we need creativity to survive. But most of all, Where The Wild Thoughts Are is about the wonder of peeking past supposed limits. Come into the wild with us, for a glimpse of what’s beyond… Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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