Talking Science Podcast
Allergies and Autoimmunity – When Defence Misfires
Two people are stung by the same bee on the same afternoon. One rubs the spot, swears a little and forgets about it by dinner. The other's throat…
Articles
Health & Medicine
Blood – The Most Complicated Fluid You Own
Prick your finger on a rose thorn and a bead of red appears almost instantly. Within minutes it has thickened, darkened and sealed itself, and within…
Anaesthesia – Switching Consciousness Off and On
Ask anyone who has had a general anaesthetic what going under felt like, and most will say it did not feel like anything. They were counting backwards…
Nutrition – What Food Actually Does in the Body
We eat several times a day, every day, for our whole lives, and yet most of us have only the haziest idea of what actually happens to a meal once it…
The Nervous System – The Body’s Wiring
Right now, without any effort, you are performing one of the most complex feats in the known universe. As you read these words, light hits your eyes,…
Pain – Why It Hurts and What It’s For
Nobody likes pain. We spend a good deal of our lives trying to avoid it, and when it arrives we want it gone. Yet pain is one of the most valuable…
Hormones – The Body’s Chemical Messengers
Imagine trying to run a country where no one could speak, write, or send a message. Every region would act on its own, with no coordination, no shared…
Organ Transplants and Xenotransplantation
There is something almost miraculous about the idea that a heart from one person can beat inside the chest of another, keeping a stranger alive for…
The Gut-Brain Connection
Have you ever had a decision that made your stomach clench, or felt genuine butterflies before walking on stage? We use these phrases so casually that…
Ageing – Why Do We Get Old?
Look at a photograph of yourself from twenty years ago and something odd becomes clear: you are, in a very real sense, a different collection of…
Memory – How the Brain Stores a Life
Close your eyes and picture your childhood home. Recall a song you love, the face of an old friend, the taste of a favorite meal. In an instant, your…
Sleep – Why We Spend a Third of Our Lives Unconscious
Think about how strange sleep really is. Every night, you lie down, lose awareness of the world, and become helpless for hours. From an evolutionary…
The Heart – The Pump That Never Rests
Put your hand on your chest and feel it: a steady, insistent thump that has not stopped since before you were born and will not stop until the day you…
Antibiotics and the Resistance Crisis
There was a time, not so long ago, when a scratch from a rose thorn could kill you. A simple infection, a routine surgery, a bout of pneumonia: any of…
Vaccines – How They Actually Work
Imagine you could show your body a wanted poster of a dangerous criminal, so that if the real thing ever showed up, your defenses would recognize it…
Cancer – What Goes Wrong in a Cell
Every one of us is built from trillions of cells, and for the most part they cooperate beautifully. They divide when the body needs them to, stop when…
The Immune System – Your Body’s Standing Army
Right now, as you read this, your body is at war. Bacteria are landing on your skin, viruses are riding in on the air you breathe, and countless…
The Human Brain – Three Pounds of Mystery
Somewhere behind your eyes, roughly three pounds of soft, wrinkled tissue is doing something no machine has ever matched. It is reading these words,…