Dr Chris van Tulleken wrestles with the dilemma of slaughter. Could he bring himself to dispatch an animal himself? Is he happy supporting an industry which kills animals in his name? And if not, what could he eat instead? Chris explores the rise of the alternative protein industry – plant-based meat alternatives, lab-grown meat, or most shocking of all for some, actual meat abstinence, Veganism. And it is time to revisit that initial question: what’s influencing our choices when it comes to eat...
Aug 12, 2024•26 min
We're a planet addicted to chicken and our appetites fuel a massive global industry, but is it one we should support? While some cite it as a shining example of a super-efficient food production system, one that could help drive food security around the world, others say it is a cruel, destructive and outdated structure that makes a few people richer while exploiting others – along with animals and the environment. In Brazil, one of the world’s biggest chicken and soya producers, our reporter Le...
Aug 05, 2024•26 min
Like many of us, Dr Chris van Tulleken is always trying to eat better food: healthy, high welfare, good for the environment. This kind of consumer demand is making the chicken industry better, in tiny increments. So why do so many of us give ourselves a pass when it comes to the food we know we should not be eating - fast food? Chicken is at the very heart of this industry. As a cheap meat that does not have a strong taste, can easily take on other flavours and does not have any religious restri...
Jul 29, 2024•26 min
For eons, salt has been crucial to human health, culture, and diet. On this episode of The Evidence, we explore the strange science of salt taste – why it can be sweet, salty, or even a flavour enhancer. We look at how salt keeps our bodies running, and what happens if we have to little of it. And while too little salt may be bad, too much is also a problem. What does the science say about how much salt is optimal, and what can we do to make sure we’re eating the right amount? Claudia Hammond is...
Jul 23, 2024•49 min
Do YOU know what you're eating? Are you sure? Dr Chris van Tulleken is keen to make good food choices, and buy the best chicken possible for his dinner. High welfare, tasty, and good for the environment, ideally. But it's not as easy as that. How CAN he make good food choices if he has no idea what he's buying? Chris explores what we actually know about the food we buy, and to what extent we can trust what's on a label. He also uncovers the startling truth about two very different ways that we b...
Jul 22, 2024•26 min
We’ve heard about the potential problems around chicken welfare. But how does that square with their impact on the environment? Dr Chris van Tulleken finds out what it takes to produce the most eco-friendly chicken meat possible. And makes a devastating discovery. Welfare concerns, and environmental credentials, often pull in OPPOSITE directions. Does he want to eat the happiest birds, or the ones kindest to the planet? Halfway through his poultry quest, Chris remains massively conflicted: he lo...
Jul 15, 2024•26 min
We eat chicken. A LOT of it. We might love the taste, but what about how we're treating those birds? After witnessing first-hand the reality of indoor chicken farming - how most of the chicken we eat is raised - Dr Chris van Tulleken wants to know: are the birds happy enough, or is our method of rearing cheap chicken actually cruel? If so, what’s the ‘happier’ alternative – and do carnivores like Chris care enough to pay the price for that, or does a love of meat ultimately trump ethics? Chris b...
Jul 08, 2024•26 min
So we started farming this bird called chicken, and it spread around the world. But what does it actually TAKE to feed us the amount of chicken we want to consume? 100 years ago this was a scrawny, egg-laying bird, only good for a stew once her eggs ran out – no one ate chicken meat. Fast forward to today and it’s the most consumed protein on the planet. How did we come to eat it in the first place, and what are the consequences of producing chicken meat on the vast, industrial scales we now con...
Jul 05, 2024•26 min
Dr Chris van Tulleken is on a mission to find out what we’re eating, why, and who or what might be influencing our decisions. And he’s starting his quest to uncover food truths with the most eaten meat in the world, and one of the most numerous animals on our planet: chicken. He’s recently been forced to confront a serious gap in his food knowledge - what happens before it gets to our plates - and has decided this, the world’s most popular meat, is an ideal starting point. Chris’ initial investi...
Jul 02, 2024•26 min
Dr Julia Ravey and Dr Ella Hubber both have a love of science, but it turns out there’s a lot they don’t know about some of the leading women at the front of the inventing game. In Unstoppable, Dr Julia and Dr Ella tell each other the hidden, world-shaping stories of the engineers, innovators and inventors they wish they’d known about when they were starting out as scientists. This week, the inventor whose incredible capacity to solve problems inspired today’s most popular period products. Mary ...
Jun 17, 2024•26 min
In her last year of high school, Olga González-Sanabria went on a field trip to the University of Puerto Rico’s school of engineering – and immediately knew that was what she wanted to do. She followed her passion and after university was recruited by Nasa, where she carried out instrumental work, without which we would not have the International Space Station. As the very first Latina woman working in engineering at Nasa, Olga’s career has not always been an easy ride, but is filled with remark...
Jun 10, 2024•27 min
Dr Julia Ravey and Dr Ella Hubber both have a love of science, but it turns out there’s a lot they don’t know about some of the leading women at the front of the inventing game. In Unstoppable, Dr Julia and Dr Ella tell each other the hidden, world-shaping stories of the engineers, innovators and inventors they wish they’d known about when they were starting out as scientists. This week, the story of an Indian chemist whose work laid the foundations to save thousands of lives. In a lab in 1950s ...
Jun 03, 2024•27 min
Dr Julia Ravey and Dr Ella Hubber both have a love of science, but it turns out there’s a lot they don’t know about some of the leading women at the front of the inventing game. In Unstoppable, Dr Julia and Dr Ella tell each other the hidden, world-shaping stories of the engineers, innovators and inventors they wish they’d known about when they were starting out as scientists. This week, the story of the woman who mastered viewing the world in microscopic detail – ultimately helping us discover ...
May 27, 2024•27 min
Dr Julia Ravey and Dr Ella Hubber both have a love of science, but it turns out there’s a lot they don’t know about some of the leading women at the front of the inventing game. In Unstoppable, Dr Julia and Dr Ella tell each other the hidden, world-shaping stories of the engineers, innovators and inventors they wish they’d known about when they were starting out as scientists. This week, the story of an engineer who turned plastic into gold, all starting from her mother’s backyard. Every day, ar...
May 20, 2024•27 min
Dr Julia Ravey and Dr Ella Hubber both have a love of science, but it turns out there’s a lot they don’t know about some of the leading women at the front of the inventing game. In Unstoppable, Dr Julia and Dr Ella tell each other the hidden, world-shaping stories of the engineers, innovators and inventors they wish they’d known about when they were starting out as scientists. This week, the story of the Hollywood starlet whose brilliant ideas would go on to revolutionise the way we live. Known ...
May 13, 2024•26 min
The process of childbirth can be painful yet amazing, but at times and in some places, also very dangerous. Recorded in Malawi, East Africa, Claudia Hammond is joined by a panel of maternal health experts to figure out why it is that the equivalent of a large jumbo jet full of women die every day due to pregnancy or childbirth. Together, they examine how so many women can still be at risk during this period despite a greater access to healthcare. They also look into whether an eighty-year-old dr...
May 08, 2024•49 min
Underwater cameraman Roger Munns set himself and his team an incredible challenge. In 2008, they visited Tonga to film the biggest courtship ritual of the animal kingdom, the humpback heat run, for the very first time underwater and up close. In the first few days, Roger had intimate encounters with the whales but most of the time, he was sat on the back of the boat, waiting to find a heat run. After two unsuccessful weeks, he started to wonder whether they would ever see one. But a few days lat...
May 06, 2024•26 min
Primatologist Catherine Hobaiter has spent more of her adult life in the rain forests of Uganda, with family bands of chimpanzees, than she has with her own human family members. For more than 20 years now she has spent 6 months every year at a remote field station, getting up before dawn every day to observe and collect behavioural data on family bands of chimps as they wake up and go about their daily lives. What is she trying to find out, that has gripped her for so long? It turns out that li...
Apr 29, 2024•26 min
Professor Ben Garrod and Dr Jess French get under the skin (and blubber) of the California sea lion, to crack the key to its success both on land and at sea. Its ability to dive hundreds of meters down, keep warm in icy waters, and run on land, can all be explained through its unique internal anatomy. They are joined by zookeeper and sea lion trainer Mae Betts, who adds insight into the intelligence of these sleek marine mammals. Co-Presenters: Ben Garrod and Jess French Producer: Ella Hubber Ed...
Apr 22, 2024•26 min
The tiny sap-sucking aphid, at just a few millimetres long, is the scourge of many gardeners and crop-growers worldwide, spreading astonishingly rapidly and inflicting huge damage as it seeks to outwit many host plants’ natural defences. With insights and guidance from aphid expert George Seddon-Roberts at the John Innes Centre, Norwich, some delicate dissecting tools, and a state of the art microscope, Prof Ben Garrod and Dr Jess French delve inside this herbivorous insect to unravel the anatom...
Apr 15, 2024•26 min
Ominously called the lamb vulture, there are many myths and misconceptions surrounding the bearded vulture. Flying the mountainous ranges across central Asia and eastern Africa, with a wingspan of almost three meters, the bearded vulture is am impressive Old World vulture. Prof Ben Garrod and Dr Jess French are looking past the beautifully coloured plumage, and delving deep inside to learn what this bird of prey really eats and what keeps its great wings aloft.
Apr 08, 2024•26 min
Wild Inside returns for a new series to take a look at some of our planet’s most exceptional and unusual creatures from an entirely new perspective: the inside. Whilst we can learn a lot from observing the outside, the secrets to the success of any animal – whether they swim, fly, or hop – lies in their complex internal anatomy. How do these wild animals survive and thrive in harsh and changing environments? To truly understand we need to delve inside. Professor Ben Garrod, evolutionary biologis...
Apr 02, 2024•26 min
Hannah Fry explores two tales of data and discovery. A young researcher gains access to a secretive data set and discovers a system causing harm to the very people it is supposed to help. One day a student makes a discovery which, if true, could shake the intellectual foundations of a global movement, and undermine politicians around the world. Producer: Lauren Armstrong Carter
Mar 25, 2024•27 min
Millions of women around the world experience the menopause each year; it’s an important milestone, which marks the end of their reproductive years. But every individual's experience of it is personal and unique. In some cultures, there's a stigma about this life stage – it's viewed with trepidation and as something to be dreaded. In other cultures, it's considered to be a fresh start - a time of greater freedom when women no longer have to worry about their menstrual cycles. In this edition, re...
Mar 21, 2024•49 min
Hannah Fry explores two more tales of data and discovery. Gossip and rumour are plaguing a tile manufacturing company. The chatter is pulling morale to new lows, and amid it all, a question hangs in the air: who is spreading it? Can the science of networks find out? And, what is the secret to ageing well? One man believes he may have found the beginnings of an answer, and it is hiding in a convent. Produced by: Ilan Goodman and Lauren Armstrong Carter
Mar 18, 2024•27 min
Hannah Fry explores two tales of data and discovery. Do orangutans - or humans - experience a midlife crisis? Hidden deep in the data, two economists have found a surprising pattern: happiness is U shaped. And, John Carter has a terrible choice to make. One path offers glory, the other to death. His decision hinges on one graph, but can it help him take the right road? Produced by: Ilan Goodman and Lauren Armstrong Carter
Mar 11, 2024•15 min
Hannah Fry explores two tales of data and discovery. Two couples are brought together by a tragedy and a tatty piece of paper, which reveals a serial murderer hiding in plain sight. And, across the world in Singapore, a metro system is misbehaving wildly. The rail engineers and company officials are flummoxed. Can data save the day? Produced by: Ilan Goodman and Lauren Armstrong Carter
Mar 04, 2024•27 min
Hannah Fry explores two tales of data and discovery. In a few specific years across the 20th Century, the proportion of boys born, mysteriously spiked. We follow one researcher’s obsessive quest to find out why. And next, a tale of science and skulduggery. Michael Mann was a respected climate scientist, unknown outside of a small academic circle, until he produced a graph that shocked the world and changed his life forever. Producer: Ilan Goodman
Feb 26, 2024•27 min
Humans have a long-held fascination with the idea of Artificial Intelligence (AI) as a dystopian threat - from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, through to the Terminator movies. But somehow, we still often think of this technology as 'futuristic', whereas in fact, it's already woven into the fabric of our daily lives, from facial recognition software to translator apps. And if we get too caught up in the entertaining sci-fi narrative around AI and the potential threat from machines, there is a more ...
Feb 19, 2024•27 min
How do you solve a problem like CO2? As the curtain closes on the world’s most important climate summit, we talk to a scientist who was at COP 28 and is working to solve our carbon dioxide problem. Professor Mercedes Maroto-Valer thinks saving the planet is still Mission Possible - but key to success is turning excess of the climate-busting gas, carbon dioxide, into something useful. And as Director of the Research Centre for Carbon Solutions at Heriot-Watt University and the UK’s Decarbonisatio...
Feb 12, 2024•27 min
