Brian Cox and Robin Ince talk hot air as they explore the pivotal role of gasses in our lives. Joining them to add some CO2 to the mix is material scientist Mark Miodownik, chemist Lucy Carpenter and comedian Dave Gorman. They discuss how humans came to even understand it existed in the first place as well as how many of the innovations in modern society have been underpinned by this mostly invisible and odourless substance. We laud the humble (or is it noble?) gas and its key role in technologi...
Aug 07, 2024•43 min
Brian Cox and Robin Ince venture to the home place of exploration in Porto, Portugal at the Explorers Club as they discuss science at the extremes of exploration. Joining them is volcanologist Jess Phoenix, astronaut Mike Massimino, astrobiologist and oceanographer Britney Schmidt as well as adventurer and broadcaster Anneka Rice. They discuss breaking robots under the Antarctic ice shelf, chasing after narco-traffickers to retrieve a rock hammer and how viewing the earth from the vantage point ...
Jul 31, 2024•43 min
Brian Cox and Robin Ince are joined by adventurer and naturalist Steve Backshall, veterinarian Jess French, and comedian and former doctor Adam Kay, as they are put to the test by an audience of curious children at Cheltenham Science Festival. We find out who would win in a battle between a shark and a crocodile (the answer involves a tennis court), why dogs don’t sweat like humans, whether macrophages might help us overcome antibiotic resistance and if AI might one day enable us to understand a...
Jul 24, 2024•43 min
Brian Cox and Robin Ince go past jail, climb a ladder and build a civilisation as they explore the science behind our favourite board games. Joining them in the library (or was it the conservatory?) is mathematician Marcus du Sautoy, who discusses the global history of games as well as his tips for winning at Monopoly. Joining him is games designer and play researcher Dave Neale who explains how key games are to developing a theory of mind, alongside Jessica Fostekew, comedian and gaming enthusi...
Jul 17, 2024•43 min
Brian Cox and Robin Ince leaf through the latest tree science with Dame Judi Dench, Tony Kirkham and Tristan Gooley. Dame Judi Dench shares her great love for treekind and describes how over time she has come to create a small woodland in her garden and how meaningful that is for her. Tony Kirkham, former head of Kew Arboretum and Gardens, shares some of the amazing journeys he's been on to find unusual and rare trees around the world. Navigator Tristan Gooley has spent a lifetime learning how t...
Jul 10, 2024•42 min
`This week it's over to you the listeners, as we hear some of your favourite moments from The Infinite Monkey Cage. Comedian Claire Hooper hears about the mating rituals of spiders, which use several of their legs in this complex process. But she discovers the females of the species get their own back by eating the males once the deed is done. Comedian Noel Fielding explains how he made a plasticine figure of singer Joey Ramone, prompting Robin to wonder about the pitfalls of building a real-lif...
May 29, 2024•22 min
Brian Cox and Robin Ince shuffle through the archive to find the smallest things in the world of science, from a particle so tiny nobody has ever actually seen it, to the millions of microbes we’re all made up of. They ask the short-of-stature comedian Andy Hamilton how he’d feel about being three times bigger, which he admits could come in handy if he ever met a mammoth, leading to an unexpected discussion about a potential new TV gameshow format. Entomologist Erica McAlister is back to tell th...
May 22, 2024•22 min
We know the universe is rapidly expanding but what happens if other galaxies disappear from view? That’s what Eric Idle wants to know as he ponders the future and what it holds in store. Solar scientist Lucie Green says this is not worth dwelling on because we’ll all be wiped out by an asteroid at some point anyway, which leads to a discussion about whether anywhere is still safe. Away from physics, Brian Cox and Robin Ince learn that one of the major contributors to global warming is the urinal...
May 15, 2024•20 min
Brian Cox and Robin Ince embrace failure in its many forms, with a frank look at the importance of making mistakes. They examine the flaws in Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution with the anthropologist Alice Roberts, as she tells them no idea is totally watertight. And sometimes scientific error even leads to important discoveries – just ask the heart patients who took a pill that did nothing for their medical condition but did boost their libido and which we now know as Viagra. But other failu...
May 08, 2024•17 min
Robin Ince and Brian Cox ask why some people always seem to win as they investigate the science of gambling. They hear how playing monopoly is no way to make friends, but don’t worry, because psychologist Richard Wiseman claims that it’s never really good fun anyway. In fact, games are mainly a form of social bonding and studies show deception could even be essential to human behaviour, which may just explain why so many people cheat. So should we even bother playing them? Well, it just so happe...
May 01, 2024•19 min
Robin Ince and Brian Cox tackle the thorny debate over whether science and religion can co-exist. But forget the tension between the church and the researchers – Eric Idle wants an answer to the important question of whether God is in gluten free communion bread? Katy Brand launches the inaugural theologian’s corner with a pair of Reverends, who explain that comedians and the clergy have a lot in common, including a tendency to like the sound of their own voices. As we learn more about how our u...
Apr 24, 2024•22 min
Brian Cox and Robin Ince are on a mission to discover whether extra-terrestrials exist. But if there really is other life out there, what would it look like? Comedian Conan O’Brien is hoping for lizard-like creatures with superhuman strength, while Greg Proops imagines little green girls, like the ones in the Star Trek series he grew up with. Or possibly Ewoks. Either way, nobody can agree on the best way to communicate with them if we do ever make contact. Should we send them complicated equati...
Apr 17, 2024•20 min
Robin Ince and Brian Cox dig into the secret lives of plants to discover that there’s more going on in your average garden than you might at first think. They hear why trees are better than humans at re-growing broken bits, while comedian Ed Byrne reveals a surprising understanding of horticulture, despite dropping out of his university degree early. And while they’re still no closer to discovering if they’re alive or dead, the team find a new debate to have about strawberries, as they argue wit...
Apr 10, 2024•18 min
Love is in the air(waves) as Brian and Robin trawl through the Monkey Cage archive. From using maths to find a boyfriend or girlfriend, to why birds and bees have far more exciting sex lives than you might imagine, this week’s episode is all about passion. Number crunching might not sound sexy but mathematician Hannah Fry tells Robin Ince and Brian Cox why research shows it pays to be proactive when you’re searching for a partner, even when that means risking total humiliation. But when it comes...
Apr 03, 2024•20 min
Brian Cox, Robin Ince and their guests will send a shiver down your spine as they sift through the science on murder, and hear some of the more creative techniques scientists use to catch killers. Apparently rambling through brambles is a great way to find buried bodies at the edge of abandoned fields and entomologist Amoret Whitaker says she relies on flies and fleas to tell her whether a crime has been committed. According to criminal psychologist Dr Julia Shaw, we’ve all got it in us to bump ...
Mar 27, 2024•21 min
Brian Cox and Robin Ince visit CERN’s Large Hadron Collider in Geneva in search of the Higgs Boson. Joining them on their particular quest is comedian Katy Brand, actor Ben Miller and physicists Tevong You and Clara Nellist. They find out which particle is the one you’d most want to spend time with at a party, how cosmology is inspiring experiments in the collider and why the Higgs Boson - known as the 'god' particle' - is of so much interest to science. Producer: Melanie Brown Executive Produce...
Mar 20, 2024•43 min
Brian Cox and Robin Ince sniff and paw their way through the evidence to put to rest the age-old debate of whether cats are better than dogs. They’re joined by TV dragon and dog devotee Deborah Meaden, comedian and cat compadre David Baddiel, evolutionary scientist Ben Garrod and veterinarian Jess French. They learn how the domestication of our four-legged companions by humans has had a profound impact on their physiology, temperament and methods of communication. They debate which species is th...
Mar 13, 2024•42 min
Brian Cox and Robin Ince delve into the murky world of historical poisonings. Joining them to add their drops of killer insight are comedian Hugh Dennis, chemist Andrea Sella and Agatha Christie aficionado and former chemist Kathryn Harkup. They find out just how easy poison was to get your hands on and how people literally got away with murder until chemists developed tests for substances like arsenic. Bottles of deadly substances are passed around our expert panel with some trepidation and we ...
Mar 06, 2024•42 min
Brian Cox and Robin Ince journey through the asteroid belt to discuss space rocks with Dr Who companion John Bishop, professor of planetary science Sara Russell and astrophysicist Alan Fitzsimmons. They learn that these seemingly innocuous rubble like rocks can hold secrets to the formation of the solar system but just don’t jump on one – you may shoot straight through it! They find out about the latest space missions that are trying to bump into or grab bits of asteroids and how these technolog...
Feb 28, 2024•42 min
Brian Cox and Robin Ince pull scientific explanations out of a hat and go down the rabbit hole to explore the science of magic with comedian Alan Davies, sleight of hand artist Laura London and two experts in the psychology of magic Richard Wiseman and Gustav Kuhn. They ask what our predilection to be bamboozled by sleight of hand can tell us about how our minds work. Alan has a card trick played on him and we learn how our choices aren’t always what we think they are. Producer: Melanie Brown Ex...
Feb 21, 2024•43 min
Brian Cox and Robin Ince peel back the layers to explore mummification and the science of Ancient Egypt. They are joined by comedians Russel Kane, Lucy Porter and bio-medical Egyptologists Rosalie David and Lidija McKnight from the University of Manchester, as they learn about the scientific techniques that are helping to uncover the lives of Ancient Egyptians, including that of a woman who died running away from an axe murderer. They find out that much of modern western medicine was built on th...
Feb 14, 2024•42 min
Brian Cox and Robin Ince are joined by the longest running science show in the world, The Sky at Night, alongside comedian and astronomy enthusiast Dara O Briain for the ultimate guide to studying the stars from your own back garden. Sky At Night presenters Dr Maggie Aderin Pocock, Chris Lintott and Pete Lawrence join the panel to offer their top tips to backyard astronomy over the winter season. From binoculars to telescopes and even the naked eye: meteor showers, planetary moons and odd behavi...
Dec 20, 2023•57 min
Brian Cox and Robin Ince are subject to a non-hostile takeover by comedian and non-physicist Jo Brand, as she challenges the panel to help her understand the almost unbelievable world of cheeky particles who may or may not be in several places at once. To help Jo get to grips with the bizarre and strange world of our quantum universe, Brian and Robin are joined by theoretical physicist Prof Ben Allanach from the University of Cambridge and cosmologist Prof Fay Dowker from Imperial College London...
Dec 13, 2023•42 min
Brian Cox and Robin Ince put Hollywood under the microscope to unpick the science fact v science fiction of some of the biggest movies set in space. They are joined by a truly out of this world panel of space experts including astronauts Tim Peake, Nicole Stott and Susan Kilrain alongside Oscar-winning Special FX director Paul Franklin, whose movies include Interstellar and First Man. Tim, Nicole and Susan fact check how space travel and astronauts are portrayed in movies such as Gravity and The...
Dec 06, 2023•42 min
Brian and Robin are joined by palaeontologist Dr Susie Maidment, evolutionary biologist Dr Tori Herridge and comedian Dave Gorman to pitch giant creatures against tiny creatures in their bid to avoid extinction. They explore the scale of life and ask why some organisms are large and some small and what the optimum size for successful survival is. From the prokaryotic cell to the grandest dinosaur, how does the modern synthesis explain the huge variation in scale, form and function? What are the ...
Nov 29, 2023•42 min
Brian and Robin (the real ones) are joined by mathematician Prof Hannah Fry, compute scientist Dr Kate Devlin and comedian Rufus Hound to discuss the pros and cons of AI. Just how intelligent is the most intelligent AI? Will our phones soon be smarter than us – will we fail a Turing test while our phone passes it? Will we have AI therapists, doctors, lawyers, carers or even politicians? How will the increasing ubiquity of AI systems change our society and our relationships with each other? Could...
Nov 22, 2023•43 min
Are some people just lucky? Is there any scientific formula behind coincidences? Is randomness the norm? Brian and Robin team up with comedian Sophie Duker, mathematician Marcus Du Sautoy and statistician David Spiegelhalter to uncover the reality and the maths behind seemingly incredible coincidences. How many people do you need in a room to find two with the same birthday? What is the weirdest coincidence that the panel have ever encountered? Is there a mathematical formula to being lucky? How...
Nov 14, 2023•43 min
There’s no shortage of surprising science in The Infinite Monkey Cage and this episode is dedicated to you, the audience, as we hear some of your favourite clips from the past 14 years of the show. Palaeontologist Susie Maidment explains why licking rocks is the best way to determine their age, but you were just as interested in whether Robin is older than Brian, who also admits Jon Culshaw’s impression of him is surprisingly accurate. Entomologist Erica McAlister explains what to do if a fly la...
Nov 08, 2023•24 min
If Aliens really are amongst us, the most likely candidates may not be little green men, but living in plain sight, just below our ocean waves, in the form of the mysterious and awe-inspiringly clever Octopus. Scientists are only just discovering the amazing intelligence of these elegant and highly unusual creatures that seem to have evolved in a completely different way to nearly any other creature on the planet. Brian and Robin are joined by marine biologist Dr Tim Lamont, Neuroscientist Dr Am...
Nov 08, 2023•43 min
Endless inflation seems to be everywhere at the moment, including on this episode examining the nature of infinity. Brian and Robin dive through the back catalogue to discover there might be no limit to the number of parallel universes that exist. This leads to an argument between astronomer royal Lord Rees and comedy producer John Lloyd, who says the whole suggestion is total speculation. Even cosmologist Carlos Frenk can’t get his head round the idea, as he contemplates the suggestion that new...
Nov 01, 2023•18 min
