Babbage from The Economist

The most transformational impact of AI will probably be to make science faster and more productive. Solve that problem and you can do more great things even faster—alleviate disease, tackle climate change or help astronomers explore new worlds. In this episode, we speak to both the makers of AI models and the researchers who are already seeing the benefits of AI in their laboratories.Alok Jha, The Economist’s science and technology editor, interviews Demis Hassabis, CEO of Google DeepMind, and James Manyika, senior vice president of research, technology and society at Google. Jennifer Doudna, founder of the Innovative Genomics Institute, tells us how AI is already making a difference in her labs. The Economist’s Alex Hern considers the future of the field.For more on AI in science, check out our previous episodes of Babbage: how AI promises to revolutionise science (September 2023), our two-parter on AI and health (May 2024) and our series on the science that built the AI revolution (March 2024).Transcripts of our podcasts are available via economist.com/podcasts.Listen to what matters most, from global politics and business to science and technology—subscribe to Economist Podcasts+.For more information about how to access Economist Podcasts+, please visit our FAQs page or watch our video explaining how to link your account.

Coal is the dirtiest fossil fuel, bad for both the environment and human health. But it still produces a third of the world’s electricity. Eliminating its use will be crucial in the fight against climate change but the task is proving very challenging. As world leaders gather in Azerbaijan this week for the UN’s COP29 climate summit, we travel to South Africa to learn how to (and how not to) phase out coal. We also hear about the issues making waves at COP29—including what Donald Trump’s second presidential term could mean for climate change policy around the world.Host: Alok Jha, The Economist’s science and technology editor. Contributors: The Economist’s Vijay Vaitheeswaran, Rachel Dobbs and John McDermott.For more on COP29, check out the latest episode of our “Money Talks” podcast, which examines whether the bill for the energy transition has been overestimated.Transcripts of our podcasts are available via economist.com/podcasts.Listen to what matters most, from global politics and business to science and technology—subscribe to Economist Podcasts+.For more information about how to access Economist Podcasts+, please visit our FAQs page or watch our video explaining how to link your account.

Diagnoses of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are on the rise around the world. ADHD has traditionally been treated as a dysfunction in the brain, which leads to a range of symptoms that need to be fixed or mitigated, sometimes with medication. But the scientific evidence for that view is beginning to fray. A growing number of experts think that ADHD may simply represent another part of the spectrum of neurodiversity—a different way of being normal. This week, we explore the science underlying this view and the consequences it could have for the way in which the condition could be managed. Is it time to re-think ADHD? Host: Alok Jha, The Economist’s science and technology editor. Contributors: Duncan Astle of the University of Cambridge; and The Economist’s Slavea Chankova and Rachel Dobbs.Transcripts of our podcasts are available via economist.com/podcasts.Listen to what matters most, from global politics and business to science and technology—subscribe to Economist Podcasts+.For more information about how to access Economist Podcasts+, please visit our FAQs page or watch our video explaining how to link your account.

The family of weight-loss jabs known as GLP-1 agonists are among pharma’s biggest blockbusters. But drugs like Ozempic have the potential to do much more than tackle diabetes and obesity. They have been found to treat cardiovascular and kidney disease, and they are also being tested for liver disease, Alzheimer’s and even addiction. If they live up to their promise, GLP-1s are set to transform health care. How can one class of drug do so much?Host: Alok Jha, The Economist’s science and technology editor. Contributors: Caroline Messer, an endocrinologist in New York; Daniel Drucker of the University of Toronto; and The Economist’s Natasha Loder and Shailesh Chitnis. For more on this topic, listen to our podcast on the physiological and psychological causes of obesity—and why GLP-1 drugs could reshape the world.Transcripts of our podcasts are available via economist.com/podcasts.Listen to what matters most, from global politics and business to science and technology—subscribe to Economist Podcasts+.For more information about how to access Economist Podcasts+, please visit our FAQs page or watch our video explaining how to link your account.

NASA’s multi-billion-dollar Europa Clipper spacecraft is on its way to Europa, one of Jupiter’s mysterious icy moons. The mission will investigate whether the moon, whose icy crust conceals a vast ocean of liquid water, might harbour the kind of environment suitable for alien life. In their search for life elsewhere, scientists have in recent years become much more interested in the outer solar system's icy moons, once considered too far from the Sun to plausibly support life. Europa Clipper is one of several probes heading to (or planned to travel to) those faraway worlds. Will they find signs that life could exist there?Host: Alok Jha, The Economist’s science and technology editor. Contributors: Michele Dougherty and her team at Imperial College London; Nathalie Cabrol of the SETI Institute and the author of “The Secret Life of the Universe”; and The Economist’s Tim Cross.For more on this topic, listen to our podcast on the European Space Agency’s JUICE mission and our interviews with exoplanet hunters Didier Queloz and Jessie Christiansen.Transcripts of our podcasts are available via economist.com/podcasts.Listen to what matters most, from global politics and business to science and technology—subscribe to Economist Podcasts+.For more information about how to access Economist Podcasts+, please visit our FAQs page or watch our video explaining how to link your account.

The remarkable recent test flight of SpaceX’s Starship brought the world one step closer to a host of new possibilities beyond Earth (not least the colonisation of Mars). But as well as reducing the cost of sending stuff into space and opening up new business opportunities in Earth orbit, Starship will also play an important role in NASA’s plans to return to the Moon. Meanwhile, China has its own lunar ambitions, and a much simpler plan than America’s. Who will win this new space race?Host: Alok Jha, The Economist’s science and technology editor. Contributors: Kari Bingen of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies; The Economist’s Tim Cross, Oliver Morton and Paddy Stephens.For more on this topic, listen to our podcasts on who owns the Moon, the new space economy, and the lunar South Pole.Transcripts of our podcasts are available via economist.com/podcasts.Listen to what matters most, from global politics and business to science and technology—subscribe to Economist Podcasts+.For more information about how to access Economist Podcasts+, please visit our FAQs page or watch our video explaining how to link your account.

It’s been a big year for artificial intelligence—sealed by winning the highest accolades in the scientific world: the Nobel prizes. The innovations that underlie machine learning were recognised in the physics prize. And one of the most important scientific applications of machine learning won the chemistry prize. In the award for physiology or medicine, meanwhile, the discovery of micro-RNAs offers hope for a new generation of therapeutics. In this episode, we examine the winning discoveries and investigate how they could transform the world.Host: Alok Jha, The Economist’s science and technology editor. Contributors: The Economist’s Natasha Loder, Geoff Carr and Emilie Steinmark.Transcripts of our podcasts are available via economist.com/podcasts.Listen to what matters most, from global politics and business to science and technology—subscribe to Economist Podcasts+.For more information about how to access Economist Podcasts+, please visit our FAQs page or watch our video explaining how to link your account.

The world can be an unpredictable and uncertain place. While some people relish those uncertainties, others become crippled by anxiety. Our guest has a way to help: mathematics. Specifically, statistics. Get better at spotting patterns and you’ll gain an understanding of the real nature of risk, chance and luck. Used properly, the surprising science of statistics can provide a sense of order to the risks of everyday life and could even help us make wiser decisions. Alok Jha, The Economist’s science and technology editor, speaks to Sir David Spiegelhater, a professor of statistics at the University of Cambridge and the author of “The Art of Uncertainty”.Transcripts of our podcasts are available via economist.com/podcasts.Listen to what matters most, from global politics and business to science and technology—subscribe to Economist Podcasts+.For more information about how to access Economist Podcasts+, please visit our FAQs page or watch our video explaining how to link your account.

For half a century, the exponential increases in computing performance have powered the digital age. These gains were achieved by shrinking the components on computer chips, meaning that each new generation of semiconductor technology has been faster and more efficient than the last. But, with engineers now facing limits to how much further silicon chips can shrink, and ever-increasing demand thanks to the AI boom, chipmakers are having to get creative. What are the technical innovations they hope will keep the world’s AI ambitions on track?Host: Alok Jha, The Economist’s science and technology editor. Contributors: Shailesh Chitnis, The Economist’s global business correspondent; Eric Pop of Stanford University; David Patterson, professor emeritus of the University of California, Berkeley; and The Economist’s Rachana Shanbhogue.Transcripts of our podcasts are available via economist.com/podcasts.Listen to what matters most, from global politics and business to science and technology—subscribe to Economist Podcasts+.For more information about how to access Economist Podcasts+, please visit our FAQs page or watch our video explaining how to link your account.

Seeing, smelling and being in nature can directly improve your physical and mental health. We may know this intuitively but it is now also backed up by an emerging body of scientific  research. What are the benefits of a walk in the woods? Why does the scent from certain trees enhance cancer-fighting cells in the immune system? What does birdsong have to do with pain management? And what exactly are your houseplants doing for your microbiome?Alok Jha, The Economist’s science and technology editor, speaks to Kathy Willis, professor of biodiversity at the University of Oxford and author of “Good Nature: The New Science of How Nature Improves Our Health”.Transcripts of our podcasts are available via economist.com/podcasts.Listen to what matters most, from global politics and business to science and technology—subscribe to Economist Podcasts+.For more information about how to access Economist Podcasts+, please visit our FAQs page or watch our video explaining how to link your account.

Scientists and tech companies are on a quest to build AI with something closer to the general intelligence of humans. Large language models (LLMs), which power the likes of ChatGPT, can seem human-like, but they work in very different ways to the beings that created them. In order to create a superintelligent world, how can modern AI models be improved to make them better at reasoning and understanding the world? Are LLMs the right type of technology to pursue? Or do scientists need to get more creative?This is the final episode in our two-part series on artificial general intelligence. Last week, we sought to define what is a slippery concept. This week: the technological and ethical challenges that need to be solved in building the truly human-like AI models.Host: Alok Jha, The Economist’s science and technology editor. Contributors: Steven Pinker of Harvard University; Gary Marcus, professor emeritus at New York University; Yoshua Bengio of the University of Montréal; and The Economist’s Abby Bertics.Transcripts of our podcasts are available via economist.com/podcasts.Listen to what matters most, from global politics and business to science and technology—subscribe to Economist Podcasts+.For more information about how to access Economist Podcasts+, please visit our FAQs page or watch our video explaining how to link your account.

For those who think about the future of AI, one of the biggest buzzwords is artificial general intelligence, or AGI. Many of the biggest tech companies in the world point to AGI as their ultimate goal when building intelligent machines. But what does that really mean, and how useful is the concept for understanding how AI is progressing? In the first of two episodes, we explore how philosophers and scientists define AGI and what companies are doing to try to build it.Host: Alok Jha, The Economist’s science and technology editor. Contributors: Melanie Mitchell of the Santa Fe Institute; Susan Schneider of Florida Atlantic University; Blaise Aguera y Arcas, CTO of Technology & Society at Google; and The Economist’s Tom Standage, Kenneth Cukier and Abby Bertics.Over the last five weeks, “The Intelligence”, our daily news podcast, has been answering your questions about AI. Go back and listen here.You can find The Economist’s “Schools Brief” series of articles on artificial intelligence here. Transcripts of our podcasts are available via economist.com/podcasts.Listen to what matters most, from global politics and business to science and technology—subscribe to Economist Podcasts+.For more information about how to access Economist Podcasts+, please visit our FAQs page or watch our video explaining how to link your account.

In the early 20th century, sound locators were dreamed up to provide early warning of incoming enemy aircraft. After the invention of radar, the technology was cast aside. But now, innovators in Ukraine have revived the idea of acoustic detection with surprising success. In this episode, we explore the history of the technology and the reasons it has recently proved so effective at helping Ukraine foil Russian aerial attacks. Will other countries follow suit?Host: Kenneth Cukier, The Economist's deputy executive editor. Contributors: Gascia Ouzounian of the University of Oxford; Tom Withington of RUSI; Ben Sutherland of The Economist; Kunal Patel, producer of “Babbage”.Transcripts of our podcasts are available via economist.com/podcasts.Listen to what matters most, from global politics and business to science and technology—subscribe to Economist Podcasts+.For more information about how to access Economist Podcasts+, please visit our FAQs page or watch our video explaining how to link your account.

There are a growing number of hints that the universe might not have evolved in the way that cosmologists thought. If those hints are confirmed by new sky surveys, it might turn out that dark matter and dark energy are more mysterious than anyone ever conceived before. In that case, how should scientists reformulate their standard model of the universe?This is the second of two episodes that explore a looming crisis in cosmology. We examine what cracks in the standard model of cosmology could mean for the quest to understand dark matter and dark energy.Host: Alok Jha, The Economist’s science and technology editor. Contributors: Michael Brown, Nathan Adams, Dan Thomas, Rebecca Bowler and Erik Rosenberg of the University of Manchester; Don Lincoln of Fermilab; Subir Sarkar of the University of Oxford; Nathalie Palanque-Delabrouille of DESI; and Emilie Steinmark, The Economist’s science correspondent. Listen to part one of the series, “Cosmology in crisis, part one: how to build a universe”.To learn more about how physicists are searching for dark matter, listen to our episode “Babbage: The hunt for dark matter”.Transcripts of our podcasts are available via economist.com/podcasts.Listen to what matters most, from global politics and business to science and technology—subscribe to Economist Podcasts+.For more information about how to access Economist Podcasts+, please visit our FAQs page or watch our video explaining how to link your account.

Most of the universe is missing. Only 5% of it is normal matter, which makes up all the people, planets and stars we can see; the other 95% consists of mysterious dark matter and dark energy. Scientists have some hypotheses of what these enigmatic substances might be but recent astronomical observations have posed challenges to their ideas. Even worse, it could mean that there are cracks in the standard model of cosmology, the best scientific description of the universe’s evolution. It’s a nerve-wracking time for cosmologists—is everything they thought they knew about to come crashing down?This is the first of two episodes that explore a looming crisis in cosmology. We examine what scientists understand about the evolution of the universe, and why their best model might be under pressure.Host: Alok Jha, The Economist’s science and technology editor. Contributors: Mark Mcculloch, Michael Brown, Rebecca Bowler and Erik Rosenberg of the University of Manchester; Nathalie Palanque-Delabrouille of DESI and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.To learn more about how physicists are searching for dark matter, listen to our episode “Babbage: The hunt for dark matter”.Transcripts of our podcasts are available via economist.com/podcasts.Listen to what matters most, from global politics and business to science and technology—subscribe to Economist Podcasts+.For more information about how to access Economist Podcasts+, please visit our FAQs page or watch our video explaining how to link your account.

At the Olympics, athletes strive for victory, compete for medals and try to smash records. Behind those Olympic champions are teams of scientists who study every aspect of a sport, looking for anything that can provide an edge over an opponent. What’s the best lane in which to run a 400m race? What’s the best angle to throw a shot put? What’s the fastest object in sport? In this episode, we uncover the hidden mathematics behind sporting success.Alok Jha, The Economist’s science and technology editor, interviews Amandine Aftalion, a professor of applied mathematics at the French National Centre of Scientific Research in Paris and the author of “Be a Champion: 40 Facts You Didn't Know About Sports and Science”.Transcripts of our podcasts are available via economist.com/podcasts.Listen to what matters most, from global politics and business to science and technology—subscribe to Economist Podcasts+.For more information about how to access Economist Podcasts+, please visit our FAQs page or watch our video explaining how to link your account.

In 2010, scientists achieved what had once seemed impossible: they sequenced the genome of a Neanderthal, based on tiny fragments of DNA from ancient bones. It was an astonishing feat that kicked off a new scientific discipline—palaeogenetics—and opened a new window onto the history of life on Earth. In this episode, we explore how scientists are now shedding light not only on ancient people and animals, but on some modern diseases, too. Plus: how the study of ancient DNA could be revolutionised by the recent discovery of “fossil chromosomes”, which allow scientists to peer even further into the past.Host: Alok Jha, The Economist’s science and technology editor. Contributors: Rory Galloway, senior podcast producer and science writer for The Economist; Pontus Skoglund, Frankie Tait, Sarah Johnston and Jérôme Nicod of the Francis Crick Institute in London; and Cynthia Perez Estrada and Erez Aiden of the Baylor College of Medicine.Transcripts of our podcasts are available via economist.com/podcasts.Listen to what matters most, from global politics and business to science and technology—subscribe to Economist Podcasts+.For more information about how to access Economist Podcasts+, please visit our FAQs page or watch our video explaining how to link your account.

In an era of deepfakes and social media, technology is often seen as a threat to democracy. Not everywhere, though. In Taiwan, a more positive relationship between citizens and technology has paved the way for a digital democracy, which aims to encourage greater participation on how the island is run. Audrey Tang, Taiwan’s inaugural digital affairs minister, argues that the island’s system of government offers lessons for liberal democracies everywhere. Can technology and democracy be allies?Alok Jha, The Economist’s science and technology editor, interviews Audrey Tang, author of “Plurality: The Future of Collaborative Technology and Democracy”.Want to learn more about how disinformation works? Listen to our episode of Babbage “Why disinformation is more dangerous than ever”.Transcripts of our podcasts are available via economist.com/podcasts.Listen to what matters most, from global politics and business to science and technology—subscribe to Economist Podcasts+.For more information about how to access Economist Podcasts+, please visit our FAQs page or watch our video explaining how to link your account.

Approximately 150 million children around the world are malnourished to the point of stunting. This has a serious impact not only on their height, but also on the development of their brains. Researchers have found that a poor diet and a lack of stimulation can lead to a loss of around 15 IQ points later in life. But a few cheap and simple things could easily prevent this enormous loss of global brain power.Host: Alok Jha, The Economist’s science and technology editor. Contributors: Tahmeed Ahmed and Tafsir Hasan of the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh; Sarah Cusick of the University of Minnesota; Rasa Izadnegahdar of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation; The Economist’s Robert Guest and Sondre Solstad. Transcripts of our podcasts are available via economist.com/podcasts.Listen to what matters most, from global politics and business to science and technology—subscribe to Economist Podcasts+.For more information about how to access Economist Podcasts+, please visit our FAQs page or watch our video explaining how to link your account.

Spies have always relied on technology to stay one step ahead of their adversaries. In the age of ubiquitous camera surveillance, smartphones and the internet, they now have access to more data and information than ever before. But all that technology is also making other parts of their job harder—staying undercover has become more difficult. How are the tools of the spy trade—and the role of intelligence officers themselves—evolving in the digital age?Host: Alok Jha, The Economist’s science and technology editor. Contributors: Shashank Joshi, The Economist's defence editor; General Sir Jim Hockenhull of Britain’s Strategic Command; Vice Admiral Frank “Trey” Whitworth of America’s National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency; Tanja Lange of Eindhoven University of Technology. Transcripts of our podcasts are available via economist.com/podcasts.Listen to what matters most, from global politics and business to science and technology—subscribe to Economist Podcasts+.For more information about how to access Economist Podcasts+, please visit our FAQs page or watch our video explaining how to link your account.