Podcasts · Science · Technology

Instant Genius

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300 episodes

Whether you’re curious about getting healthy, the Big Bang or the science of cooking, find out everything you need to know with Instant Genius. The team behind BBC Science Focus Magazine talk to world-leading experts to bring you two bite-sized masterclasses on a new subject each week.

More about the show

New episodes are released every Monday and Friday and you can subscribe to Instant Genius on Apple Podcasts to access all new episodes ad-free and all old episodes of Instant Genius Extra.

Watch full episodes of Instant Genius on BBC Science Focus Magazine's YouTube channel.

Follow us on X: @SFIGPod

Episodes page 1 of 6

  1. Why our online lives are making us sick and how to fix it

    · 38 min · S1 E493

    Over the last decade or so, it’s become abundantly clear that eating a diet based on ultra-processed food is damaging to our bodily health. Could it be that our information diets, the deluge of content we consume…

  2. Why tuning into your body’s natural rhythms is the key to productivity

    · 43 min · S1 E492

    Sometimes, no matter how busy we are or how hard we work, when we look back on our day, it can seem like we didn’t really achieve very much. Why is this and what can we do to make more effective use of our time? Could…

  3. How maths underpins almost every aspect of our lives

    · 35 min · S1 E491

    For many of us, maths is simply a subject we studied at school to help us learn how to count, add one thing to another, and carry out everyday tasks such as managing our personal finances. But if we look more deeply,…

  4. Why bogs are one of the planet’s most undervalued ecosystems

    · 34 min · S1 E490

    For those of us who live in towns and cities, bogs may seem to be a rare environmental relic left over from times gone by, or perhaps something we’ve only encountered onscreen in spooky fantasy movies. The fact is that…

  5. Why leaves are one of nature’s most versatile creations

    · 35 min · S1 E489

    From the neatly curated English country garden to the wild jungles of the Amazon, the Earth is host to a staggeringly diverse range of plant life. One of the key reasons for the great evolutionary success of plants is…

  6. How to make buildings without harming the Earth

    · 33 min · S1 E488

    Every built environment we spend our time in, our homes, offices, music venues or sports stadiums – is designed and constructed after hours of consideration about form and function. Oftentimes, less consideration is…

  7. Why humans are wired to appreciate beauty

    · 39 min · S1 E487

    A late summer sunset, a peaceful, verdant forest, or a Shakespearean sonnet – these are all things that move us emotionally thanks to what we perceive as their beauty. But why is this so, why do environments, art,…

  8. How safety engineers test everyday products to destruction

    · 41 min · S1 E486

    Whenever we buy a new product or use a service, we simply expect it to work as advertised, usually without giving much thought to how it came to being in the first place. However, behind the scenes, every piece of…

  9. Why we need to be taking asthma more seriously

    · 26 min · S1 E485

    Currently, around one in ten of us are living with asthma. For many, the symptoms can be relatively mild, but for others, attacks can be severe, debilitating, and even life-threatening. For the most part, we’ve relied…

  10. What our evolutionary history can teach us about eating well

    · 34 min · S1 E484

    These days, supermarket shelves are filled with thousands of different products all vying for our attention; the options are almost endless. However, if we look back in time, we find that our early ancestors simply ate…

  11. Why Smell is Our Most Overlooked Sense

    · 27 min · S1 E483

    Though often thought of as the poor cousin to our other senses, our sense of smell has played a key role in human life since its very beginnings. It helps us to determine whether certain foods are safe to eat, protects…

  12. Are We Living in a Simulation? How to Tell If Reality Is Fake

    · 36 min · S1 E482

    The possibility that we may be living in a simulation created by a more technologically advanced civilisation has occupied the minds of scientists, philosophers and fiction writers for decades. We may never be able to…

  13. Why we need to rethink our ideas about laziness

    · 30 min · S1 E481

    Often in life, we find ourselves being accused of being lazy or accusing others of acting lazily, or maybe even becoming frustrated by what we see as laziness in our own actions. But what do we really mean by the term…

  14. Why interpersonal conflict is a natural, healthy part of life

    · 35 min · S1 E480

    No matter how gently or politely we live our lives, at one point or another, it’s inevitable that we’ll find ourselves in a situation in which we disagree with another person and find ourselves having to defend our…

  15. The hidden reasons common knowledge shapes our lives

    · 31 min · S1 E479

    When we know a certain fact about the world or hold a certain belief how do we know that others also know this, how do we base our thoughts and actions on our knowledge of what we assume others know, and what impact…

  16. Why understanding how time works is the biggest mystery in science

    · 30 min · S1 E478

    When most of us think about time our minds likely turn to thoughts of the second hand that ticks around a clock, or maybe the occasions we’ve been late to catch a bus. But if we stop to think about what time actually…

  17. How forensic scientists gather vital evidence to solve crimes

    · 26 min · S1 E477

    Whenever a crime is committed, tiny traces of evidence are left behind at the scene, which, if pieced together correctly, can tell us exactly what happened, when it happened and who was responsible. This is the job of…

  18. Why the most extreme El Niño event for a century is on its way

    · 27 min · S1 E476

    Every several years, the surface temperatures of the Pacific Ocean rise, triggering a climate event that has a domino effect on weather patterns across the globe. This is known as El Niño – and this year,…

  19. The secret world hidden in the ground below us

    · 37 min · S1 E475

    Though we’re often not aware of it, the ground beneath our feet is teeming with an abundance of life and activity – from the complex networks of fungi and tangled roots put down deep into the Earth by the plants that…

  20. The truth about the Nazi fascination with alternative medicine

    · 25 min · S1 E474

    It’s widely documented that during the time of the Third Reich, the Nazi Party employed a legion of scientists to aid them in their goals of military superiority and ethnic cleansing – particularly in their pursuit of…

  21. What we’re getting wrong about narcissists

    · 28 min · S1 E473

    Oftentimes in popular culture we’ll hear the term narcissist used to describe a person who has an inflated opinion of themselves, a big ego or someone who tends to overestimate their own abilities. However, in…

  22. The latest breakthroughs in Parkinson’s research

    · 29 min · S1 E472

    Parkinson’s disease currently affects more than 160,000 people in the UK. It’s a complex, progressive condition that typically develops slowly over many years and causes issues with movement, balance, and quality of…

  23. How to harness your brain’s underused superpowers

    · 35 min · S1 E471

    For a large proportion of our lives, our brains seemingly work on autopilot – the many processes the brain controls hum away behind the scenes, helping us to carry out our daily tasks. But in certain scenarios, our…

  24. How we define intelligent life

    · 29 min · S1 E470

    What does it mean to be a living organism? What are the driving forces that motivate our thoughts and actions? Are we all simply acting the way we do thanks to the instructions built into our genes and our automatic…

  25. Exploring Darwin’s ideas through a queer lens

    · 36 min · S1 E469

    When Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species in the mid-nineteenth century, his theory of evolution by natural selection turned many of the scientific ideas of the day on their heads. The influence of the…

  26. On the frontlines of our fight against dementia

    · 30 min · S1 E468

    Currently there are around one million people in the UK living with dementia. Despite significant advances in our understanding of the disease over the past several decades an effective cure is yet to be found.…

  27. Why the search for life on Mars is far from over

    · 34 min · S1 E467

    Way back in 1976, NASA’s Viking landers touched down on Mars to search for potential signs of microbial life that could currently exist on the planet’s surface. Despite the mission making a number of promising…

  28. Why rediscovering simple pleasures may be the key to happiness

    · 33 min · S1 E466

    Every single day of our lives, we’re exposed to a vast multitude of experiences and interactions with the various people, objects and technologies in the wider world that surrounds us. The chances are that many of us…

  29. Why human urine may be our most untapped natural resource

    · 27 min · S1 E465

    While largely viewed as a toxic waste product with no practical use, our urine is actually rich in all manner of valuable nutrients that, with a little effort, can be extracted, recycled and converted into fertiliser…

  30. How new technology can change our emotional lives for the better

    · 29 min · S1 E464

    It’s clear to all of us that the rapid progress that technology has made over the last century or so has had profound impacts on almost every aspect of our lives. But often, the impact on our emotional well-being…

  31. The birth, evolution and future of microchips

    · 30 min · S1 E463

    It’s a good bet that if most of us were to glance around our living rooms or offices, we’d quickly spot all manner of electronic devices that are powered by microchips. Since their introduction in the 1950s, chips have…

  32. What we can learn from music’s ability to evoke images in our minds

    · 26 min · S1 E462

    For most of us, music has a unique, almost supernatural, ability to trigger our emotions and memories and conjure up evocative images or even fantasies in our minds in a way that few other experiences or art forms can.…

  33. Why the liver is the body’s most misunderstood organ

    · 31 min · S1 E461

    Most of us think about the liver as simply being the body’s filtration system that acts as a sponge that removes toxins from our bloodstreams. But the truth is it performs many more functions that are vital for our…

  34. Why this common women’s health condition is so misunderstood

    · 42 min · S1 E460

    Despite affecting as many as 80 per cent of women by the age of 50, fibroids, lumps of tissue that grow in or around the womb, are not commonly discussed outside of specialist doctors’ offices. However, they can cause…

  35. The miraculous healing ability of our brains

    · 35 min · S1 E459

    It was previously thought that once our brains suffer an injury due to stroke or trauma, the potential for recovery was severely limited. But recent developments in medicine have proven that this isn’t the case; our…

  36. How parasites play a vital role as caretakers of Earth’s ecosystems

    · 41 min · S1 E458

    When most of us think of parasites, our minds will likely turn to thoughts of the various icky creatures that can invade our bodies, make their homes there and end up making us ill. But the truth is that parasites make…

  37. How to keep your body younger for longer

    · 31 min · S1 E457

    When it comes to the effects of ageing on our bodies, there are many more factors at play than simply the number of years we’ve been alive. It turns out, that for some people, there is a huge gap between their…

  38. Why wasps are one of the planet’s most misunderstood insects

    · 31 min · S1 E456

    The truth is, when most of us think of wasps, our minds will likely go to memories of irritating winged pests landing in our drinks when we’re trying to have a nice summer picnic or perhaps one of the times we got a…

  39. Why you probably don’t need to be taking dietary supplements

    · 32 min · S1 E455

    These days the supplement industry is booming – supermarket shelves are stacked high with all manner of pills and powders claiming to do everything from helping us to live longer or improving our digestive health to…

  40. Why this tiny organism is essential for the health of the planet

    · 36 min · S1 E454

    Although it often goes unnoticed, plankton is the most abundant form of life in Earth’s oceans, making up 95 per cent of all oceanic biomass. These tiny organisms are responsible for generating around half of the…

  41. What happens in our bodies when our hormones misfire

    · 32 min · S1 E453

    Every minute of every day, our bodies are flooded with a complex web of hormones – chemical messengers that travel through the bloodstream, coordinating everything from our blood pressure, body temperature, metabolic…

  42. What we can learn about parenting from the animal kingdom

    · 28 min · S1 E452

    Becoming a parent is undoubtedly one of the biggest events that can occur in any of our lifetimes – suddenly we have a tiny living being to take care of that demands the majority of our thoughts, time and attention. Of…

  43. Don’t miss the upcoming Nature’s Unsung Heroes miniseries!

    · 0:46 · Trailer

    While the larger, more impressive or charismatic animal and plant species often receive the most attention, the natural world is filled with lesser-known or even misunderstood organisms without which life on planet…

  44. Why bisexuality is everywhere

    · 34 min · S1 E451

    In June of every year, the LGBTQ+ community across the world comes together to celebrate Pride Month – an annual event that began in 1970 to promote awareness, visibility and equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual,…

  45. The past, present and future of DNA science

    · 35 min · S1 E450

    Whether it’s the swab tests many of us use to help us piece together our family trees, the painstaking detective work carried out by forensic scientists, or its use in medical screening to look for signs of our…

  46. Why ecoacoustics is the future of conservation

    · 26 min · S1 E449

    Traditionally, ecologists wanting to take stock of the diversity, health and population levels of animal species within a given environment have needed to tie on their boots, get out in the field and painstakingly…

  47. Unlocking the invisible rainbows of the Universe

    · 41 min · S1 E448

    Our world may look vibrant and full of color. But in reality, our human eyes are only picking up the tiniest slice of all the light shining in the Universe. To astronomers this hidden light is just as important as the…

  48. Why birdsong is the pop music of the natural world

    · 25 min · S1 E447

    When it comes to the sounds we encounter in the natural world, few have the beauty, elegance and variety of birdsong. But these distinctive vocalisations are not simply static calls that are common to all birds of a…

  49. Why walking more is the best thing you can do to boost your health

    · 32 min · S1 E446

    Over thousands of years, human beings evolved to walk upright on two legs, efficiently and over long distances. But these days, thanks to changes in our lifestyles, we’re becoming more sedentary than ever, and this is…

  50. How ultrasound tech could save hedgehogs

    · 36 min · S1 E445

    Hedgehogs are in decline all over Europe. These prickly little fellas are faced with so many threats – in their rural habitats, in our gardens, and on our roads. But new research about hedgehog hearing could help us…

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