Futureproof With Jonathan Mccrea

How do you eat an elephant? One spoon at a time, right? Well It's the same with living forever. No one is going to find a magic potion that will make you 20 again but over the years we are slowly, consistently and incrementally improving patient health and preventing diseases associated with ageing. We've nearly doubled life expectancy in just over a century. Doubled! Jonathan caught up with Author and Biomedical Gerontologist Aubrey De Grey at the Inaugural Longevity Summit in Dublin to hear why he thinks the first person to live to 150 has already been born.

A recent Newstalk survey on commuting has found that people are spending longer on their journeys to work since the pandemic. And so all week we’ve been speaking to transport experts, policymakers as well as commuters themselves to hear about the issues being faced on a daily basis as we look to get from A to B. But what does the future hold for commuting and for transport in general? Are the likes of Hyper Loop, Air Taxis, and automated pods a thing of science fiction? Professor Marcus Enoch, a professor of transport strategy at Loughborough University in the UK joins Jonathan to discuss.

You’ve probably seen the likes of '2012' or more recently 'Don’t Look Up' - disaster movies where there’s a race against time to save humanity. Those films also have a common thread: you have a superset of super-rich people looking to buy their way to salvation. Pretty silly stuff, right? But what if we told you those preparations are happening right now, and that there really is no room at the inn for the like of you and me? Douglas Rushkoff is Professor of Media Theory and Digital Economics at the City University of New York, and is the author of over 20 books, the latest of which is called ‘Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires' - he joins Jonathan to discuss.

Sometimes in science, a question can be so hotly debated that attempting to answer it can become a lifetime project. And more often than not these questions are ones that we didn’t even realise were up for debate. In plant biology, the topic getting researchers all hot under the collar at the moment is the question of whether plants can be intelligent or not and this week's guest is just one of the many voices in the debate. Paco Calvo is Principal Investigator in the MINT (Minimal Intelligence) lab at the University of Murcia and co-author of 'Planta Sapiens: Unmasking Plant Intelligence'. He joins Jonathan to discuss.

Steven N. Austad is the Chair and a Distinguished Professor within the UAB Department of Biology and the author of 'Methuselah's Zoo: What Nature Can Teach Us About Living Longer, Healthier Lives'. He joins Jonathan to discuss what we know about longevity in animals, and what they might be able to teach us humans about extending our own lifespans.

When Leo Szilard conceived of the idea of a nuclear chain reaction in 1933 he immediately tried to suppress his own discovery culminating in 1945 with the Szilard petition which advocated a demonstration of the atomic bomb rather than its use in warfare. Szilard knew only too well the awesome destructive power of what he had discovered and knowing what we do about what happened next, what then should we make of the field of genetic engineering, a field of research that has instigated a self-imposed moratorium on four separate occasions in the last 50 years? Professor Matthew Cobb from the University of Manchester is author of 'The Genetic Age: Our Perilous Quest To Edit Life' - he joins Jonathan to discuss.

Prof. Lee Cronin, Regius Chair of Chemistry in the School of Chemistry at the University of Glasgow joins Jonathan to discuss working on taking the guesswork out of creating the pharmaceuticals that we depend on through the use and development of 'Chemputers', a new method that is capable of reliably synthesising organic chemicals.

Language is fundamental to who we are and what has makes us so successful as a species, and while all species have their own means of communicating, we are the only ones that seem to have mastered it. But where did this ability to share complex ideas using sound come from? And what effect has it had on our development? In this Futureproof special, Jonathan looks to unravel questions about the evolution of language, the impact it has on our brain, and how we might communicate with extraterrestrials if we were to encounter them. - Mark Pagel, Professor in the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Reading - Lera Boroditsky, Associate Professor of Cognitive Science at UCSD and author of '7,000 Universes: How the Languages We Speak Shape the Way We Think' - Daniel Oberhaus, writer with 'Wired' and author of 'Extraterrestrial Languages'

Prader-Willi syndrome (PWS) is a genetic disorder that occurs in approximately one out of every 15,000 births. It affects males and females with equal frequency and affects all races and ethnicities and is recognized as one of the most common genetic causes of life-threatening childhood obesity. To discuss this disorder and what can be done to help people living with it, Jonathan is joined now by Dr. Tony Holland, Professor Emeritus at the University of Cambridge, UK & President of the International Prader-Willi Syndrome Organisation.

Most of us could probably put together a list of things we find attractive in a potential partner and a lot of those things will likely come down to our personality or the cultural environment. But what about that initial, almost unconscious, spark of attraction? What causes that and does it have any real impact on whether a relationship with that person will stand the test of time? Paul Eastwick is a Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of California, Davis, and Head of the Attraction and Relationships Research Laboratory - he joins Jonathan to discuss.

There has been a lot said about the extinction of the dinosaurs. But aside from the actual extinction event itself, when it comes to the days, weeks, months, and years immediately following it well, not so much. So, how exactly did any species survive it, and why those specific species? Riley Black is a freelance science writer specializing in evolution, paleontology, and natural history, and the author of ‘The Last Days of the Dinosaurs: An Asteroid, Extinction and the Beginning of Our World’ - She joins Jonathan to discuss.

In years gone by, if a bee was annoying you, it was usually "bye-bye Mr. Bee" but nowadays, we’re more likely to put out plates of sugary water to help them on their way as in recent years our appreciation for these incredible insects has grown, our understanding of their importance more rounded. But just how intelligent are they? Lars Chittka, Professor in Sensory and Behavioural Ecology at Queen Mary University of London and author of 'The Mind of a Bee' joins Jonathan to discuss.

Jurassic Park came out in 1993, then "Dolly" the sheep was cloned in 1996, and yet here we are more than two decades later and we still haven’t got a dinosaur theme park. So, what’s the hold-up? Well aside from the many significant ethical issues, the scientific challenges are huge and one in particular that adversely affects much more reasonable de-extinction projects is the simple fact that right now we can’t clone birds or dinosaurs for that matter. Why? Ben Novak is Lead Scientist with Revive & Restore, he joins Jonathan to discuss.

While you may be King or Queen of your local park run, no matter how much training you do, even if you were to use performance-enhancing drugs, you'll still never outrun the likes of the common house cat. So, what are the determining factors when it comes to the top speed that can be achieved by animals? Michael Gunther is a Researcher in Biomechanics at the University of Stuttgart, he joins Jonathan to discuss. Dr. Shane Bergin & Dr. Lara Dungan also join Jonathan for this week's installment of Newsround.

Have you ever seen a ghost, or a UFO, or had some seemingly supernatural experience that you can’t explain? If you haven’t, we'd be willing to bet you probably know someone who has. These experiences are fairly common across cultures and they can’t all be the work of hoaxers and charlatans. So what’s going on? Chris French is Emeritus Professor of Psychology in the Anomalistic Psychology Research Unit at the Goldsmiths University of London. He joins Jonathan to discuss.

If you are a pet owner you probably have plenty of experience trying to get a basic message across to your dog or perhaps if you own a cat you gave up on that hope years ago. Yet many of us have had that momentary glimpse of understanding; that sense that we could communicate if we just worked at it. But is animal translation actually possible? Diana Reiss is a Co-Founder of the Interspecies Internet and Professor in the Department of Psychology at Hunter College. She joins Jonathan to discuss. Dr. Lara Dungan & Dr. Shane Bergin also join Jonathan for Newsround.

Dr. Julia Shaw, a psychological scientist at University College London and the author of ‘Bi: The Hidden Culture, History, and Science of Bisexuality’ joins Jonathan to discuss her work in uncovering the many surprising truths behind sexual orientation and bisexuality as a whole.

For us humans, our overall sensory capabilities - the scope of our sense of smell, our sight, our hearing, and touch - feels all-encompassing, like there’s nothing more that we could possibly conceive of that would change how we experience the world around us. But that’s dead wrong. And this is an illusion that we share with every animal and insect in the world. But what we might humans lack in one area of perception, another animal or insect might excel. So, what are we missing? Ed Yond, science journalist and author of ‘An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us’ joins Jonathan to discuss. Dr. Ruth Freeman, Director of Strategy and Communications at Science Foundation Ireland & Dr. Shane Bergin, Physicist and Assistant Professor in Science Education at UCD also joined Jonathan for this week's episode of Newsround.

We have a complex relationship with psychedelics. To some, they can be gateways to a higher level of consciousness, to others, a poison that should be stamped out. Regardless of where you stand though, the fact that our brains are capable of creating these fluid, dynamic, altered states of perception seemingly on their own is pretty cool. But can these experiences be created with light flashes instead of chemicals? And if so, what might we learn from them? Fiona Macpherson, Professor of Philosophy, and Director of the Centre for the Study of Perceptual Experience at the University of Glasgow and a part of the creative team behind The Dream Machine joins Jonathan to discuss.

The biggest story this week was the release of some absolutely spectacular views of the cosmos from the James Webb Space Telescope, which include the deepest infrared view of our universe that has ever been taken. Joining Jonathan to discuss this incredible achievement is one Irish person who has been involved in the project for two decades, Professor Tom Ray, Director of the School of Cosmic Physics at the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies.