Technically Speaking | a science and engineering discussion

What is the future of driving?

Trends show that an increasing number of people would prefer to drive cars with an automatic gear box. Is that because they're better to drive or because everyone will be driving electric cars which don't tend to need to change gears? Laura, Rwayda and Antonia discuss current advances in car technology, share their own experience of driving, and speculate about what the future might hold. Will we all be using flying cars in the future? What about self driving cars? And why do cars even need gearboxes anyway?

Want to learn more about electric motors and internal combusion engines? Read on to learn about how they work, what the gears really do for a car with an internal combusion engine, and why torque is so important.

What is cryptocurrency?

You hear a lot about it, but what is cryptocurrency, how do you get hold of it and what's it useful for? Laura finds out from Aneeqa and Jennifer what things like blockchain and mining bitcoin are about and how you can own a non-fungible token (NFT). They also discuss whether this decentralised currency is sustainable or if its all really a pyramid scheme.

Read more about this in Laura's article.

Is science or engineering better?

Ever thought about changing your career path? Are you just starting your career journey? Wondering what the difference is between science and engineering? Antonia, Rwayda and Ellie talk about their careers in these different disciplines, how they got started and whether they've changed their mind about what they want to do. They share the highs and lows of exam results days and how they recovered from what seemed, at the time, to be a setback.

Recorded with a live audience from the Engineering Development Trust's Insight into University programme, this discussion definitely was not biased towards the host's own disciplines. Ellie does a great job of flying the flag for science while Antonia explains how her engineering experience helps her as a consultant in the energy industry and Rwayda reveals a childhood passion for architecture that led her to civil engineering.

Is space travel worth it?

With the expense of the James Webb Space Telescope and the ever worrying climate emergency, we're wondering what the benefit of space travel and space exploration is. Ellie, Antonia, Laura and Emma discuss this from the point of view of climate science, discovery, collaboration, what inspired us to become scientists, and space tourism. We talk about what the future might hold. What would you do if you were in charge of a planet's space programme?

Read a summary of this episode here.

Can we learn from the hunting strategies of animals?

We're finding out more about the natural world all the time! Laura, Ellie and Aneeqa are joined by Katya from Drunk on Porpoise to talk about hunting strategies used by animals, how zoologists have discovered these strategies, and how we could use this knowledge to engineer a better world. 

Technical Short: Sustainability

A stripped down version of our episode 'what is sustainability?' that provides a clear explanation of the topic without any of the distractions.

Technical Short: Electrocution and energy harvesting

Our research for the episode on a house that stores electricity involved some kinda weird-yet-strangely-compelling conversation and we've pulled the best bits together! Antonia and Chris discuss many reasons why a cement-based battery is safe to handle, review research into wearable devices and energy harvesting, and question what the future might hold.

Can you build a house that stores electricity?

A recent discovery got the team speculating about the future. Laura, Antonia and Rwayda take a look at research where cement is made to store electricity and wonder whether this material could be used to build our future homes. How much electricity can it store and what can it power? Is there a futuristic way of using that power without the need for cables? What's next for this laboratory discovery?

Read about this episode here.

What is sustainability?

It's a buzzword that comes up a lot in food, transport, energy, and other industries. Laura and Antonia discuss what sustainability means and why its not so easy to decide whether something really is sustainable. Although some aspects of sustainability can be measured, others are more of a philosophy which depend on the society and environment you're working in. The team digs into a real-life example that compares digital books to printed ones to illustrate how challenging it is to demonstrate sustainability.

This special episode might also have a record number of references to previous episodes. How many can you spot?

read a short summary of this episode here.

Are there any benefits of ionising radiation?

Radiation is all around us; we're all slightly radioactive! Ellie, Emma S, Laura and Priyanka talk about how radiation is used in medicine to treat cancer and how the body can repair damage to healthy cells. They also discuss how it's used in materials science, how it can help control mosquito populations and preserve food. Some wild speculation also considers how we could all become X-men and develop useful characteristics of animals.

Read about some specific examples of radiation in medicine.