Technically Speaking | a science and engineering discussion

How successful are human interventions for helping wildlife?

Everything humanity does has an impact on the natural world, but we’re also highly dependent on it. Laura, Ellie and Jasmin discuss how panda populations have declined and then improved, the work of zoos, instances of adapting nature to live with us, and how research is uncovering complex way that wildlife, farming, fishing and garden birds interact with us.

Here’s the study that Ellie mentions about artificial reefs dramatically improving marine species numbers.

Read news of some specific studies into how feeders affect garden birds and statics on UK bird populations, both mentioned by Laura

Read news about squirrel train travel and contraception mentioned by Laura.

Should we mine the Moon?

Could mining on the Moon become a future industry? Ellie and Jasmin hold a "Dragons Den" style discussion in which the pros and cons and of course the financial details of what it would take to set up a Moon mining operation are discussed. They take a look at private space as it looks today and consider the legal implications. They even explore whether the mining practices could be expanded to other planets and asteroids in Solar System.

What are forever chemicals?

They come up in some surprising places and movies have been made about them but why should we care? Antonia, Jasmin, Laura and Soo-Mei talk about a type of forever chemical called PFAS, discuss the important aspect of their chemistry, talk about the environmental and health impacts, and make a decision about actions they will take.

What counts as a new invention?

Technology has changed a lot, but does it make our lives better? Ellie, Laura and Antonia discuss the differences between invention, product development and scientific discovery. They take a look at some technology we use today including the internet, music platforms, air conditioning and sewing machines. They also speculate about what we might have in the future based on current scientific discoveries including a tiny gallium person that can melt though bars (watch the video here), semi-transparent photovoltaic cells that could be used in windows while also generating electricity, and fundamental work using giant lasers to look at tiny crystal structures.

Antonia mentioned Simone Giertz video about why she spent three years working on a coat hanger.

This episode was recorded in front of a live audience from the Engineering Development Trust's Insight into University programme.

How do you get to be a gold-medal-winning athlete?

The Paris Olympic Games are well underway so of course we have questions! Ellie, Antonia and Jasmin debate whether skill or physical ability is more important and consider whether equipment, psychology, or other factors affect them.

Read more:

• Here’s the blog Antonia mentions about gymnasts getting older
• A research article about the perfect age to compete
• Jasmin’s guide to shoes for track and field
• A news article based on research that controversially showed spikes on athletic shoes make runners faster
• More research-based news: sleeping-in compared to early-bird athletes
• A BBC blog about what makes Michael Phelps so special
• Altitude training tips from wordathletics.org
• The differences between track and road bikes
• A BBC news article about banned marathon running shoes

Would you make friends with a shark?

They get a bad rap in the movies but just how dangerous are they really? Laura, Ellie and Jasmin compare human-shark interactions to other – seemingly less dangerous – activities, and talk about shark behaviour as well as their senses and evolutionary history to figure out their tactics for swimming with sharks.

Read more:

• London’s Natural History Museum for a selection of sharkey facts
• NOAA fisheries for some more fun facts
• The Australian Institute of Marine Science for data on shark attacks and deaths by falling coconuts
• News from the BBC on cocaine sharks
• Statistics from Florida museum about sharks attacking people
• News from the Smithsonian about sharks being scared of orcas
• News from IFL Science about sharks making friends

What's the latest medical research into fungus?

Did you know you have fungi living in your gut? Ellie and Laura share recent improvement in anti-fungal drugs, the relatively new discovery that fungi are found in many types of cancer and speculate on what this might mean for future cancer therapies. They also consider their own experiences with fungus and how they can bias a person's point of view.

Ellie mentions a book in relation to how fungi in the gut affect mental health: The Immune Mind by Dr. Monty Lyman.

Read more about antifungal drugs as well as fungi in cancer:

• The podcast episode from the journal, Nature, which provides a transcript and excellent summary of antifungal drug development
• A news story in The Guardian about lethal fungal infections
• Well known research about fungi and pancreatic cancer from 2019
• Research from 2022 which surveyed 35 different types of cancer and found evidence of fungi in all of them
• Research from 2023 that replicated the study from 2019 but found no evidence of fungi causing cancer
• An in-depth summary from BBC Future about the effects of bacteria and fungi in cancer

What's exciting about hydrogen?

As the world tries to wean itself of fossil fuels, alternative ways of producing and storing energy are being developed. Antonia, Jasmin and Sophie talk about how hydrogen can be used to store energy, different ways it can be created, how developed the technology is, and what hydrogen is currently used for.

Is it easy to recover from an apocalypse-style event?

Ever wondered what society would look like if we lose our entire infrastructure? Antonia, Jasmin and Ellie discuss how they might survive based on their own science and engineering knowledge combined with inspiration from film and TV. They discuss movies such as Water World, consider where they would look for information if the internet were affected, and examine how global society could be rebuilt in the absence of modern infrastructure that many of us take for granted. It turns out there isn’t a lot of science or engineering to learn from fiction so, perhaps consider this a review of how not to rebuild society.

Are metals vital for modern life?

Do you ever think about how technology like your smartphone has improved with time and wonder how science made it happen? In this episode with an audience from the Engineering Development Trust, Antonia, Laura and Jasmin talk about metals needed in clean energy technology as well other technologies such as hard disk drives and display screens. They debate whether we're replacing fossil fuels with other finite resources and consider efforts to start mining on the moon.

Antonia refers to a report from the International Energy Agency. Laura mentions critical elements identified by the American Chemical Society and by Birmingham University.

Read more about ruthenium used to increase data storage density at Science Daily, Tanaka Precious Metals and a metals trading company. For other uses, see Johnson Matthey's excellent overview,

For uses of indium, see the Royal Society of Chemistry, an overview from a coatings company, and research published in the journals ACS Nano and Nature Electronics.

To find out more about yttrium, read research published in the journal Nanoscale Advances.