Futureproof Extra

Now, when you lay your heads down to sleep at night, you might do so with the lingering hope that you’ll have sweet, and pleasant dreams. But so often dreams are bizarre and non-sensical,  but why do we do it? What is it that causes us to hallucinate while unconscious? Is it some sort of biological inheritance that serves no function or are we being trained by our minds to expect anomaly and change? Erik Hoel is a neuroscientist, neuro-philosopher and author of the novel ‘The Revelations’. He joined Jonathan to discuss Dreams and how they are more than simply images that accost us when we go to sleep. He argues that dreams serve a much more important purpose than they have previously been credited with, not so much random images and scenarios but something else entirely. Listen and subscribe to Futureproof with Jonathan McCrea on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.    Download, listen and subscribe on the Newstalk App.     You can also listen to Newstalk live on newstalk.com or on Alexa, by adding the Newstalk skill and asking: 'Alexa, play Newstalk'. Photo by Merlin lightpainting from Pexels

What if we managed cancer treatment like a chronic disease? Bob A. Gatenby, chairman of the Department of Radiology at H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center and Co-Director of the Cancer Biology and Evolution Program is on the program to discuss his work and a different approach to treating cancer.

How can something be in two places at once? How can objects in completely different locations affect each other instantaneously? These are just some of the questions that quantum physicists must try to answer? And indeed, many have tried! So what conclusions have they arrived at? Jonathan asks Visiting Fellow in Astronomy at the University of Sussex and Author of Six Impossible Things, John Gribbin for some answers.

Medical science is one of our greatest accomplishments as a species. The ability to fight disease and infection is perhaps one of the primary reasons we have managed not just to survive but to flourish. But what if the ability to combat disease was not just one we humans had? What if insects could do the same? Jonathan is joined by Jaap de Roode, Associate Professor of Biology at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia to discuss his work on Monarch butterflies and what we can learn from these small but fascinating creatures.