The Rest Is Science

Does your native language physically sculpt your face? And could a swarm of bees be trained to run computer code?

Two of your questions answer in this Field Notes with Professor Hannah Fry and YouTube's Michael Stevens, plus Michael’s object of the week is a visualization of the Holocene Calendar. By simply adding ten thousand years to our current year, it transforms our perception of history from a brief modern blip into an unbroken, monumental narrative of human progress.

Check out the calendar here

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For more information about Cancer Research UK, their research, breakthroughs and how you can support them, visit ⁠⁠⁠https://cancerresearchuk.org/restisscience⁠⁠⁠

Cancer Research UK is a registered charity in England and Wales (1089464), Scotland (SC041666), the Isle of Man (1103) and Jersey (247). A company limited by guarantee. Registered company in England and Wales (4325234) and the Isle of Man (5713F). Registered address: 2 Redman Place, London, E20 1JQ.

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Find The Rest Is Science all over the internet by ⁠⁠clicking ⁠here⁠.⁠⁠

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Video Producer: Adam Thornton + Oli Oakley

Video & Social: Bex Tyrrell

Assistant Producer: Imee Marriott

Senior Producer: Lauren Armstrong-Carter

Head Of Digital: Samuel Oakley

Exec Producer: Neil Fearn
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Humans have split the atom, we can stream movies from space and are working towards everlasting life. 


So why in the world are we still spending a third of our lives unconscious?

In this episode of The Rest Is Science, Hannah Fry and Michael Stevens ask a deceptively simple question: Can human beings cure sleep? Why do evolutionary forces cause us to lie helpless for eight hours a night when predators might lurk? Why can elephants survive on two hours but bats basically exist to nap? And what really happens inside human bodies when we try to cheat this essential system?

From WWII amphetamines to witch trial torture tactics, fatal insomnia to the strange possibility that dreams are just your brain…shivering, this episode explores the biology, history, and weirdness of unconscious human sleep.

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For more information about Cancer Research UK, their research, breakthroughs and how you can support them, visit ⁠⁠https://cancerresearchuk.org/restisscience⁠⁠

Cancer Research UK is a registered charity in England and Wales (1089464), Scotland (SC041666), the Isle of Man (1103) and Jersey (247). A company limited by guarantee. Registered company in England and Wales (4325234) and the Isle of Man (5713F). Registered address: 2 Redman Place, London, E20 1JQ.

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Find The Rest Is Science all over the internet by ⁠⁠clicking here.⁠⁠

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Video Producer: Adam Thornton + Oli Oakley

Video & Social: Bex Tyrrell

Researcher: Sophia Constantinou

Assistant Producer: Imee Marriott

Senior Producer: Lauren Armstrong-Carter

Head Of Digital: Samuel Oakley

Exec Producer: Neil Fearn
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Rockets are built to slice cleanly through the atmosphere on the way up. Coming home, it turns out, requires... not turning into a fireball before a bellyflop

When Space Shuttles reenter Earth’s atmosphere at 17,000 miles per hour, they don’t dive nose first. Instead they turn broadside to the atmosphere, deliberately creating more drag, more friction, more heat. At those speeds, oncoming air compresses into a shockwave hotter than molten lava.

In this episode of Field Notes, Professor Hannah Fry and Michael Stevens explore the strange physics of coming home. Why is leaving Earth easier than returning to it? And what does a small, almost empty black tile reveal about the problem of meeting the world at 17,000 miles per hour?

Along the way, they revisit controversial experiments in human fear, calculate which superhero power would bankrupt you in calories, and reflect on the thin boundary between surface and survival.

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For more information about Cancer Research UK, their research, breakthroughs and how you can support them, visit ⁠⁠https://cancerresearchuk.org/restisscience⁠⁠

Cancer Research UK is a registered charity in England and Wales (1089464), Scotland (SC041666), the Isle of Man (1103) and Jersey (247). A company limited by guarantee. Registered company in England and Wales (4325234) and the Isle of Man (5713F). Registered address: 2 Redman Place, London, E20 1JQ.

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Find The Rest Is Science all over the internet by ⁠⁠clicking here.⁠⁠

-------------------

Video Producer: Adam Thornton + Oli Oakley

Video & Social: Bex Tyrrell

Assistant Producer: Imee Marriott

Senior Producer: Lauren Armstrong-Carter

Head Of Digital: Samuel Oakley

Exec Producer: Neil Fearn
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If someone asked you to point to yourself, where would you point? Your chest? Your head? Somewhere just behind your eyes?

Where are you?

In this episode, Professor Hannah Fry and VSauce’s Michael Stevens explore how the brain maps and understands out location, from the inner ear fluid that tells us which way is up, to the grid and place cells that build a kind of internal GPS.

But how do London taxi drivers rewire their brains to memorise entire cities when the rest of us can’t? How does language change the way we orient in space? And what happens when your senses disagree about your where in the world you are?

Moving from avalanches and virtual reality to ancient philosophy and modern neuroscience, Hannah and Michael move from how to find ourselves on a map to how locating the “self” inside the body may be one of the deepest mysteries in science.

Why did Aristotle believe the self lived in the heart instead of the head? If we’re asked to find the self where do we point? What does it mean to say that you are somewhere…at all?

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For more information about Cancer Research UK, their research, breakthroughs and how you can support them, visit ⁠⁠https://cancerresearchuk.org/restisscience⁠⁠.

Cancer Research UK is a registered charity in England and Wales (1089464), Scotland (SC041666), the Isle of Man (1103) and Jersey (247). A company limited by guarantee. Registered company in England and Wales (4325234) and the Isle of Man (5713F). Registered address: 2 Redman Place, London, E20 1JQ.

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Find The Rest Is Science all over the internet by ⁠⁠clicking here.⁠⁠

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Video Producer: Adam Thornton + Oli Oakley

Video & Social: Bex Tyrrell

Researcher: Hannah Dodd-Vastiau

Assistant Producer: Imee Marriott

Senior Producer: Lauren Armstrong-Carter

Head Of Digital: Samuel Oakley

Exec Producer: Neil Fearn
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

At what exact chemical ratio does our beloved chocolate devolve into a mere structure of fats and sugars? How far can you dilute chocolate before its fundamental identity vanishes?

And what could a comically tiny novelty stool possibly reveal about Michael Stevens?

Unlike a block of pure iron or a vial of chlorine, chocolate is not one single substance but a complex and heterogeneous mixture we all take for granted. Hannah and Michael explore the chemistry and nutritional boundaries of this everyday treat.

Where does the stool come in? You'll have to listen to find out.

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For more information about Cancer Research UK, their research, breakthroughs and how you can support them, visit ⁠⁠https://cancerresearchuk.org/restisscience⁠⁠

Cancer Research UK is a registered charity in England and Wales (1089464), Scotland (SC041666), the Isle of Man (1103) and Jersey (247). A company limited by guarantee. Registered company in England and Wales (4325234) and the Isle of Man (5713F). Registered address: 2 Redman Place, London, E20 1JQ.

-------------------

Find The Rest Is Science all over the internet by ⁠⁠clicking here.⁠⁠

-------------------

Video Producer: Adam Thornton + Oli Oakley

Video & Social: Bex Tyrrell

Assistant Producer: Imee Marriott

Senior Producer: Lauren Armstrong-Carter

Head Of Digital: Samuel Oakley

Exec Producer: Neil Fear
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices