Shirtloads of Science

When Robbie Williams announced he had been diagnosed with scurvy earlier this year, Professor Clare Collins was relieved… why?! Because he was bringing attention to a major issue arising from the use of the popular class of weight loss medications, GLP-1s. Professor Collins joins me on Shirtloads to discuss how nutrient deficiencies have increased among those using these medications.
Clare agrees that GLP-1 medications DO have an overall net positive effect as effective and beneficial medications, but warns that without proper nutrient intake (due to a suppression in appetite) nutrient deficiencies are much more common than they should be. 

This is an aspect of the GLP-1 discourse that does not get enough attention - particularly when discussing adverse side effects.

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In mid-2026, a swarm of AI agents coordinated a cyberattack on Hugging Face, a platform where machine learning communities can collectively work to improve AI models and capabilities. This breach happened without human supervision.

Friend of the show and science communicator Dr. Petr Lebedev brings us up to speed on what is now being referred to as the first true AI safety incident.
A crucial conversation on why the AI race needs to hit the brakes so regulations can be implemented to reduce the risk of AI misalignment.

This conversations was recorded in late August, 2026.

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Petr's conversation with Yoshua Benjo - www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvvvtbBvh6Q
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Science writer and journalist Marcus Chown returns for a shorter, more philosophical chat. When Einstein first proposed gravitational waves, atoms hadn't even been discovered, so who knows what the next century holds? We dig into the strange idea of the universe's "mathematical twin," and discuss the Standard Model of physics - a brilliant framework, but riddled with holes.

www.marcuschown.com

Science writer and former astrophysicist Marcus Chown joins us to discuss the elusive graviton - the theoretical particle behind gravity. 

 In this chat we dig into the four fundamental forces of nature, why gravity is so uniquely hard to pin down, and why detecting a graviton would require a detector larger than Jupiter. Marcus also unpacks string theory, the only framework that manages to fold gravity in with the other forces, and why it's fallen out of favour with much of the physics community.

www.marcuschown.com/

A bonus episode straight from the audience at Geraint Lewis' book launch for "The Shortest History of Reality." Listeners fire off some big questions: where do we sit with the 95% of the universe we can't explain? What is dark energy? Why does time feel so different experientially? Along with other questions concerning the Theory of Everything, whether light really has a speed, what happens to our mass when we die, consciousness and the Twin paradox!