Futureproof with Jonathan McCrea

The old adage has it that we're never more than six feet away from a rat. The veracity of that figure is questionable at best Nonetheless in urban areas we are aware that rats are ever present neighbours. Yet we don’t know an awful lot about their habits and their dispersion. A recent study in Manhattan is shedding some light on the subject though. Matthew Combs is a Graduate student at Fordham University and the lead author of this study First Aired: 9/12/2017

Earlier this year we talked about the amazing Monarch Butterfly with Jaap de Roode.  One thing that blew our minds in that interview was the story of the butterfly’s migratory journey which saw them travel up to 4,500 Km in about 6 weeks from Southern Canada to Mexico. This got us thinking about the many amazing journeys animals partake in and more to the point how they achieved such amazing feats of navigation. So we decided to give our next guest a call David Barrie is the author of Incredible Journeys: Exploring The Wonders of Animal Navigation (also published as Supernavigators in North America)

Ivan Marusic, Professor in the department of mechanical engineering joined Jonathan to talk all about turbulence- what it is and why it's actually essential for our lives.

What is the evolutionary purpose of an orgasm? Specifically, the female orgasm. One of the most popular theories is the 'Pair Bond Theory' which puts forward the idea that orgasms acts as a kind of reward for women for engaging in intercourse and also helps cement the pair bond between a man and a woman. But there's a problem with this in that only 20-25% of women have reliable orgasms with intercourse and only a third of women rarely or never do. So, what's going on then? Jonathan speaks to Elizabeth Lloyd, author of 'The Case of the Female Orgasm: Bias in the Science of Evolution' to find out. First aired Sat, 13 August 2016

What is race? Depending on who you ask you could get very different answers. The trouble is that race is determined by differences and similarities deemed by society to be socially significant - something that has proven to be deeply problematic for centuries. Jonathan speaks to Gavin Evans, author of 'Skin Deep: Journeys in the Divisive Science of Race' to examine the new discoveries in archaeology, genetics and IQ studies that show decisively that there are no innate differences between population groups when it comes to intelligence or character and that what we call race, really is just skin deep.