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Katz told friends she was leaving her

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0:50

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0:57

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1:00

obligation to find her. Listen

1:02

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1:04

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1:17

Sounds, music, radio, podcasts. Hello,

1:20

I'm Liz Bonin. Welcome to

1:22

BBC Inside Science. This

1:25

week, the future of nuclear power

1:27

in the race to net zero

1:29

may be small, micro-modular. In fact,

1:31

what would you think about having

1:33

one of these next-generation nuclear reactors

1:35

at the bottom of your street?

1:38

Also, how the humble egg played a

1:40

huge role in shaping evolution. You'll

1:42

never think about one in the same way again.

1:46

And how an award-winning filmmaker and Cambridge academic

1:48

is set to flex her science

1:50

communication skills in the House of

1:53

Lords. But

1:55

first, the goal of achieving net zero by

1:57

2050 is one of the greatest

1:59

and most-evident. most contentious challenges facing

2:01

Britain today. And

2:03

some experts are now proposing that

2:06

nuclear energy will be essential if

2:08

we are to reach that goal. Nuclear

2:10

even appeared in the text of last

2:13

year's COP climate summit for the first

2:15

time and just yesterday, Wilva on

2:18

Anglesey was announced as the preferred

2:20

location for a new large-scale nuclear

2:23

plant. But I'm not

2:25

just talking about big nuclear here. There

2:27

are also smaller types of reactors being

2:30

proposed. So how do they

2:32

work? What are the benefits and

2:34

the risks? University of Liverpool's Ian

2:36

Patterson has just published a paper

2:38

on one of these next generation

2:41

reactors and he is here to

2:43

tell me more. Ian, thanks for joining us.

2:45

Can I start with this overview

2:48

question really? Is nuclear

2:50

power really necessary to help us

2:52

mitigate climate change? Hi, thanks

2:54

for having me. Yes, I think it is. If you

2:56

think about the total energy consumption in

2:58

the UK, you can divide it roughly

3:00

into thirds. One third is our electricity

3:02

generation, one third for transport

3:05

and one third for heating spaces. And

3:07

we mainly use fossil fuel for transport and

3:09

for heating spaces. So if we are going

3:12

to convert those two and use electricity, we

3:14

are going to need to triple our generating

3:16

power in order to do that. And

3:19

I just don't think that renewables can do

3:21

that on their own. We are going to

3:23

need to use a blend of sources and

3:25

nuclear I think is an important part of

3:27

that blend. Because its advantage

3:29

is it is always there. We

3:31

don't need to have the sun out or the wind blowing

3:34

in order to generate power with it. Okay,

3:36

so when we think about nuclear

3:38

power plants, we think

3:40

about these classically big plants that take

3:42

quite a long time to build.

3:45

I am thinking about the new Hinckley Point C

3:47

plant in Somerset work on that started in 2017.

3:50

It is taking about 12 to 15 years to

3:52

build. So it won't be ready until around

3:54

2030. And so

3:57

far, it has cost £46 billion. So,

4:01

what's the advantage with these smaller

4:03

reactors that we're hearing about? So

4:06

we're proposing that you could build a

4:08

micro-modular reactors in a factory, completely assemble

4:10

them and take them to the site

4:12

that where you need to generate power

4:15

and plug them in. And

4:17

so they could roll off the production line at

4:19

the rate of maybe one a week and

4:22

the costs would be significantly less

4:24

and so the amount of investment

4:26

you need to raise in order

4:28

to start generating power would be

4:30

substantially lower. So we

4:32

can speed up the process

4:34

of bringing nuclear online and also do

4:37

it at a lower financial risk and

4:39

a lower cost. To

4:41

think about radioactive

4:43

material in a smaller

4:45

self-contained unit that then

4:48

could be placed pretty much anywhere, even at

4:50

the bottom of our streets, how

4:52

does that work with respect to public

4:54

perception with respect to safety? So we've

4:57

proposed a completely different approach to the

5:00

design and the safety of the reactor.

5:02

Because they're small, they can be

5:04

designed so that all the consequences of

5:07

anything going wrong can be contained

5:09

within the box and

5:11

so there will be no off-site

5:13

consequences of fault in the

5:15

reactor, which is very

5:17

different to the current large-scale

5:19

reactors such as Hinkley Point C and

5:23

Sizewell and the Wilfer reactor that

5:25

they're proposing to build. So

5:27

we think people's relationship with them

5:30

can be completely different because they

5:32

don't come with those potentially

5:34

existential risks that a large-scale

5:37

reactor has. Okay. And

5:39

how far from becoming a reality are they

5:41

from a tech point of view? So

5:44

all the technology is available. There are some

5:46

companies who are building prototypes at the moment

5:49

and then there's a clutch of companies who are

5:51

in the design phase. So

5:53

really the challenge is designing a

5:55

factory to produce them in and

5:58

then providing a robust quality. management

6:01

system that would generate trust and

6:03

confidence in the supply chain that we'd need

6:05

with the regulatory authorities and of course with

6:07

the general public. I think

6:09

for people trying to find their way

6:11

through this new technology the concern about

6:14

any sort of radioactive material is still

6:16

quite a large one and

6:18

one of the arguments is that even if

6:20

a risk of accident is potentially lower considering

6:23

the impact of such an accident would

6:25

it be wiser to invest instead in

6:27

the text we need to store renewable

6:29

energy for example then to go down

6:32

this route what's your view on that? Well

6:34

I think we should do both actually I

6:36

think we're going to need a blend

6:38

of energy sources in order to achieve

6:41

net zero by 2050 I think

6:43

we will need everything to get there you

6:45

know last month was the 11th consecutive month

6:48

that's been the warmest on record it looks

6:50

like we're going to bust the target of

6:52

1.5 degrees above pre-industrial

6:55

levels within probably

6:57

less than a year so actually I think we've

6:59

got to accelerate trying to achieve net zero and

7:01

then 2050 is probably too far

7:03

away it's going to get too warm too quickly.

7:06

There's no question that the need

7:08

to find solutions couldn't be more

7:10

urgent I suppose yeah the discussion

7:12

is what tech should be fast-tracked

7:15

more quickly than others one of

7:17

the big issues around nuclear is nuclear

7:20

waste management how do the

7:22

smaller modular reactors fare in that regard? So

7:25

what we've proposed is that the

7:27

reactor would be a completely sealed

7:29

unit and so you take it

7:31

back to the factory for maintenance

7:33

and repair and refueling and

7:35

for recycling and so the amount

7:37

of waste generated would be less

7:40

because you could reuse the components

7:42

and the structure so the amount

7:44

of low level and medium level

7:46

nuclear waste generated would be substantially

7:48

smaller and most of

7:50

the designs of MMRs

7:52

involve waste that is is

7:54

a ceramic and can be

7:56

stored in a geological disposal facility in the

7:59

same way as as the waste that comes

8:01

from larger scale nuclear reactors.

8:04

And research in the US has

8:06

suggested that the amount of waste

8:08

generated using small modular reactors and

8:10

micro modular reactors is

8:13

the same per megawatt hour of electricity

8:15

generation as it would be for a

8:17

Hinckley Point C or a Seiswell type

8:19

of reactor. Okay, so if

8:21

we're going to need more nuclear

8:23

energy in the race

8:26

to mitigate climate change, more

8:28

nuclear means more nuclear waste though, doesn't it?

8:30

So is that one of the biggest

8:32

sort of challenges you have with respect to getting

8:35

this across the line, moving this forward? I

8:38

think it's a challenge because at the moment

8:40

the government doesn't have plans to build a

8:43

geological disposal facility and so most waste

8:45

is having to be stored above ground at

8:47

the moment that has to be tackled.

8:49

One of the advantages of MMRs

8:51

is that the spent fuel could be stored

8:53

at the factory so you've got it all

8:56

in one place rather than storing

8:58

it at the generation site which tends to

9:00

be what happens with large scale nuclear reactors

9:02

at the minute. Okay, regulation is going

9:04

to have to play a big part in all

9:06

of this, all the different steps including waste. Absolutely.

9:09

If effective regulation is going to have

9:11

to be crucial to avoid a significant

9:14

disaster or problems with waste, should the

9:16

public be wary of lack of proper

9:18

regulation? I'm thinking about water

9:20

companies and our sewage crisis right now.

9:23

So I think water crisis

9:25

is an issue of compliance with

9:27

the regulation rather than the regulations

9:29

not being there. The

9:32

nuclear industry has an excellent record of

9:34

adhering to regulations so I think the

9:37

two things are not comparable. We

9:39

have proposed in our paper that the regulatory regime

9:42

would have to be modernized,

9:44

have to be transformed in order

9:46

to handle factory produced MMRs. We

9:48

think the technology is there, it

9:50

just needs to be connected together.

9:53

It really does. We need to make sure it's done properly,

9:55

don't we? It can be difficult for

9:57

the public to get clarity on new

9:59

technology. technology like this and there are conflicting

10:01

opinions about whether the risks and costs

10:04

are justified. What for you has been

10:06

the main challenge in convincing the public

10:08

that this should be part of the

10:10

future? So I guess we're just

10:12

starting on that journey. But we do

10:14

see using virtual environments and digital tools

10:17

as a way of being able to

10:19

engage the public and allow them to

10:21

explore the technology. We think

10:23

it would bring a much greater level

10:25

of transparency to the nuclear

10:27

industry. There's been recent research that's

10:29

shown that public participation

10:32

in communication about nuclear

10:34

power plants has

10:36

a positive influence on their acceptance of it.

10:38

And so I think we have to engage

10:41

with the public and explain the technology to

10:43

them so that they appreciate why we're suggesting

10:45

this change and the impact it could have.

10:47

Indeed. We've only just scratched

10:49

the surface here, haven't we? It's a

10:52

huge subject but Ian Patterson, thank you

10:54

so much for a

10:56

very thought-provoking conversation. Thank

10:58

you. Now, when you think

11:01

of an egg, what comes

11:03

to mind? For me, it's bird eggs

11:05

in a nest, high in a tree

11:07

or frog spawn in a

11:09

pond, obviously. I'm a wildlife presenter.

11:11

Whatever comes to your mind, every

11:14

animal owes its existence to an

11:16

egg and it's played a surprisingly

11:18

large role in propelling evolution. So

11:21

much so that science writer and

11:23

broadcaster Jules Howard has written a

11:25

whole book about it. It's called

11:27

Infinite Life and Jules is with

11:30

me now. It's lovely to meet you. Lovely to meet you.

11:32

Thanks for having me. It's a pleasure. Jules,

11:34

have we underestimated the egg? To

11:37

be honest, I think if you look

11:39

at all of the great Attenborough shows

11:41

and so much of the great sort

11:44

of writing about evolution, Dawkins, etc. and

11:46

there's this familiar tale of like kind

11:48

of land fish invading and you know

11:50

forming these familiar lineages of amphibians, reptiles,

11:52

etc. It's really easy to miss this

11:55

crucial factor which is the egg and

11:57

the egg has evolved towards all of

11:59

these different ecosystems in the same way

12:01

as animal bodies have. And

12:03

so I was just like, there's a character missing here.

12:05

So I wanted to sort of tell that tale and

12:08

relish in the extraordinary story of animals,

12:10

but from a slightly different perspective, I

12:12

suppose. How many times have you

12:14

been asked this question? I'm sorry, I'm going to ask

12:16

it to you again. You know, you know where I'm

12:19

going, don't you? It's quite a classic one. What came

12:21

first, the chicken or the egg?

12:23

And okay, eggs were obviously around a long

12:25

time before the wild fowls and then the

12:27

domesticated chickens that came from them, you know,

12:29

got to lay eggs of their own. But

12:32

it does raise a very interesting question.

12:35

When was the very first egg produced

12:37

and by what and how? You

12:39

just gave the zoologist's answer there, which is

12:41

exactly right. You know, clearly chickens have been

12:43

around 10,000 years, but birds, you know what,

12:45

their lineage goes about 180 million years to

12:47

dinosaurs. But you know, the first fossil eggs

12:49

go back more than 600 million

12:52

years. And these are gorgeous.

12:54

They're about the width of a hair, sort

12:57

of pearly almost. And these

12:59

are in rocks from China's de Shanto

13:01

formation, really spectacular fossils. But even, you

13:04

know, if you look at the genes

13:06

across animals, so from us all the

13:08

way to jellyfish, we use the

13:10

same sets of genes for sperm production.

13:13

We can see that probably those genes were

13:15

there perhaps a thousand million years ago. So

13:17

if there was sperm a thousand million years

13:19

ago, we presume that eggs were there, you

13:21

know, unfossilised with no evidence for it. But

13:23

we think they go back as kind of

13:25

deep as that. So they're really primordial structures.

13:28

So that's amazing because I'm thinking jellyfish

13:31

gave us the first real evidence

13:33

of an animal switching from just

13:36

asexual reproduction to sexual

13:38

reproduction. But actually that it could

13:41

have started before that. I

13:43

always imagine this the Ediacaran, which was

13:46

the period before the Cambrian explosion when

13:48

animals really got going. Essentially, it's the

13:50

sort of era of kind of balloon

13:52

like creatures, organisms. And essentially,

13:54

like many jellyfish, they can sort of bud

13:57

off body parts. But in fact, you know,

13:59

this small clutch of early animals

14:01

invested in eggs. And essentially we see from

14:04

that period on, we see animals unable to

14:06

bud off bits of themselves. Sadly, we can't

14:08

bud off our fingers and create new, you

14:10

know, new individuals. If only, yeah. So

14:13

the big question is what's so good about eggs?

14:16

We think one of the reasons it might be to

14:18

sort of limit the number of cell divisions we do.

14:20

Obviously the more cells that divide,

14:22

the more opportunity there is for

14:24

mutations. So putting our eggs on

14:26

ice, so to speak, we limit

14:28

their opportunity for instilling mutations in

14:30

them that can go on to

14:32

influence future generations. Interesting.

14:34

So sexual reproduction was winning out, even

14:36

though it might be really handy to just bud a new

14:39

hand. And over millions

14:41

of years, eggs continue to evolve

14:43

in many different ways. And something extraordinary

14:45

was happening in insects too, right? That

14:47

helped them to spread very successfully all

14:50

across the globe. There are key moments in

14:52

this planet's history when we have massive amounts

14:54

of climate change. And we're seeing that of

14:56

course now, but in the Carboniferous, very humid

14:58

and warm place. And then after that period,

15:01

the earth sort of dries up a little

15:03

bit. And in fact, we see two different

15:05

eggs evolving the same kind of

15:07

structure around the same time. So one of

15:09

them is our ancestors. So the amnio egg,

15:11

this is like the early reptile egg, gets

15:13

this kind of membranous shell to protect it

15:15

from the drying atmosphere. And then

15:17

at about the same time, insects hit upon the

15:19

same adaptation in their eggs. So

15:21

this is a structure in pretty much all insect

15:23

eggs called the cirrhosa, which is a bit like

15:26

a suit of breathable armour.

15:28

And it means that the egg can

15:30

keep the water inside the egg without

15:32

having the egg sort of dry out.

15:35

So that structure, the cirrhosa, is one

15:37

of the reasons that insects absolutely

15:40

flourished and have become, of course, you know,

15:42

one of the most dominant life forms on

15:44

this planet. And can we also

15:47

rewind back approximately 4 billion years

15:49

or so to the collision early

15:51

in the earth history and the

15:53

formation of our moon and how

15:55

this event influenced the evolution of

15:57

the egg? The gravity of the

15:59

moon obviously influenced. is not just the

16:01

tides but also to a degree seasonal

16:04

change. That big explosion knocked the Earth

16:06

famously off its axis. So we have

16:08

seasons and essentially seasons are, they're about

16:11

boom and bust. So eggs give animals

16:13

a way to see out the bust

16:15

when there's not as much resources, not

16:17

as much energy from the sun and

16:19

essentially let their lineages sort of

16:22

time travel forwards is how I put it.

16:24

Part of what influenced and inspired this

16:26

book comes down to a certain body

16:29

part in a duck. Explain

16:31

please Jules. So about 10

16:33

years ago I wrote a book called Sex on Earth

16:36

and I did lots of research into

16:38

anatomy and how evolution chisels different appendages

16:40

let's say. But I was also very

16:42

keen to make sure there was parity.

16:44

So for every male genitalia story I

16:46

told in this book I wanted to

16:48

make sure there was female genitalia stories

16:50

as well. And that was

16:52

incredibly tough because famously science has

16:54

been a pursuit which has been very sort of

16:57

male obsessed in all sorts of ways for hundreds

16:59

of years. So I was told by a few

17:01

scientists, I'm not going to name them, that

17:03

there's no point in studying or writing about

17:05

female anatomy because it's an internal thing. It's

17:07

not something you can see or study. And

17:10

so to annoy them I working

17:12

with Patricia Brennan, a very famous

17:14

duck scientist and together we created

17:16

a virtual reality app so you

17:18

could travel through a female Dutch

17:21

genitalia famously very corkskull screw shape.

17:23

And so making this app and sort of

17:25

setting up the lights in this digital essentially

17:27

a vagina, I was like this

17:30

is amazing to imagine that eggs travel through

17:32

this structure and this is the very bookends

17:34

of life, you know the beginning essentially of

17:36

all animal life. So being inside

17:38

this tunnel it was, I was like if this

17:40

is a new perspective let's toy with that and

17:42

let's see whether there is a different

17:44

side to evolution that we can kind of tell from

17:46

within I suppose. Well and that

17:48

illustration of the corkscrew vagina is on

17:51

the cover of your book and it's

17:53

very beautiful. You set out

17:55

to reframe evolution through the lens of the egg

17:57

in this book and I think you really have

17:59

succeeded. What do you think this

18:01

reframing brings to our understanding of all life on

18:04

Earth? I think

18:06

this is clearly another extinction age we're

18:08

heading into. If not, it's already begun.

18:11

And I think an understanding of eggs, particularly

18:13

through museum resources, allow us an opportunity to

18:15

see how the changing environment, changing ecosystems will

18:17

affect eggs, and by extension, what that will

18:20

do to animal populations. So I think a

18:22

good understanding of eggs, a good understanding of

18:24

animals should put us in a more

18:27

healthy stead to tackle some of these giant issues. Very

18:30

well put, Jules, and there is so much

18:32

passion and poetic prose in your book, so

18:34

well done. It was a really enjoyable read.

18:37

Thank you for sharing that with us. Infinite

18:39

Life is out now with that corkscrew

18:41

illustration, if you're interested. Or

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shopify.com. Gail

19:29

Katz told friends she was leaving her

19:31

husband Bob, then went missing. On season

19:33

one of The Girlfriends, Bob's ex-girlfriends came

19:35

together to bring him down and seek

19:37

justice. I can't believe this. Now on

19:40

season two, host Carol Fisher is back,

19:42

working to solve the mystery of another

19:44

missing woman. It's almost like it's become

19:46

this moral obligation to find her. Listen

19:49

to The Girlfriends, Our Lost Sister on America's

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19:56

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20:04

most members of the House of

20:06

Lords inherit their titles or are

20:08

appointed by politicians, but every year

20:10

there are also two positions open

20:12

to members of the public. I

20:14

didn't know that, did you? Dr.

20:17

Alexander Freeman applied for one of

20:19

them and earlier this month she

20:21

was appointed to the House as

20:23

a lifetime peer, one of only 13 chosen

20:27

in the past decade. And

20:29

she's on a mission to improve

20:31

how scientific evidence informs decision

20:33

making. Alex, it's so nice to

20:36

see you. You're lovely to see you. Thank you for

20:38

joining me. We go back a long way, don't we?

20:40

15 years. Oh, don't you have to say

20:42

it? Really early on in

20:44

our careers, we both worked on a science magazine

20:46

show called Bang Goes the Theory and we were

20:48

really thrown in the deep end, weren't we? Trying

20:51

to explain all the different beautiful aspects

20:53

of science to a family audience.

20:56

Now you went on to win

20:58

loads of awards as a science

21:00

documentary filmmaker before going back to

21:02

academia in 2016. Tell me what

21:05

inspired you to make that move. Well,

21:08

I'd just been making a series

21:10

called Climate Change by Numbers with

21:12

the great statistician David Spiegelhalter and

21:15

he tweeted that he needed somebody

21:17

to help lead a centre in

21:19

Cambridge on evidence communication. And

21:21

then I kind of looked at it again and went,

21:24

hang on, it really is the best job in the

21:26

world. I've got to apply for that. So it was

21:28

a kind of a, yeah, spur of the moment thing.

21:30

What was it about your career up to then that

21:32

made you think this is the thing that really is

21:35

important to do? Well, I

21:37

actually didn't really know what evidence

21:39

communication was. So I thought, you

21:41

know, I've been doing science communication

21:43

for 16, 17 years. You know,

21:45

I think it's really important. But

21:48

when I got there, I realised that

21:50

everything I'd been doing was not evidence

21:52

communication. And it was a real change

21:55

of mindset because in evidence communication, our

21:57

little motto at the Winton Centre was

21:59

to inform. and not persuade. And

22:02

I realised that all the time that

22:04

I'd been making documentaries and writing

22:06

about science, that what I'd

22:09

always been doing was following these classic

22:11

communication advice of, you know, have a

22:13

message and you're trying to control

22:15

what people are feeling through the

22:17

script, through the music, through the pictures and

22:20

you're taking them on a journey and you

22:22

know where that journey's end is. And

22:24

in evidence communication you're trying to get

22:26

across information without leading people to a

22:29

conclusion. You want people to make up

22:31

their own mind by the end of

22:33

the journey. So it's really difficult. It's like

22:35

leading people by the hand into a wood

22:38

and then kind of abandoning them and saying,

22:40

find your own way out. But you have

22:42

to be able to do that to be

22:44

able to support people's decision-making so that they

22:46

can make their own decision. And how does

22:49

that compare to the scientific

22:51

process, right? Sometimes

22:53

science can be perceived as needing to have

22:56

clear answers but the natural world is beautifully

22:58

complex so often there's a level of uncertainty

23:00

in the scientific evidence. So how

23:02

do you communicate that uncertainty and is

23:05

that the same as evidence communication or

23:07

is that different? It's part of evidence

23:09

communication because as you say uncertainty is

23:12

inherent to everything around us and

23:14

actually you know scientists tend to think

23:16

of the public and they think the

23:19

public don't like uncertainty. And

23:21

of course none of us like uncertainty but

23:23

life isn't like that and we all know life isn't like that.

23:25

So a lot of our

23:27

work in the Winton Center was about how

23:29

to best communicate uncertainty to allow people to

23:31

make decisions taking that uncertainty into account.

23:34

And actually people, you know,

23:36

we are all very sensible about uncertainty. We know

23:39

it's going to be there. We

23:41

might even be a bit skeptical if

23:43

people don't communicate uncertainty. So we do

23:45

a lot of decision aids for the

23:47

NHS where we're trying to help people

23:49

make medical decisions. Really important life-changing decisions

23:52

and they want to know the evidence about

23:54

how effective things are, what, how likely side

23:56

effects are. And if we say, you know, 32% of

23:58

people get

24:00

a side effect. People quite rightly go, really?

24:03

You know it's 32%? That's a bit specific.

24:05

And we don't. We don't know it's 32%.

24:07

So we give a range. We say 30%

24:09

to 40% of people. And so just giving

24:15

some idea of the uncertainty is really important

24:17

for people. And people also really want to

24:19

know how strong the evidence

24:21

is. So again and again, people are

24:24

saying, how many times have you done

24:26

this experiment on how

24:28

many people? Were those people like me? Were

24:30

they in this country? Were they my age?

24:32

Were they my gender? So people are really,

24:34

really sensitive to this and really sensible about

24:37

it. Understandably so. And it really drives home

24:39

the way you describe it, how important it

24:41

is to communicate that properly with all of

24:43

the information so that the public can have

24:46

more trust in the whole process and understand

24:48

it better. It's important. Tell

24:50

me why you decided to apply for this position in

24:52

the House of Lords when it sounds like you had

24:54

the dream job. I did have the dream

24:57

job. I actually heard

24:59

on radio for somebody talking about

25:02

evidence. And then after

25:04

them on the interview with somebody from the House

25:06

of Lords saying, it's so good to hear somebody

25:08

talking about scientific evidence. And we really need more

25:10

people like that in the House of Lords on

25:12

the crossbenchers. I must talk to that person about

25:15

applying. And I was like, applying? What

25:17

do you mean applying? So I looked into it

25:19

and I thought, you can, you can

25:21

apply for this. I had no idea. I had no

25:23

idea. Really, we need to tell

25:25

the world about this because we need

25:27

more people in the House of Lords

25:29

to sit on these crossbenchers doing what

25:31

is a really important job to be

25:33

the trustworthy people, to be the people

25:35

that represent public views. You don't have

25:37

any conflicts of interest. You have no

25:39

interest in party politics. All you're there

25:41

for is to try and help people

25:43

make better decisions and to try and

25:45

represent people's views and people's concerns and

25:47

ask the difficult questions. I'm so glad

25:49

you agree to come on because it's very important

25:52

to share that message. When

25:54

will you start though, given the election has

25:56

just been called? I'm waiting for phone calls

25:58

now to find out. But now. with

26:00

the Parliament's going to be closed so

26:02

I imagine I should be starting in

26:04

July. What exactly happens inside the House

26:06

of Lords? I don't think many of us fully

26:09

understand and how does that influence, you

26:11

know, the public's relationship with science? Well,

26:15

I mean obviously there is a big mystery

26:17

and I'm going to be uncovering it when

26:19

I enter the the hallowed halls myself. Love

26:21

it. But I've been watching a lot

26:24

of the select committees for instance and a

26:26

lot of the things that we, you know,

26:29

we probably don't really watch very

26:31

much. But actually, you know, you've

26:33

got world experts being called in

26:35

to be asked questions by the

26:37

select committees on all sorts of

26:39

topics. They're all being filmed, they're

26:41

all being recorded, all of these

26:43

go into reports and these are

26:45

really important topics. And

26:47

I would really like to get

26:49

those clips, that video, that audio,

26:52

these reports into much more digestible

26:54

forms so that we can all

26:56

be hearing what's going on and

26:58

of course being one of the people asking

27:00

questions would be great too. Your excitement

27:02

is infectious, Alex. The

27:04

House of Lords though is a

27:06

big bureaucratic institution steeped in tradition.

27:09

If you had to choose one change,

27:11

you know, that you would like to make,

27:14

what would that be? Do you know what that is yet? I

27:16

don't know what it is yet and actually that

27:19

is one of the things that I think is

27:21

really important because I think quite often people who

27:23

are campaigning about one particular topic, they can be

27:26

really, really strong in that topic and that's great.

27:28

But what I want to be is a person

27:30

who goes in and looks at the evidence on

27:32

anything that's put in front of me and

27:35

reflects what's important to the public but

27:37

also what's coming through from the politicians.

27:39

So what's important to them, it's important

27:41

to me to scrutinise and to have

27:43

a look at it and to really

27:45

look at the evidence on. Baroness

27:48

Freeman of Steventon. What a title.

27:50

Thank you so much. Let's bring my

27:53

other guest in on this though. Jules,

27:55

you're a science writer and a journalist

27:57

so your whole job is science communication.

28:00

What for you is key in getting

28:02

your message across and has that approach

28:04

changed over the years? I

28:06

think it has changed actually for me and I wonder if it's

28:08

the same for you as a wildlife presenter as well. I

28:12

made the mistake at first, it's like 20 years

28:14

ago, of being the kind of like, oh you're

28:16

going to expect me to be the authority so

28:18

here goes, here's how it works, X, Y, Z,

28:21

and no opportunity to talk about evidence as

28:24

you were saying Alex, which is obviously so important.

28:26

So I've sort of moved away from that, which

28:29

is the sort of traditional science communicator way of being, like

28:31

the teacher almost. And

28:34

for me it's much more about, in terms

28:36

of animal science, I'm much more interested in

28:38

mysteries. So I might say to an audience,

28:40

here's what we don't know, in some ways

28:42

to inspire, you know, particularly younger generations. But

28:44

also let's be honest, if you go online, if you go on

28:46

TikTok, if you go on Twitter, there's

28:49

all sorts of mistruths and

28:51

completely obscure statements about scientific

28:53

issues. So the

28:55

more we can talk about evidence, the more we can talk about

28:57

where our ideas come from and sources, I think

29:00

this is going to be the oxygen that

29:02

sort of powers us further, I hope, thanks

29:04

to people like you Alex, definitely. And

29:06

even though the public think, but you're supposed to know it's science,

29:08

what are the facts? Our job is to help them better understand,

29:10

help everyone better understand, I

29:13

need to better understand the process so we can

29:15

all do better. Ian, can I bring you in

29:17

as well? You do work in one of the

29:19

more contentious areas of science. How

29:21

much is science communication part of your job

29:24

and how do you think we can all do better?

29:26

I loved Alex's inform, not persuade.

29:28

I think it's absolutely what we have to do. And

29:31

actually one of the things I've done recently

29:33

is start to get engaged in the Pint

29:35

of Science festival, going out and

29:37

giving presentations in pubs and engaging in

29:39

debate in pubs, which I've thoroughly enjoyed,

29:43

but also gives us the opportunity to hear what

29:45

the public think and how we need to present

29:47

things to them so they can understand. Because nobody's

29:49

going to read the papers we write about these

29:51

things. Well, true, we need

29:53

to continue communicating those papers and more. Perhaps

29:57

think about how we word our papers too.

30:00

Yeah, maybe get away from papers.

30:02

Oh, controversial. Oh, yes.

30:04

Such a lot of room for thought

30:06

here and hugely inspirational from the three

30:09

of you. Thank you, Ian Patterson, Alexandra

30:11

Fehman, Jules Howard. Thank you for making

30:13

my first Inside Science so enjoyable. Thanks

30:15

very much to the three of you.

30:18

Next week, why do we need

30:20

to sleep? We'll be discussing new

30:22

research that only adds to that

30:25

mystery. Join me for that and

30:27

more. Goodbye. You've

30:29

been listening to BBC Inside Science

30:31

with me, Liz Bonnan. The producers

30:34

were Hannah Robbins, Ella Hubber and

30:36

Sophie Ormiston. Technical production was by

30:38

Neve Messirian and the show is

30:41

a BBC Wales and West production.

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