5 Live Science Podcast · BBC Radio 5 Live

Titans of Science: Jocelyn Bell Burnell

December 29, 2024·52 min·2 clips

A wide-ranging 2024 year-in-review episode of BBC 5 Live Science, culminating in a Titans of Science profile interview with astrophysicist Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell, who recounts building a radio telescope with a sledgehammer, discovering pulsars at 24, and watching her supervisor win the Nobel Prize for her work. Earlier segments cover the UK's landmark assisted dying bill vote, NVIDIA's GPU dominance and the AI bubble debate, SpaceX's spectacular booster catch versus NASA's Artemis delays, a new IUCN report on threatened sharks, the Azores' giant marine protected area, and two paleoanthropology findings — 50,000-year-old Sulawesi cave art and immune proteins preserved in 18th-century tooth enamel.

As heard by us

A brisk science roundup that moves through public policy, prehistory, and astronomy.

5 Live Science moves from public policy to deep time and then to Jocelyn Bell Burnell without losing its footing. The discussion of the Terminally Ill Adults End of Life Bill has the most weight, with enough context to make clear how sensitive and unfinished the issue still is…

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Why you'd press play

Start here for health policy, deep history, and Jocelyn Bell Burnell.

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