Curious science, translated without the gloss.
Futureproof with Jonathan McCrea is a brisk science conversation built around regular research stories and longer expert interviews. It makes room for static electricity, moon missions, robotic swallowing, ancient symbols, breathing, climate effects, screening, and wearable fabrics without sanding off the uncertainty.
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Futureproof with Jonathan McCrea is a science conversation show built around curiosity, translation, and useful doubt. It has the pace of radio rather than a lecture hall. The format usually pairs a round of current science stories with a longer interview on one subject that deserves slower attention. That subject might be the origins of writing, the difficulty of swallowing, the return to the moon, or why static electricity remains weirdly unresolved. The show likes a plain question. Then it keeps turning the question until the hidden complexity comes into view. Recent episodes range from insulin pills and spinal muscular atrophy screening to scar-free fetal healing, male contraception research, e-textiles, contrails, breathing, cervical screening, and AI-assisted genome writing. Space coverage is not only romantic; Artemis missions also become a way to talk about politics, money, safety, water, private companies, and the meaning of returning to lunar exploration after decades away. Health stories get similar treatment. A discussion of screening or surgery is tied to real outcomes, ethics, timing, and the gap between a promising study and a usable treatment. The show also has a taste for the humbling scientific mystery, from identical materials exchanging charge to the unanswered details of lightning and rain. It does not pretend everything is solved. That is part of the appeal. The tone stays conversational, with quick clarifications, skeptical asides, and enough humour to keep the room from feeling heavy. At the same time, it can be serious when the stakes are serious. Listeners get the sense of a programme that enjoys the messiness of discovery as much as the finished finding. Futureproof suits people who like science as a moving conversation: practical, surprising, occasionally odd, and almost always more complicated than the first explanation suggests.
Made for: For listeners who follow science, medicine, space, climate, and technology but prefer conversation to textbook polish. It works especially well for people who enjoy expert interviews that keep returning to the basic question.
What sets it apart: The show balances fast-moving science news with longer, more patient explanations of research that is still uncertain. Its strength is making technical subjects feel graspable while keeping the caveats intact.
Jonathan responds to your texts and tweets, is joined in studio for all the latest science stories for Newsround and speaks to one of our two guests featured on the show. CONVERSATION THAT COUNTS | Ireland’s national independent talk station for news, sport, analysis and entertainment Listen to Newstalk at http://newstalk.com/listenlive | Download the GoLoud app now, the new home for Newstalk
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Jonathan McCrea makes unfamiliar research legible by asking direct questions about mechanisms, evidence and practical purpose.
Futureproof with Jonathan McCrea turns scientific developments into lively, intelligible conversation. Episodes pair a roundup of current research with a longer feature interview, then make room for listener questions.
A robotic oesophagus sounds less bizarre once Jonathan McCrea has you asking why swallowing is hard.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
Everyday contact shows why static electricity still has science scratching at the details.
Static electricity gets a clear, curious treatment, starting with the familiar balloon-and-hair trick before opening into a question scientists still have not fully settled.
Writing's beginnings meet cave marks, mirror jokes, and a careful look at what science can still revise.
Jonathan McRae opens by placing writing's origins far back in time, and the episode keeps moving with a brisk mix of mirrors, a mouse study, and cave marks.
Artemis 2, the human case for going back to the Moon, and the water question behind staying there.
Artemis 2 comes across as a mission about much more than looping back around the Moon. It is framed as a test of the technology, timing, and human stamina needed for a new phase of spaceflight, with the bigger goal of learning how to stay.
A robotic esophagus leads into a brisk mix of quantum, lightning, and wound-healing science.
Future Proof opens on Jonathan McCrae and a robotic esophagus at UCT, then widens into a set of science stories that keep one foot in the strange and the other in concrete questions. Dr. Shane Bergen and Dr.
A clear science roundup on contrails, insulin delivery, and why early SMA screening matters.
Future Proof with Jonathan McRae uses the climate question around contrails as a tidy way into a broader science episode, setting up research with the promise of something interesting and surprising.
A lively science hour that moves from headlines to the everyday act of breathing.
The episode opens as a broad science roundup before settling into James Nestor and a plainspoken argument for giving breath more attention. It keeps its eye on health and mood, and it briefly reaches into the idea that breathing may even affect facial shape.
A broad science programme that moves from exoplanets to embalming while keeping a calm, curious tone.
Future Proof opens as a broad science programme, moving from exoplanets to crow intelligence and Lyme disease before landing on a frank discussion of embalming and reconstructive work after traumatic deaths.
A clear science hour linking AI genome writing, rain, and Chile telescope stakes.
Future Proof moves from AI-assisted genome writing to rain, and that pairing gives the hour a clean, satisfying shape. It asks how AI might help design species that do not exist yet, then shifts to the water cycle and the sense that rain keeps returning.
Particle accelerators, compost piles and Queen's guitarist, all explained.
Steven Novella and a rotating panel dissect weekly science news and debunk pseudoscience claims.
Long interviews with neuroscientists and philosophers on consciousness, decision-making, and whether AI is anything like a brain.
APA's Kim Mills interviews psychology researchers on tipping, crying, and extremism.
This episode discusses scorpion venom and recent science news, including the moon's shrinking and tectonic activity.
Jonathan McCrea hosts Future Proof, starting with science news on AI predicting exoplanets, terraforming Mars, bat navigation, and crow intelligence.
Jonathan McCrea hosts Future Proof, discussing AI-assisted genome writing and the origins of rain.
Jonathan McCray and Scott Y2 Kitis discuss the mysterious nature of static electricity, admitting that even scientists don't fully understand how charge exchange occurs.
Jonathan McCrea opens with a claim that writing may be 40,000 years old rather than 10,000, then turns to a conversation with Genevieve von Petzinger about cave symbols, cuneiform, and what counts as full writing.
A discussion about the purpose and challenges of the Artemis 2 mission to send humans back to the moon after 50 years.
Jonathan McCrea opens Futureproof with a story about a UCD-built robotic esophagus called the robo-gullet, created to understand how swallowing actually works.
Jonathan McCrea opens Future Proof with Dr.
Futureproof's science-news roundup with Dr.
This episode explores the future of wearable technology in clothing and discusses a study linking higher temperatures to fewer male births.
Jonathan McCray discusses AI-assisted genome writing and the mystery of rain's origin, then interviews researchers about cervical screening alternatives.
This episode discusses forgotten childhood memories and how a tweak in self-perception may help recall them, along with a segment on melatonin and sleep.
This episode explores the challenge of recovering fingerprints from spent bullets and discusses geoengineering as a climate change solution.