Guardian Science Weekly

Unearthing the secret social lives of trees – podcast

Loading player...
Over her career, first as a forester and then as a professor of forest ecology, Suzanne Simard has been uncovering the hidden fungal networks that connect trees and allow them to send signals and share resources. Speaking to Suzanne about her new book, Finding the Mother Tree, Linda Geddes discovers how these underground webs allow plants to cooperate and communicate with each other. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/sciencepod
29 Apr 2021 English United Kingdom Science · Nature

Other recent episodes

‘The undruggable became druggable’: a breakthrough cancer treatment

A daily pill can double survival time in patients with the world’s deadliest cancer, according to the results of a clinical trial that experts are saying is a gamechanger and one of the biggest breakthroughs in decades. To find out more about how daraxonrasib works and how life-changing it could…
11 Jun 14 min

The dinosaurs who survived the asteroid

While many dinosaurs were wiped out when a colossal asteroid struck Earth 66m years ago, one group survived: birds. Prof Steve Brusatte, a palaeontologist at the University of Edinburgh, has written a new book, The Story of Birds, tracing the evolution of our feathered friends from their dinosaur origins. He…
9 Jun 17 min

The incredible science of the sleeping brain

Humans have been wondering why we sleep for thousands of years. Is sleep’s purpose rest and relaxation, memory consolidation or maybe cognitive processing? In the last 15 years, scientists have discovered another possible explanation – waste disposal. In 2012 neuroscientist Maiken Nedergaard’s lab discovered that the brain has its own…
2 Jun 14 min

Are robots nearing their ChatGPT moment?

Last month at Beijing’s half marathon, a robot named Lightning beat the human world record by nearly seven minutes. It’s the latest in a string of AI-powered milestones that have got people wondering whether robots are about to enter our everyday lives, just as chatbots have. And the country leading…
28 May 17 min
All episodes