Babbage from The Economist

What if the Amazon rainforest shrank to the point where it could no longer sustain itself? Or the ocean currents around Europe collapsed, freezing the continent? What if all this happened in just a few decades? Climate change is often perceived to be a disaster in slow motion, but a growing number of scientists worry about climate “tipping points”—thresholds in the climate system that, once crossed, could lead to sudden, catastrophic, irreversible changes. How can scientists predict how close such dramatic changes might be and how much devastation they might cause?Host: Rachel Dobbs, The Economist’s environment editor. Contributors: Jonathan Nash of Oregon State University; Jack Williams of the University of Wisconsin–Madison; James Veale and Liz Thomas of the British Antarctic Survey.Transcripts of our podcasts are available via economist.com/podcasts.Listen to what matters most, from global politics and business to science and technology—subscribe to Economist Podcasts+.For more information about how to access Economist Podcasts+, please visit our FAQs page or watch our video explaining how to link your account.

How long you live may be shaped less by your gym routine or diet plan than by the systems that surround you, from clean air and water to safe streets and accessible healthcare. In this episode, Devi Sridhar, a professor of global public health at the University of Edinburgh, argues that governments—not individuals—hold the greatest power to extend lives. She explains what people can learn from long-lived communities in Japan and Europe, how to curb the harms of ultra-processed food, the role of GLP-1 weight-loss drugs, and how tackling inequality could help everyone live healthier into old age.Alok Jha, The Economist’s science and technology editor, speaks with Devi Sridhar, the author of “How Not to Die (Too Soon)”.Transcripts of our podcasts are available via economist.com/podcasts.Listen to what matters most, from global politics and business to science and technology—subscribe to Economist Podcasts+.For more information about how to access Economist Podcasts+, please visit our FAQs page or watch our video explaining how to link your account.

More than six months on from DeepSeek’s breakthrough, how much has China’s AI ecosystem evolved? As it turns out, quite a bit. In an extended interview with Alex Hern, The Economist’s AI writer, we examine the major players in China, their models and how Chinese AI stacks up against its Western rivals. Now that the White House has lifted restrictions on the export of high-end chips to China, how might the battle for AI supremacy unfold?Alok Jha, The Economist’s science and technology editor, speaks with our AI writer Alex Hern.Transcripts of our podcasts are available via economist.com/podcasts.Listen to what matters most, from global politics and business to science and technology—subscribe to Economist Podcasts+.For more information about how to access Economist Podcasts+, please visit our FAQs page or watch our video explaining how to link your account.

How is a new era of great-power rivalry affecting America’s nuclear security enterprise? Three national laboratories are tasked with keeping America’s warheads safe, modernising them and even building new ones. And, unlike during the cold war, they have to do it all without conducting explosive tests. With political tensions on the rise around the world, the labs’ mission has become more important than ever. This week, we investigate how the directors of the three labs are meeting this new moment.“The Bomb” is a four-part series which traces the scientific story of nuclear weapons. We go behind the scenes at America's nuclear-weapons laboratories to find out how the country is pushing the frontiers of extreme physics, materials science and computing to modernise its stockpile. In episode four, we ask the people who manage the bombs what it’s like to be responsible for such terrible and devastating weapons.Host: Alok Jha, The Economist’s science and technology editor. Contributors: Thom Mason of the Los Alamos National Laboratory; Kim Budil of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory; and Laura McGill of Sandia National Laboratories. Thanks also to Jennifer Hayden of America’s National Museum of Nuclear Science & History.Transcripts of our podcasts are available via economist.com/podcasts.Listen to what matters most, from global politics and business to science and technology—subscribe to Economist Podcasts+.For more information about how to access Economist Podcasts+, please visit our FAQs page or watch our video explaining how to link your account.

How are nuclear weapons maintained and modernised in the 21st century? America stopped explosively testing its warheads and bombs in 1992. Now the country relies on sophisticated computer simulations and energetic lasers to understand how these devices work and to keep them safe as they age. For the first time ever, America’s nuclear scientists are also having to design a brand new warhead using simulations alone.This four-part series traces the scientific story of nuclear weapons. We go behind the scenes at America's nuclear-weapons laboratories to find out how the country is pushing the frontiers of extreme physics, materials science and computing to modernise its stockpile.In episode three, we explore the vast scientific infrastructure in place to maintain, upgrade and build a new generation of bombs, all without setting off any devices.Host: Alok Jha, The Economist’s science and technology editor. Contributors: Mark Herrmann, Brad Wallin, Rob Neely and Kim Budil of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory; and Laura McGill of Sandia National Laboratories. Listen to episode four here. Transcripts of our podcasts are available via economist.com/podcasts.Listen to what matters most, from global politics and business to science and technology—subscribe to Economist Podcasts+.For more information about how to access Economist Podcasts+, please visit our FAQs page or watch our video explaining how to link your account.

How did the atom bombs of the Manhattan Project become the nuclear stockpile of today? At the heart of America’s nuclear security enterprise lies a town: Los Alamos. It is where the first nuclear bomb was created. Today its national lab is tasked with designing and building America’s first new warhead in decades.This four-part series traces the scientific story of nuclear weapons. We go behind the scenes at America's nuclear-weapons laboratories to find out how the country is pushing the frontiers of extreme physics, materials science and computing to modernise its stockpile.In episode two, we look at the town that built the first nuclear bomb—and how the race to build better, more powerful nuclear weapons ended up building the town. Host: Alok Jha, The Economist’s science and technology editor. Contributors: Kristen Hollis and Todd Nickols of the Los Alamos Historical Society; Nic Lewis and Thom Mason of the Los Alamos National Laboratory; Ellen Bradbury Reid and Jim Bradbury, who grew up in Los Alamos.Listen to episode three here. Transcripts of our podcasts are available via economist.com/podcasts.Listen to what matters most, from global politics and business to science and technology—subscribe to Economist Podcasts+.For more information about how to access Economist Podcasts+, please visit our FAQs page or watch our video explaining how to link your account.

Where did the world’s most devastating weapon come from? In a four-part series, we go behind the scenes at America's nuclear laboratories to understand how a scientific-mystery story about the ingredients of matter led to a world-changing (and second-world-war-ending) bomb less than five decades later. Nuclear weapons have been central to geopolitical power ever since. Now America is seeking to modernise its stockpile and, in doing so, its scientists are pushing the frontiers of extreme physics, materials science and computing.In episode one, we look at the birth of nuclear physics—the science that emerged early in the 20th century to answer a mystery: what is an atom actually made of?Host: Alok Jha, The Economist’s science and technology editor. Contributors: Frank Close, a physicist and author of “Destroyer of Worlds”, a history of the birth of nuclear physics; Cheryl Rofer, a chemist who used to work at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL); and Nicholas Lewis, a historian at LANL.This episode features archive from the Atomic Heritage Foundation. Listen to episode two here.Transcripts of our podcasts are available via economist.com/podcasts.This is a free episode. To continue listening to “The Bomb”, you’ll need to subscribe.Listen to what matters most, from global politics and business to science and technology—subscribe to Economist Podcasts+.For more information about how to access Economist Podcasts+, please visit our FAQs page or watch our video explaining how to link your account.

Proteins are the molecular machines that make life work. Each one in your body has a specific task—some become muscles, bones and skin. Others carry oxygen in the blood or get used as hormones or antibodies. Yet more become enzymes, helping to catalyse chemical reactions inside our bodies. Given proteins can do so many things, what if scientists could design bespoke versions to order? Novel proteins, never seen before in nature, could make biofuels, say, or clean up pollution or create new ways to harvest power from sunlight. David Baker, a biochemist and recent Nobel laureate in chemistry, has been working on that challenge since the 1980s. Now, powered by artificial intelligence and inspired by living cells, he is leading scientists around the world in inventing a whole new molecular world. Host: Alok Jha, The Economist’s science and technology editor. Contributors: David Baker of the University of Washington; and The Economist’s Geoff Carr and Emilie Steinmark. Transcripts of our podcasts are available via economist.com/podcasts.Listen to what matters most, from global politics and business to science and technology—subscribe to Economist Podcasts+.For more information about how to access Economist Podcasts+, please visit our FAQs page or watch our video explaining how to link your account.

The Vera Rubin Observatory is about to start a decade-long survey of the night sky. In the process, it will generate hundreds of petabytes of astronomical data. Hidden within that firehose of information will be clues about some of the universe’s deepest mysteries—from dark matter and dark energy to the evolution of galaxies. To help scientists unlock those new celestial tales, the Rubin Observatory's team had to invent a bespoke way to organise, analyse and share the data. That technology, which will usher in a new, automated era for astronomy, may be one of the observatory’s most important and enduring legacies. In the second of two episodes, we visit the Rubin Observatory, 2,700m high in the Chilean Andes, to uncover how the telescope’s data travel from the summit to astronomers’ desks around the world. Listen to the first episode here. Host: Alok Jha, The Economist’s science and technology editor. Contributors: William O’Mullane, Yusra AlSayyad and Leanne Guy. Thanks to everyone we spoke to at the Vera Rubin Observatory, including Alysha Shugart, Guillem Megias, Marina Pavlovic and Kevin Fanning.You can see and explore the first images taken by the Vera Rubin Observatory on the SkyViewer platform.For more on the scientific questions that the Vera Rubin Observatory is seeking to answer, listen to our “cosmology in crisis” series. Transcripts of our podcasts are available via economist.com/podcasts.Listen to what matters most, from global politics and business to science and technology—subscribe to Economist Podcasts+.For more information about how to access Economist Podcasts+, please visit our FAQs page or watch our video explaining how to link your account.