Futureproof with Jonathan McCrea
Newstalk
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 entertainmentListen to Newstalk at http://newstalk.com/listenlive | Download the GoLoud app now, the new home for Newstalk
Episodes
Mentioned books
Feb 22, 2026 • 36min
Predicting Scorpion Strikes
Guests:Dr Michel Dugon, Assistant Professor in Zoology and Principal Investigator of the Venom Systems Lab at the University of GalwayDr Jessamyn Fairfield, Lecturer in the School of Natural Sciences at the University of GalwayDr Laura Hayes, Research Fellow at the School of Cosmic Physics at DIAS
Feb 17, 2026 • 16min
Extra: Does the Earth’s core hide vast hydrogen reservoirs?
Guest:With Prof Jon Wade, Associate Professor of Planetary Materials, Dept. of Earth Sciences, University of Oxford
Feb 15, 2026 • 35min
Making Life with Artificial Biological Intelligence
Guests: Dr Shelley Brady, Insight Research Ireland Centre for Data Analytics at DCUDr Shane Bergin, physicist at University College Dublin Adrian Woolfson, author of ‘The Future of Species: Authoring Life by means of Artificial Biological Intelligence’
Feb 10, 2026 • 15min
Extra: Solar Maximum and the Northern lights explained
Guest:Dr Alexandra Ruth Fogg, Postdoctoral Fellow in Astronomy and Astrophysics at the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies
Feb 8, 2026 • 36min
What is Aphantasia? Why some brains can’t visualize
Guests: Dr Lara Dungan, immunologist, and Dr Shane Bergin, physicist at University College Dublin Prof Adam Zeman, Honorary Fellow at the Centre for Clinical Brain Sciences, at the University of Edinburgh
Feb 3, 2026 • 12min
Extra: What Is Childhood Dementia?
Guest: Prof Matthew Campbell, Head of the Genetics Department and Chair of Neurovascular Genetics at Trinity College Dublin
Feb 1, 2026 • 36min
Building a womb lining in the lab
Guests: Dr Susan Kelleher, School of Chemical Sciences at DCUDr Shane Bergin, physicist at University College DublinDr Peter Rugg-Gunn, group leader at the Babraham Institute at the University of Cambridge
Jan 27, 2026 • 14min
Extra: Turning muscle signals into speech
Guest: Professor Luigi Occhipinti, Research Professor of Smart Electronics, Biosystems and AI, at Cambridge University
Jan 25, 2026 • 31min
Why some wounds won’t heal
Guests:Professor Kimberly Kline, Professor in Microbiology and Molecular Medicine at The University of Geneva and Visiting Scholar at Nanyang Technological University, SingaporeDr Shelley Brady, DCU’s Insight Research Ireland Centre for Data AnalyticsDr John Regan, Research Fellow in the Department of Theoretical Physics at Maynooth University
Jan 20, 2026 • 14min
Extra: What if stopping Alzheimer’s means targeting one gene?
Guest: Dr Dylan Williams, Principal Research Fellow in Molecular and Genetic Epidemiology at UCL
