Skip to main content

Marty Jopson - Four Way Interview

Marty Jopson is an expert on science, hosting talks across the country. Regularly appearing on BBC One’s The One Show as their resident science reporter, he has also appeared on ITV, Channel 4, Sky, the Discovery Channel and National Geographic, as well as lecturing at The Royal Institution. He is the author of the bestselling The Science of Everyday Life, and The Science of Food. His latest book is The Science of Being Human.


Why science?

 Because it’s cool. Simple as that. I could bang on about how science has given us incredible super powers to survive disease, see back in time to the start of the universe and talk to people on the other side of the globe. We could talk about understanding what it means to be conscious, the very nature of matter itself or if there are parallel universes, but that all gets kinda heavy. On the other hand you could consider the small things like your mobile phone, your breakfast cereal, the lightbulb over your head or the shampoo you use. But that seems too trivial. Bottom line science is just fascinating. I recently found out about the Larus gull ring species and it has changed the way I look at Herring Gulls. Science makes life more exciting. For me it’s the special sauce, the MSG and the umami of life. And if you want to know about the Larus ring species - buy the book (or Google it). 
Why this book?

 This in now my third book, each of which has had a similar format of relatively short dives into chunkets of science. The first was very general and based in you own home, the second was about food - because food is good. But for the third I wanted to get my teeth into some more biological science. I was trained as a biologist but then went off and became a generalist on telly. This book was a chance to make some connections between human biology and a bunch of other subjects that I have grown to appreciate. So how does biology and technology interface and what about biology and maths? That’s why.
What’s next?

 I’d love to write something about bridges. Over the many years I have been working in television I have spent a lot of time filming on bridges for one reason or another. I have become a teensy bit obsessed with them. My family groan when I mention them and I have been banned from taking them to look at bridges. Which is a shame as I am convinced that bridges are the most spectacular example of modern engineering on the planet. 

 Oh and I’m about to start trying to write some books aimed specifically at kids. I spend a lot of time communicating science to kids and it would be fun to write something for this audience.
What’s exciting you at the moment?

 Cross polar microscopy. I recently teamed up with Zeiss - makers of fine microscopes - to deliver a microscopy based biology show that has been doing the rounds and has been seen by in excess of 45,000 people. The follow up to this is a material science show with microscopy. Part of this will be looking at polarised light microscopy. It has the potential to allow me to produce some stunning visual displays and some really ooh aaah moments from the audience. So right now I am just getting my geek on with the technical aspects of fitting up my microscopes with polarisation filters. 

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Antigravity Enigma - Andrew May ****

Antigravity - the ability to overcome the pull of gravity - has been a fantasy for thousands of years and subject to more scientific (if impractical) fictional representation since H. G. Wells came up with cavorite in The First Men in the Moon . But is it plausible scientifically?  Andrew May does a good job of pulling together three ways of looking at our love affair with antigravity (and the related concept of cancelling inertia) - in science fiction, in physics and in pseudoscience and crankery. As May points out, science fiction is an important starting point as the concept was deployed there well before we had a good enough understanding of gravity to make any sensible scientific stabs at the idea (even though, for instance, Michael Faraday did unsuccessfully experiment with a possible interaction between gravity and electromagnetism). We then get onto the science itself, noting the potential impact on any ideas of antigravity that come from the move from a Newtonian view of a...
Post a Comment
Read more

The World as We Know It - Peter Dear ***

History professor Peter Dear gives us a detailed and reasoned coverage of the development of science as a concept from its origins as natural philosophy, covering the years from the eighteenth to the twentieth century. inclusive If that sounds a little dry, frankly, it is. But if you don't mind a very academic approach, it is certainly interesting. Obviously a major theme running through is the move from largely gentleman natural philosophers (with both implications of that word 'gentleman') to professional academic scientists. What started with clubs for relatively well off men with an interest, when universities did not stray far beyond what was included in mathematics (astronomy, for instance), would become a very different beast. The main scientific subjects that Dear covers are physics and biology - we get, for instance, a lot on the gradual move away from a purely mechanical views of physics - the reason Newton's 'action at a distance' gravity caused such ...
Post a Comment
Read more

It's On You - Nick Chater and George Loewenstein *****

Going on the cover you might think this was a political polemic - and admittedly there's an element of that - but the reason it's so good is quite different. It shows how behavioural economics and social psychology have led us astray by putting the focus way too much on individuals. A particular target is the concept of nudges which (as described in Brainjacking ) have been hugely over-rated. But overall the key problem ties to another psychological concept: framing. Huge kudos to both Nick Chater and George Loewenstein - a behavioural scientist and an economics and psychology professor - for having the guts to take on the flaws in their own earlier work and that of colleagues, because they make clear just how limited and potentially dangerous is the belief that individuals changing their behaviour can solve large-scale problems. The main thesis of the book is that there are two ways to approach the major problems we face - an 'i-frame' where we focus on the individual ...
Post a Comment
Read more