Shows
The Astrophysics PodcastDr. Gurtina Besla -- Dark Matter in the Milky WayMost of the mass in the universe is invisible. We call it "Dark Matter", and the only reason we know it's there is because we can see how it gravitationally interacts with regular matter. For example, in our own galaxy, Dark Matter comprises most of the mass, in a large spherical "halo" that binds the smaller spiral of gas and stars that we can see. As all our stars orbit the Milky Way, they are passing through a sea of dark matter, and this should create observable consequences that allow us to test theories about the nature of dark...
2026-02-011h 012026-01-011h 23The Astrophysics PodcastDr. Kaitlin Kratter -- Building a Solar System on the ComputerHow did our solar system form? More generally, how does any solar system form? We get some of our answers to these questions by looking at newly-forming planetary systems in the first million years of their lives. But getting a complete picture also requires a lot of theoretical work, understanding each stage of solar system formation, which often entails big computational models of the early solar system. Dr. Kaitlin Kratter is a leader in the practice of building these big models and using them to improve our understanding of how the planets first formed.
2025-12-011h 15The Astrophysics PodcastDr. Tim Cunningham -- White Dwarfs Sometimes Eat PlanetsA white dwarf star is the compact, dense remnant of a once-thriving solar system. Long after the original star has died and turned into a white dwarf, it can still interact with its solar system. We can even see white dwarfs eating up the rocky debris that once made up their solar system, and apparently making sense of all of this requires a detailed understanding of how convection works in these dead stellar remnants.
2025-11-011h 15
Tony Slattery's Rambling ClubEd Tudor Pole- "The Pen-Is Mightier"Get ready for a whistlestop tour through the Crystal Maze to the Punk movement of the 1970s because our guest President this week is Ed Tudor-Pole! Grab your Duffell Coat and join us for a ramble as guest President Tudor-Pole leads us through three special destinations chosen entirely at random with the use of Tony’s enchanted bingo machine. As ever, the omniscient voice of Sir Stephen Fry is an eye on the proceedings! First stop is destination number 115. Time. Is time a construct? "No", we learn. Punctuality, however, is very impor...
2025-10-0349 minThe Astrophysics PodcastDr. Merel van 't Hoff -- The Birth of the PlanetsHow did the planets form? What was going on in the first few brief million years of our solar system? And how did it impact what we see in our solar system today? Dr. Merel van 't Hoff takes us on a journey through astrochemistry to understand the planetary wombs that house solar systems in their prenatal years.
2025-10-0158 minThe Astrophysics PodcastDr. Wen-Fai Fong -- The Neutron Star MashWhat kinds of things do neutron stars do? They can smash into each other, producing bright flashes of radiation and strong ripples in spacetime that can be detected across the universe! Or, a neutron star can just be sitting there, and its magnetic field might suddenly shift and produce a dramatic burst of radio waves! But mainly, neutron stars are super-dense and super-complicated, giving us a probe of fundamental physics in its most extreme limits. Dr. Wen-Fai Fong tells us all about how we can learn more!
2025-09-0143 min
This Trusted Place with John-Paul Davies: Mental Health, Therapy & Becoming a TherapistS9 | E9 Boarding School Syndrome Explained: Trauma, Healing & Hope | Nick DuffellSend a textIn this episode, I’m joined by Nick Duffell, psychotherapist, psycho-historian and author, known for his pioneering work with people who attended boarding schools.We explore:• Nick’s background and the 1994 film 'The Making of Them'• His latest book 'The Unmaking of Them: Clinical Reflections on Boarding School Syndrome'• What “Boarding School Syndrome” means and how it shows up in adult life• How boarding schools have been normalised in British society• The impacts on intimacy, emotions and relationships• The different typologies of survivors and how therapy can help• Stren...
2025-08-2756 minThe Astrophysics PodcastDr. Daniel D'Orazio -- The Black Hole ShuffleJust how big can black holes get? Well, they can get super-massive! That is, millions to billions of times as massive as the sun. How do we know this? We've detected these supermassive black holes at the centers of galaxies in a number of ways, and Dr. Daniel D'Orazio has been leading the way in figuring out new ways we can detect more, especially if it's not one but two black holes orbiting one another in a binary system.
2025-08-011h 03The Astrophysics PodcastDr. Abigail Polin -- Astrophysics Q & AIn this week's episode, Dr. Abigail Polin joins us to answer your questions from the internet, on a variety of topics tangentially related to astrophysics! Questions range from the basic and fundamental to the obscure and weird. Answers are totally unprepared and rambling. Our guests this week are Dr. Abigail Polin, PLUS an extra-special mystery guest!
2025-07-011h 25The Astrophysics PodcastDr. Andrea Derdzinski -- How do we see black holes?A black hole is so dense, its gravitational field prevents anything from escaping, including light. You would think that would make them the "blackest" things in the universe; how in the world do we know they are there? Dr. Andrea Derdzinski tells us about how we detect black holes, either due to the gravitational waves they produce, or due to their interaction with material orbiting around them, which paradoxically can make them some of the brightest objects in the universe.
2025-06-0155 minThe Astrophysics PodcastDr. Jared Goldberg -- Does Betelgeuse have a Betelbuddy?Up in Orion's shoulder sits Betelgeuse, a supergiant star near the end of its life. The surface of Betelgeuse has been roiling and pulsing for centuries, as long as humans have recorded its modulated luminosity. Dr. Jared Goldberg is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Center for Computational Astrophysics in the Flatiron Institute in New York City. Dr. Golberg has been developing computer models for Betelgeuse to help understand and interpret its oscillations over time.
2025-05-011h 04The Astrophysics PodcastDr. Yvette Cendes -- Black Holes on the RadioWhat happens when a black hole eats up a star? Apparently a lot of things happen, and if you wait around awhile and look in the radio, even more things happen! Dr. Yvette Cendes tells us what it's like to be a radio astronomer and about her latest research into tidal disruption events (TDE's), when a black hole shreds up a star and eats it, producing a dramatic light show across the electromagnetic spectrum.
2025-04-0153 minThe Astrophysics PodcastDr. Maxim Lyutikov -- How do you make a Fast Radio Burst?Some things happen out in the universe that are too powerful to make in a lab. Other phenomena are so coherent and well-ordered, we can't figure out how they can be made without a lab! Fast radio bursts are an incomprehensible combination of both; they are extremely powerful, highly coherent, and very rapid bursts of radio emission. Dr. Maxim Lyutikov spends a lot of his time pondering how these bursts could possibly be made, and all the data seems to point to the most extreme physics imaginable: neutron stars at the highest densities we can imagine, with extremely strong...
2025-03-011h 07The Astrophysics PodcastDr. Lindsey Kwok -- The Forensic Science of SupernovaeHow do we know so much about supernovae, when all we see is this little point of light getting brighter and then dimmer over time? Given this minimal data, we can often say what type of star exploded, and even some details about how the explosion took place. Supernova astronomers are a lot like forensic scientists dusting for fingerprints and getting DNA samples at the scene of a crime. But instead of a typical crime scene, they are investigating the death of an entire solar system. Dr. Lindsey Kwok is a CIERA fellow at Northwestern University and an expert...
2025-02-0155 minThe Astrophysics PodcastDr. Paul Duffell -- The Universe on a Computer (with host Dr. Abigail Polin)How big a computer do you need to simulate a supernova? Or a planet being formed? Or a black hole swallowing gas? Many astrophysicists spend their time developing computational models to simulate these systems and learn how they evolve. We discuss these computer simulations with Purdue Professor Dr. Paul Duffell. In this first episode of season 2, Dr. Abigail Polin takes over as host.
2025-01-011h 10The Astrophysics PodcastDr. Brenna Mockler -- When Black Holes Get HungryWhat do black holes like to eat? Sometimes a steady diet of interstellar gas just isn't enough and a black hole needs to snack on a whole star. No judgment, we all get that way sometimes. But it can lead to some extremely energetic outflows, visible from across the universe. Dr. Brenna Mockler tells us all about these events, called "Tidal Disruption Events", and what we can learn from observing them.
2024-12-011h 00The Astrophysics PodcastDr. Dan Milisavljevic -- Into the Time DomainOur universe isn't just a static, unchanging backdrop. It is constantly changing in time and we now have the technology to image it over and over again to explore all those changes. This is called Time Domain Astronomy, and Danny Milisavljevic is an expert in this field. He spends a lot of his time on the forensic science of exploding stars, to gain clues about the underlying processes that caused the explosion in the first place.
2024-11-0155 minThe Astrophysics PodcastDr. Katelyn Breivik -- How Binary Stars EvolveWhat would our solar system be like if we had two suns? Actually, this situation could be more common than you might think, as most stars are in binary systems. If a star is in a binary pair, how does that affect its life and death? Dr. Katelyn Breivik of Carnegie Mellon University tells us all about these systems and what scientists and other curious minds can learn from them.
2024-10-011h 09The Astrophysics PodcastDr. Kyoungsoo Lee -- Our Galactic NeighborhoodWhat's the biggest thing in the universe, besides the universe itself? Well, stars live in galaxies, and galaxies live in large collections called galaxy clusters. Astronomers can study these titanic clusters of galaxies to learn about how they grow and merge with each other to assemble the universe we live in today. Dr. Kyoung-Soo Lee takes us on a journey to the largest scales in the cosmos.
2024-09-011h 10
General Witchfinders: The British Horror Podcast48 - The House that Dripped blood"The House That Dripped Blood" is a 1971 British anthology horror film directed by Peter Duffell and distributed by Amicus Productions. The film is a collection of four short stories, each concerning a series of inhabitants of the eponymous building. Denholm Elliott appears in the segment "Method for Murder," playing Charles Hillyer. He is joined by Joanna Dunham, who portrays Alice Hillyer, Charles' wife. Peter Cushing stars in the segment "Waxworks," portraying Philip Grayson. Joss Ackland (known for "Lethal Weapon 2," "Watership Down," and "Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey," among over 100 other films) plays...
2024-08-191h 20The Astrophysics PodcastDr. Jason Wang -- Taking a Photo of an ExoplanetFor centuries, all that we have known about planets was confined to our own solar system, and its occasionally-changing number of planets (eight as of now). But in the past several decades, astronomers have developed increasingly sophisticated techniques for detecting planets outside our solar system, orbiting distant stars many light-years away. Dr. Jason Wang is an innovator who has developed powerful data analysis methods which have allowed us to take direct images of these exoplanets.
2024-08-0146 minThe Astrophysics PodcastDr. Rosalba Perna -- The Neighborhood of a Supermassive Black HolePlanets orbit stars, and moons orbit planets, so what orbits a supermassive black hole? Possibly a whole lot of stuff, including a gaseous disk, thousands of stars and more "normal size" black holes! Dr. Rosalba Perna tells us about all the crazy things that could be orbiting around the supermassive black holes that we detect at the center of active galaxies.
2024-07-011h 04
An Evolving Man PodcastComplex PTSD - What Is The Outer Critic? How Does It Differ From The Inner Critic? | Piers CrossWhat is the outer critic especially in terms of childhood trauma, complex PTSD and boarding school syndrome?How does the outer critic come to the fore? And what is the outer critic's link to the inner aspect?Today I wanted to offer some reflections about how this part of our psyche plays out.I quote from Pete Walker and his book, Complex PTSD and also from Nick Duffell's Wounded Leaders and his take on dissociation.If you have learned to dissociate from the unwanted parts of yourself you will have a...
2024-06-2610 minThe Astrophysics PodcastDr. Soham Mandal -- What Happens to Supernovae After they Explode?When a star explodes, it's not finished having an impact on its surroundings. For the next thousand years or so, we can still see it as a supernova remnant, when the explosion has expanded to large enough scales that we can actually resolve an image of the explosion with modern telescopes like JWST, and it's even possible to do a forensic analysis to learn more about the cause of death. We will be talking about supernova remnants with Dr. Soham Mandal, who just recently earned his PhD from Purdue University.
2024-06-0150 minThe Astrophysics PodcastDr. Yuan Li -- Our Turbulent UniverseWhat is turbulence? You've probably experienced it before on a plane (or perhaps on a river) but you might not know precisely what it is. But turbulence is all around us, and in particular we find it on some of the largest scales in the universe. Professor Yuan Li talks about turbulence and also a little unrelated bit about Mira, an unusual star with a tail!
2024-05-0156 minThe Astrophysics PodcastDr. Ashley Villar -- Big Data in AstrophysicsAstronomers deal with huge datasets, and they are about to get even bigger with the construction of the Vera Rubin Observatory. When you can detect a million supernovae per year, how do we make sense of this data and decide which ones are the "most interesting" to study? Professor Ashley Villar at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian has made her career out of developing machine learning techniques to answer this very question.
2024-04-011h 03The Astrophysics PodcastDr. Frank Timmes -- Pulsing White Dwarfs, Neutrinos, and the Infrastructure of ResearchWhat are neutrinos and where do they come from? How do we know what's going on in the interior of a star when we can only see the surface? How does a paper get accepted into a scientific journal? We discuss these questions and more with Frank Timmes, professor at Arizona State University and Associate Editor-in-Chief of a number of scientific journals run by the American Astronomical Society.
2024-03-0157 minThe Astrophysics PodcastDr. Erica Nelson -- Watching the First Galaxies FormHow did the galaxies form and how can we learn about them? Professor Erica Nelson of the University of Colorado, Boulder tells us how we use the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to look back in time and learn about the initial formation of structure in the universe.
2024-02-0159 min
The HORRORific PodcastHORRORific Reviews The House that Dripped Blood
Join Colin and Steve as they continue their reviews of the Amicus Films series of anthologies with The House that Dripped Blood, directed by Peter Duffell. Shortly after renting an old country house, film star Paul Henderson mysteriously disappears and Inspector Holloway from Scotland Yard is called to investigate. Inquiring at the local police station, Holloway is told some of the house's history.
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2024-01-021h 55The Astrophysics PodcastDr. Abigail Polin -- A New Type of SupernovaHow do stars explode? It turns out there's more than one way, and Professor Abigail Polin has discovered a totally new way that stars can end their lives. We talk with Professor Polin about how that works and how scientists look at a supernova to figure out what caused the explosion.
2024-01-011h 03
Cranleigh Community RadioCranleigh Community Radio episode 18Hello and welcome to Cranleigh Community Radio episode 18. Coming up in this episode, Lynda speaks to Steve Duffell from Cranleigh Fish. There's chapter two of Frank Penny and The Mystery Ludlow Hum, by local author Jeremy Elson. The Cranleigh Arts Team are back with their regular update. We've got poetry from Trisha Broomfield, live music from Paul Rich, and classical music introduced by Stephen Dennison.
2020-08-2153 min