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Making Science with Tom Whipple

by The Times
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Latest episodes

  • Breakthroughs in Cancer Research

    November 21, 2025 · 11 min

    Cancer Research UK is funding the breakthroughs that matter.  Did you know that over the past 50 years, their work has helped double cancer survival in the UK? From cancer vaccines to innovative diagnostic tools and more, the charity…

  • Time-lords and the extra seconds

    August 11, 2025 · 12 min

    The start of the New Year in 2017 began in the usual way, with a countdown. But what happens when that countdown is eleven seconds rather than ten? In this final episode of the first series, Tom Whipple explores the evolution of time…

  • The Tree of Life

    August 4, 2025 · 14 min

    In this episode of Making Science, Tom Whipple tells the story of physician and alchemist Johannes Baptist van Helmont. In the 17th-century Van Helmont believed he had created the Philosopher's Stone, a substance that could turn base…

  • Glow in the dark cocktails and radioactive health drinks

    July 28, 2025 · 9 min

    The Sunshine Dinner of 1904 in New York was known for its glow-in-the-dark theme, featuring illuminated decorations, paint and of course, drinks. But what made these cocktails glow? It turned out to be none other than radium. In this…

  • The kilogram that lost its weight

    July 21, 2025 · 11 min

    For over a century, the kilogram was defined by a single, shiny lump of metal locked in a vault near Paris. But what happens when your definition of mass starts...losing mass? In this episode, Tom Whipple, Science Editor at The Times…

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  • How do you hide a lump of gold in plain sight?

    July 14, 2025 · 9 min

    It's April in 1940. The Nazis are occupying Copenhagen. As they march through the streets, a stark realisation hits the physicist Niels Bohr. He has hours - maybe less - to make two Nobel Prize medals disappear completely. What might a…

  • How far can bull frogs jump? (And why it matters!)

    July 7, 2025 · 12 min

    The story of a frog who broke records and confounded science. Professor Tom Roberts from Brown University spent his whole career studying the biomechanics of frog jumping to understand how muscles work. He and other scientists had…

  • Are friars electric?

    July 1, 2025 · 9 min

    In 1746, Antoine Nolie conducted an experiment with 200 monks to determine the speed of an electric current - by making the monks stand in a circle holding brass poles and connecting them to a large battery. What could possibly go wrong?…

  • Islands of Ice and Straw

    June 23, 2025 · 9 min

    In this episode of Making Science, Tom Whipple delves into the intriguing science of latent heat and the thermodynamic properties of water - and how this science played a pivotal role in one of the strangest Allied schemes during World War…

  • War, Stones and Metals!

    June 16, 2025 · 9 min

    When the Stone Age met the Bronze Age? It's time for Tom to explore the profound impact of alloys on a clash of Stone and Bronze Age technologies in battle. Who would have thought blending copper and tin would have such an impact on human…

  • Death rays and other would-be inventions!

    June 9, 2025 · 9 min

    In the first of the series of Making Science, Tom Whipple, Science Editor at the Times, explores the strange history of a 'death ray’ that supposedly promised to change modern warfare forever. In 1924, engineer and inventor Harry Grindell…

  • Introducing Making Science with Tom Whipple

    June 3, 2025 · 2 min

    Welcome to Making Science with Tom Whipple, Science Editor at The Times and Sunday Times. This is the podcast about the often bizarre mixture of innovation, determination and the unexpected that collide at a point in history to make…

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About the show

What connects 200 hand-holding monks, a lump of gold hidden in a beaker, and irradiated cocktails? Welcome to Making Science with Tom Whipple, Science Editor at The Times and Sunday Times. This is the podcast where history, innovation, and the unexpected collide, as we uncover jaw-dropping stories behind the scientific discoveries we take for granted. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.