Living Room Logic – Irish Science Podcast

In today's episode of this award winning science podcast, Aidan interviews a social scientist and climate activist, Dr Clare Watson, who tells us why many people deny or ignore climate change, and how positivity and community engagement (with a little help from the government) can refresh people's mindsets towards less doom and gloom and more action and progress.

This episode was supported by MaREI, the Science Foundation Irelan...

In today's episode of this award winning science podcast, Aidan interviews an expert in renewable energy, Dr Paul Deane, who explains why renewable energy could play a huge part globally in stabilising energy supplies, reducing costs and reducing carbon emissions massively. Paul has previously given TED talks about these issues and has won several awards for science communication, so he's definitely worth listening to, on top of hi...

In today's episode of this award winning science podcast, Aidan interviews an offshore wind energy expert Dr Frances Judge, to find out just how big offshore wind is getting, how to build Eiffel Tower sized structures in raging seas, and why offshore wind may be one of the worlds ways to curb rising energy costs and fight climate change.

This episode was supported by MaREI, the Science Foundation Ireland Research Centre for Ener...

What is more painful, a kick in the jewels or giving birth? Who REALLY experiences more pain: men or women? 

On today’s show, we sit down with Dr Siobhain O’ Mahony, a senior lecturer at University College Cork specializing in pain neuroscience, women's health, and the gut-brain axis.

Dr. Siobhain starts the conversation by defining pain syndromes, different types of pains for both genders, and sex differences in how w...

Today, we sit down with Dr. Caoimhe Rooney, a research scientist at NASA whose areas of expertise include mathematical modelling of complex engineering systems, planetary science, public communication and mission design. She has been featured in Forbes 30 Under 30 in 2022.

Listen in as Dr. Rooney discusses how participating in Oxford’s Industrially Focused Mathematical Modelling program paved the way for a career in applied ma...

Does the menstrual cycle impact performance? What about the contraceptive pill? How does a history of research in men, impact how we advise women to exercise? This week Andrew speaks to David Nolan, a fantastic PhD candidate in applied sports sciences under the supervision of Dr. Brendan Egan at Dublin City University.

David is an experienced sports science practitioner and academic. Currently an assistant lecturer in physical a...

Today, we sit down with Alan Kelly, a professor in the School of Food and Nutritional Sciences at University College Cork.

Listen in as Professor Alan deep dive into the various myths and misconceptions around processed food. Defining “processing” as the transformation of raw material, he sheds some light on what is actually done to food before it reaches consumers and how we can make more informed choices about what we put in...

What makes one persons bad day, another persons trauma? This week we go through the extraordinarily complex concepts which are as complex as any individual but Dr Samantha Dockray breaks it down.

Dr. Samantha Dockray is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Applied Psychology, University College Cork. Her key interests relate to the application of psychobiological models of behaviour and emotions, including diatheses-str...

Madness, insanity, and being mental are core to the stigma around mental health. Whilst the depression and anxiety have become more accepted, much of mental health is still poorly understood and draped in stigma, such as psychosis. To get to the core of this Andrew spoke to Clinical Psychologist and associate professor in UCD Dr Keith Gaynor. He is an expert on psychosis and mental health, particularly in young adults. We perceive ...

Andrew has been nominated as a rising star in Irish podcasting. Wild. In this episode he talks about how he thinks about talking science, who he looks up to, how the nomination makes him feel as well as sharing his best bits so far!

You can vote for Living Room Logic in the public vote for the Irish podcast awards, you can support us on Patreon and we will let you know how Andrew gets on as he and Aidan suit up for the awards ni...

Season finale warning that will blow your butt off,but.. we might have just the treatment in mind. This week we interviewed the brilliant Dr Katie Guzzetta, former UCC PhD student and current Harvard visiting research fellow. One big paper from her PhD was published in one of the biggest journals in the world where she found that giving old mice a 'fecal implant' from younger mice rejuvenated them! What!!! We go through the study, ...

The James Webb Space Telescope is nearing its destination 1 million miles away from earth. In the run-up to it’s first images of what the universe was like as far back as 50 million years after the start of time, Aidan interviews optics engineer Louis Martin, an expert in telescope instrumentation.

This episode, Louis explains why the Webb is so important to our understanding of how the universe and everything within it forms, a...

Everyone has seen a jellyfish flattened on the beach, or swam frantically away from one from fear of getting a nasty sting. But there's a lot more to jellyfish than meets the eye....

Outside Aidan's time as a co-host of the podcast, he's actually an experienced marine researcher, and did his PhD on jellyfish in the North Atlantic ocean. This episode, Andrew dives into aidan's gelatinous bank of knowledge and asks him about the i...

Women are consistently receiving worse treatment from doctors, getting less care for painful procedures and having more significant side effects from drugs than men.

This episode Andrew speaks about his research into deciphering women’s place in medicine. Unravelling the origin of sex differences in disease incidence such as Alzheimer’s disease (2x more women), multiple sclerosis (3x more women) and autism (3.5x more men).

If...

Everybody loves Salmon right? Turns out they're not doing too good. In a shocking turn of events, Atlantic Salmon have been tangled up in a story of illegality and black market activity on the high seas that would make Jack Sparrow quiver in his boots, that's led to an Atlantic-wide collapse in their stocks.

How do boats get away with doing questionable things in the high seas? Turns out its simple: Flags of Convenience. That i...

Jurassic Park was great, but Steven Spielberg got it wrong. Dinosaurs have fascinated scientists and the public alike for centuries, and only recently have we been able to shed light on a heated debate surrounding these mysterious creatures - did Dinosaurs have feathers? This raises the question of whether dinosaurs were like lumbering lizards or active ancient birds?

This episode, we dive into the most recent understanding of w...

There is a subtle but massive difference between, “what time is it?” and “what is time?”. Have you thought about it? It’s a bit like eating a clock… Time consuming.

We can’t hold time or see it, but we are all a slave to it. We experience it but cannot say what it is exactly. This episode, Andrew and Aidan discuss this idea. They share what scientists have said about time over the past 100 years and how it influences physics fro...

It's at the bottom of the ocean. It's in the food we eat. It's in our cells. It's on the beach, or floating in the ocean. It's in your home, on the street and surrounds you in shops. It's plastic.

Single use plastic has revolutionized much of our society, but at what cost? We have been making more plastic year on year since the 50s, none of which has degraded. Today we explore where the billions of tonnes of plastic end up, and ...

Why do humans get sad?

Our emotions are regulated in our brain and sometimes we are happy and sometimes we are sad. Mental health issues are a result of this process becoming dysregulated. For example, depression could be simplified as a sadness which does not return to neutral. Rather, your neutral mood is overall reduced and you can feel significant sadness for long periods of time and even anhedonia, the inability to feel hap...