Best Raymond Morris Podcasts (2025)

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Kevin Fong on medical planning for Mars and Earth-based emergencies 28:39

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9d ago28:39

28:39

There can't be many people in the world who've saved lives in hospital emergency rooms and also helped care for the wellbeing of astronauts in space – but Kevin Fong’s career has followed a singular path: from astrophysics and trauma medicine, to working with NASA, to becoming an Air Ambulance doctor. Kevin is a consultant anaesthetist and professo…

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Dame Pratibha Gai on training atoms to do what we want 28:23

16d ago28:23

28:23

Chemical reactions are the backbone of modern society: the energy we use, the medicines we take, our housing materials, even the foods we eat, are created by reacting different substances together. If we zoom in, it’s the atoms within these substances that rearrange themselves to give rise to new substances with the properties we need. However, che…

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Catherine Heymans on the lighter side of the dark universe 28:34

23d ago28:34

28:34

Have you ever considered the lighter side of dark matter?Comedy has proved an unexpectedly succesful way to engage people with science - as today's guest knows first-hand. Astrophysicist Catherine Heymans is a Professor at the University of Edinburgh and the current Astronomer Royal for Scotland. She’s spent her career studying dark matter and dark…

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Sir Seretse Khama, first president of Botswana 27:43

24d ago27:43

27:43

Seretse Khama was born in 1921 in Bechuanaland when it was still a British Protectorate. In 1966 he became Botswana's first president. In between he married a white Londoner, Ruth Williamson, was exiled by the British, and made to renounce his interest in succeeding as head of the Bangwato. It's an extraordinary and notable life, and he's been nomi…

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Tim Coulson on how predators shape ecosystems and evolution 28:36

1M ago28:36

28:36

As a young man, traveling in Africa, Tim Coulson - now Professor of Zoology at the University of Oxford - became seriously ill with malaria and was told a second bout would probably kill him. Aged only 20, this brush with his own mortality led him to promise himself he would write a complete guide to science: life, the universe and everything. His …

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Emily Williamson, co-founder of the RSPB 27:32

1M ago27:32

27:32

For over a hundred years no one thought too much about the origins of the RSPB, but among its founders was a woman in Didsbury opposed to the use of feathers in fashionable hats. Emily Williamson was outraged by the widespread slaughter of egrets and the crested grebe. She had tried to join the all-male British Ornithological Union, and when that f…

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Claudia de Rham on playing with gravity 28:21

1M ago28:21

28:21

Claudia de Rham has rather an unusual relationship with gravity. While she has spent her career exploring its fundamental nature, much of her free time has involved trying to defy it - from scuba diving in the Indian Ocean to piloting small aircraft over the Canadian waterfalls. Her ultimate ambition was to escape gravity’s clutches altogether and …

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Tina Turner 27:43

1M ago27:43

27:43

Rock Icon Tina Turner proposed by the actress and author Rebecca Humphries. Tina Turner began life as Anna Mae Bullock in Nutbush, Tennessee, joining Ike Turner's band in St Louis at the age of 17. Her presence, her performances and her voice captivated audiences, but this is really a story of triumph over abuse. After she left Ike Turner with noth…

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Neil Lawrence on taking down the 'digital oligarchy' and why we shouldn't fear AI 28:35

1M ago28:35

28:35

When you think of Artificial Intelligence, does it inspire confidence, or concern? Although it's now generally accepted that this technology will play a major role in our future, a lot of conversations around AI and machine learning come back to the argument over us losing control and robots taking over. Happily, Neil Lawrence has a more optimistic…

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Raymond Blanc on Professor Nicholas Kurti 27:39

2M ago27:39

27:39

The chef Raymond Blanc nominates his mentor and friend, the physicist Professor Nicholas Kurti.Kurti was born in Hungary but fled to Oxford when Hitler came to power. Pushing the frontiers of low-temperature physics during his career, he went on to create‘molecular gastronomy’ in retirement. Raymond Blanc approached Kurti after a lecture the profes…

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Liz Morris on Antarctic adventures and the melting polar ice sheets 28:28

2M ago28:28

28:28

A frozen, white world at the far-reaches of the globe, where you're surrounded by snow and silence, might sound rather appealing. Factor in temperatures that drop to -57°C and a few of us might be put off - but for glaciologist Liz Morris, that's very much her happy place. Liz is an Emeritus Associate at the University of Cambridge’s Scott Polar Re…

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Dervla Murphy, author of the classic Full Tilt 27:38

2M ago27:38

27:38

At the age of 10 Dervla Murphy was given an atlas and a bicycle, and so began an adventurous life. Her account of a journey to India became a classic called Full Tilt but she also went to Cuba, Ethiopia and the Andes where our guest first met her in a doss house. Hilary Bradt is the founder of the Bradt Travel Guides and is picking Dervla Murphy as…

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Anthony Fauci on a medical career navigating pandemics and presidents 45:05

2M ago45:05

45:05

Welcome to a world where medicine meets politics: a space that brings together scientific research, government wrangling, public push-back and healthcare conspiracies… Dr Anthony Fauci was the Director of America’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases for nearly four decades, during which time he not only helped study, treat and pr…

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Ned Ludd mythical leader of the Luddites 27:43

2M ago27:43

27:43

We don't even know if Ned Ludd was real, but perhaps that was the point. "You could say he was everyone and no one - and that's what made him so terrifying for the authorities." Leader of the Luddites, who often signed letters and proclamations Ned Ludd, he is shown in one engraving wearing mismatched shoes and a blue polka dot dress, suggesting a …

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Richey Edwards of The Manic Street Preachers 27:40

2M ago27:40

27:40

Richey was, beautiful says Cummins, a natural icon and a gift to photograph. He also believes his writing has been overshadowed by the fact of his disappearance in 1995. "I think nobody has looked beyond that for quite a long time.” Manic Street Preachers biographer, Simon Price, also knew Richey Edwards and says he was "the most intelligent rock s…

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Benny Hill 27:28

2M ago27:28

27:28

Biography show in which the guest picks someone they admire. Benny Hill is a thorny choice but playwright Jonathan Maitland is determined that - despite accusations of sexism and racism later in his career - Britain's most successful comedian deserves a second look. Benny was fired by Thames TV in 1989. "The show was past its sell-by date," was the…

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Maggi Hambling picks muse and lover Henrietta Moraes 27:35

3M ago27:35

27:35

“Henrietta's eyes looked into one's soul at the same time exposing her own. She posed for me most Mondays for the last seven months until two days before she died.” In a raw and very funny opener to the new series of Great Lives, painter and sculptor Maggi Hambling chooses someone she knew extremely well - her lover Henrietta Moraes. Born in India,…

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Harriet Harman on Maria Callas 27:57

3M ago27:57

27:57

The legendary opera star Maria Callas was lauded for her magnetic stage presence and extraordinary vocal range. Born in New York in 1923 to Greek immigrant parents, she moved with her mother and sister to Greece aged 13. In 1939 she attended the Athens Conservatoire where she embarked on a rigorous vocal training in the Italian "bel canto" traditio…

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Brian Schmidt on Nobel Prize-winning supernovae and the joys of making wine 28:39

3M ago28:39

28:39

Have you ever pondered the fact that the universe is expanding? And not only that, it's expanding at an increasing speed - meaning everything around us is getting further and further away? If that isolating thought makes you feel slightly panicked, don't worry: this programme also contains wine! Brian Schmidt is a Distinguished Professor of Astroph…

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Jacqueline McKinley on unearthing bones and stories at Britain's ancient burial sites 28:32

3M ago28:32

28:32

How much information can you extract from a burnt fragment of human bone? Quite a lot, it turns out - not only about the individual, but also their broader lives and communities; and these are the stories unearthed by Jacqueline McKinley, a Principal Osteoarchaeologist with Wessex Archaeology. During her career, Jackie has analysed thousands of anc…

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Kate Raworth on Donella Meadows 27:56

4M ago27:56

27:56

Born in Illinois in 1941, Dana Meadows studied Chemistry and Molecular Biology, before turning her back on a post doc position at Harvard, to pursue environmentalism. She joined her husband Dennis Meadows as part of the team working on Professor Jay Forester's World3 computer model of the world economy at MIT and wrote the report on the results of …

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Jonathan Shepherd on a career as a crime-fighting surgeon 28:38

4M ago28:38

28:38

Surgeons often have to deal with the consequences of violent attacks - becoming all too familiar with patterns of public violence, and peaks around weekends, alcohol-infused events and occasions that bring together groups with conflicting ideals. Professor Jonathan Shepherd not only recognised the link between public violence and emergency hospital…

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Doyne Farmer on making sense of chaos for a better world 28:32

4M ago28:32

28:32

Doyne Farmer is something of a rebel. Back in the seventies, when he was a student, he walked into a casino in Las Vegas, sat down at a roulette table and beat the house. To anyone watching the wheel spin and the ball clatter to its final resting place, his choice of number would’ve looked like a lucky guess. But knowing the physics of the game and…

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Tori Herridge on ancient dwarf elephants and frozen mammoths 28:39

4M ago28:39

28:39

Elephants are the largest living land mammal and today our plant is home to three species: the African bush elephant, the African forest elephant, and the Asian elephant. But a hundred thousand years ago, in the chilly depths of the Ice Age, multiple species of elephant roamed the earth: from dog-sized dwarf elephants to towering woolly mammoths. T…

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Sir Magdi Yacoub on pioneering heart transplant surgery 28:35

4M ago28:35

28:35

What does it take to earn the nickname, ‘The Leonardo da Vinci of heart surgery’? That's the moniker given to today's guest - a man who pioneered high-profile and often controversial procedures, but also helped drive huge medical progress; carrying out around 2,000 heart transplants and 400 dual heart-lung transplants during his 60-year career. Sir…

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Mark Billingham chooses George Harrison 27:00

5M ago27:00

27:00

George Harrison was a musician, singer and songwriter who became one of the most famous people in the world as one quarter of the Beatles. That alone would merit a place in the Great Lives pantheon, but his work in the decades after the band broke up indicates a man of diverse and arguably underestimated talents. Erupting onto the pop music scene i…

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Jake Arnott on John Gay 27:42

5M ago27:42

27:42

John Gay, eighteenth-century satirist and author of The Beggar's Opera, is nominated by the writer Jake Arnott - whose novels, including The Long Firm and He Kills Coppers, are also set in London's criminal underworld. Editor of Private Eye, Ian Hislop, is the presenter, and Dr Rebecca Bullard of the University of Oxford is on hand to help uncover …

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Ellen E Jones nominates Florynce Kennedy 27:59

5M ago27:59

27:59

One dubbed "the biggest, loudest and indisputably the rudest mouth on the battleground", Florynce Kennedy was a force to be reckoned with. She was a lawyer, a vocal figure in the American civil rights and feminist movements of the 1960s and '70s, and a champion of numerous other causes besides; from legalising abortion to campaigning for sex-worker…

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A N Wilson selects Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 27:47

5M ago27:47

27:47

"I've chosen him because I think he was possibly the most interesting human being who has ever lived". A N Wilson Born in the middle of the 18th century in Frankfurt, Goethe went on to become the pre-eminent figure in German literature. As well as writing plays and poetry (including Faust) he was a statesman, a scientist, an artist and a critic. Qu…

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Jessica Fostekew on Boudica 27:44

5M ago27:44

27:44

"The Queen Boadicea, standing loftily charioted, Brandishing in her hand a dart and rolling glances lioness-like, Yell'd and shriek'd between her daughters in her fierce volubility": so wrote Alfred, Lord Tennyson in the 19th Century, celebrating the story of an ancient English warrior queen who sparked a brutal and bloody rebellion against Roman r…

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Reginald D Hunter selects Eugene V Debs 27:41

6M ago27:41

27:41

Eugene Victor Debs, born 1855 in Indiana USA, was a railway worker, a trade unionist and a five time candidate for the presidency. He was imprisoned during the First World War for sedition. He'd urged resistance to the draft; President Woodrow Wilson called him a traitor to the nation, but Debs still ran for the presidency in 1920. His sentence was…

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Pen Hadow nominates Sir Peter Scott 27:48

6M ago27:48

27:48

"Make the boy interested in natural history," wrote Captain Scott from his tent in the Antarctic. He was talking about his son, three year old Peter Scott, whom he never saw again and who went on to found the Wildfowl and Wetland Trust and campaign against the hunting of whales. The son also designed the panda logo for the Wold Wide Fund for Nature…

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Lauren Cuthbertson on Margot Fonteyn 28:06

6M ago28:06

28:06

Margot Fonteyn was an icon: a ballerina who helped build and indeed embodied the traditional image of a dancer, just as the artform was finding its feet on the British cultural scene. From humble beginnings she became an international star, enjoying a dazzling career with the Royal Ballet, a glamorous social life as a diplomat’s wife, and an electr…

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Dr Hannah Critchlow picks Professor Colin Blakemore 27:59

6M ago27:59

27:59

Professor Colin Blakemore was a famous communicator of science, the youngest ever Reith lecturer on the BBC. He was also targeted by members of the animal rights movement, which sent bombs and letters lined with razor blades to his home address. Born in 1944 and brought up in Coventry, Colin Blakemore was committed to brain research and the connect…

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Doug Allan on Captain Jacques Cousteau 28:07

7M ago28:07

28:07

Captain Jacques-Yves Cousteau was an oceanographer, filmmaker and explorer who made the seas a subject of fascination for millions. During his time in the French Navy, Cousteau co-invented the Aqua-Lung: the first self-contained kit that allowed a diver to breathe underwater. This and his fascination with capturing images of the subaquatic world pa…

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Tim Peake on his journey to becoming an astronaut and science in space 1:00:04

7M ago1:00:04

1:00:04

What's it like living underwater for two weeks? What's the trickiest part of training to be an astronaut? What are the most memorable sights you see from space?Several extreme questions, all of which can be answered by one man: Major Tim Peake. After a childhood packed with outdoor adventures, via the Cub Scouts and school Cadet Force, Tim joined t…

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Anna Korre on capturing carbon dioxide and defying expectations 28:28

10M ago28:28

28:28

As the famous frog once said, it's not easy being green. And when it comes to decarbonising industry, indeed, reducing emissions of all sorts, the task is a complex one. Fossil fuels are used to manufacture some of mankind’s most ubiquitous products, from plastics to cement to steel; and even in areas where we’re trying to improve our footprint, th…

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Ekow Eshun on the first openly gay footballer, Justin Fashanu 27:47

10M ago27:47

27:47

In 1981 Brian Clough paid £1 million pounds to bring Justin Fashanu to Nottingham Forest. It was the climax of a meteoric career, but within months the goals had dried up, he'd been going to gay nightclubs, and Fashanu had also become become a born again Christian. Four decades later Justin Fashanu remains top flight English football's only openly …

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Rosalie David on the science of Egyptian mummies 28:22

10M ago28:22

28:22

Rosalie David is a pioneer in the study of ancient Egypt. In the early 1970s, she launched a unique project to study Egyptian mummified bodies using the techniques of modern medicine. Back then, the vast majority of Egyptologists regarded mummies as unimportant sources of information about life in ancient Egypt. Instead they focussed on interpretin…

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Anneka Rice picks the largely forgotten Jane Morris, muse to Rossetti and wife of William Morris 27:46

10M ago27:46

27:46

The biography show where famous guests picks someone they admire or love. Jane Morris was the wife of William Morris and muse of Gabriel Dante Rossetti. Anneka Rice believes her contribution to 19th-Century art and culture has been largely overlooked. "I'm not a big fan of needle point," she says, "but we cannot ignore what she brings to art histor…

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Peter Stott on climate change deniers and Italian inspiration 28:29

11M ago28:29

28:29

In the summer of 2003, Europe experienced its most intense heatwave on record - one that saw more than 70,000 people lose their lives. Experiencing the effects whilst on holiday in Tuscany, climate scientist Peter Stott was struck by the idea that just maybe, he could use a modelling system developed by his team at the UK’s Met Office Hadley Centre…

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Ijeoma Uchegbu on using nanoparticles to transform medicines 28:25

11M ago28:25

28:25

Imagine a nanoparticle, less that a thousandth of the width of a human hair, that is so precise that it can carry a medicine to just where it’s needed in the body, improving the drug’s impact and reducing side effects. Ijeoma Uchegbu, Professor of Pharmaceutical Nanoscience at University College London, has spent her career with this goal in mind. …

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The surgeon Henry Marsh picks 'the saviour of mothers' Dr Semmelweis 27:44

11M ago27:44

27:44

The biography show where famous guests pick someone from history they admire or they love. Our only rule is they must be dead. Today neurosurgeon Dr Henry Marsh chooses “the saviour of mothers” Dr Ignaz Semmelweis The Hungarian doctor discovered the link between childbirth and puerperal fever in 19th century Vienna but he was ridiculed, ignored and…

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Darren Croft on killer whale matriarchs and the menopause 28:24

11M ago28:24

28:24

Darren Croft studies one of the ocean’s most charismatic and spectacular animals – the killer whale. Orca are probably best known for their predatory behaviour: ganging up to catch hapless seals or attack other whales. But for the last fifteen years, Darren Croft’s focus has been on a gentler aspect of killer whale existence: their family and repro…

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The Roman Emperor Nero 27:36

11M ago27:36

27:36

An unexpected choice for Great Lives, the Roman Emperor Nero has a reputation for debauchery and murder. He was also surprisingly popular, at least during the early years of his reign, and the writer Conn Iggulden argues he may be a victim of bad press. The Christians decided he was the anti-christ some three centuries after he died, and the three …

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Bill Gates on vaccines, conspiracy theories and the pleasures of pickleball 35:59

11M ago35:59

35:59

Bill Gates is one of the world's best-known billionaires - but after years at the corporate coalface building a software empire and a vast fortune, his priority now is giving that wealth away. And his ethos for doing it has been shaped by science. Famed for co-founding Microsoft, in recent decades Bill’s attention has turned to philanthropy via The…

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Film director Julien Temple on Elizabethan bad boy Christopher Marlowe 27:47

11M ago27:47

27:47

Julien Temple, director of The Great Rock n Roll Swindle, Glastonbury and Absolute Beginners, chooses Christopher Marlowe, writer of brilliant plays including Doctor Faustus and Tamburlaine the Great. "I'm excited to talk about him," he says, "because I've known him for more than 50 years." The link? An attempt as a student to summon up Marlowe in …

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Zing Tsjeng on Swedish painter Hilma af Klint 27:52

12M ago27:52

27:52

Hilma af Klint (1862-1944) was barely known during her lifetime but an exhibition of her work at the Guggenheim Museum in 2018 shattered attendance records. it was called Paintings for the Future, and the giant abstract work astounded visitors who had not heard of her before.Joining journalist Zing Tsjeng in the studio to discuss her life is Jennif…

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Kip Thorne on black holes, Nobel Prizes and taking physics to Hollywood 35:38

12M ago35:38

35:38

The final episode in this series of The Life Scientific is a journey through space and time, via black holes and wormholes, taking in Nobel-prize-winning research and Hollywood blockbusters! Kip Thorne is an Emeritus Professor of Theoretical Physics at Caltech, the California Institute of Technology, and someone who’s had a huge impact on our under…

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Miriam Margolyes on Charles Dickens 27:54

12M ago27:54

27:54

The great Miriam Margolyes chooses Charles Dickens, author of Oliver Twist and A Christmas Carol. "He's the man in my life. He's tugged me into his world and never let me go. He writes better prose than anyone who's ever lived. He's told the most interesting stories, invented 2000 of the best characters, and because he was a wicked man." Miriam Mar…