A Good Science Read is a podcast from the University of Oxford in which Professor Dame Frances Ashcroft and guests discuss their favourite popular science books. Each episode explores accessible, thought-provoking science writing and the people behind it. The conversations aim to share a love of science and highlight books that offer something for everyone. Episodes are published fortnightly.
Episodes
A Good Science Read: These Strange New Minds
Professors Masud Husain and Frances Ashcroft discuss These strange new minds: how AI learned to talk and what it means by Chris Summerfield. The book considers how advances in artificial intelligence have led to large language models such as ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini that are transforming everything we do. It discusses how they work, how similar or not they are to our own minds and brains and wha
A Good Science Read: How our brains make our selves
Professor Dame Uta Frith and Professor Frances Ashcroft discuss 'Our Brains Our Selves: what a neurologist’s patients taught him about the brain' by Masud Husain Masud Husain is a neurologist and a Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Oxford. This book tells the stories of seven of his patients, whose personal and social identities were deeply affected by their neurological con
A Good Science Read: 'The Coming Plague' and 'Spike: The Virus vs. The People - the Inside Story'
Georgina Ferry and Professor Frances Ashcroft discuss 'The Coming Plague' by Laurie Garrett, and 'Spike: The Virus vs. The People - the Inside Story' by Jeremy Farrar and Anjana Ahuja. 'The Coming Plague' is an extremely well researched book that presents a history of old and new plagues such as TB, cholera, influenza, Ebola and hantavirus, and tells the stories of the scientists who study them. G
A Good Science Read: Masters of Science Writing
Professor Dinah Birch and Professor Frances Ashcroft discuss 'The Faber Book of Science' edited by John Carey and 'The Golden Mole and other living treasures' by Katherine Rundell. Professor Dinah Birch and Professor Frances Ashcroft discuss The Faber Book of Science edited by John Carey and The Golden Mole and other living treasures by Katherine Rundell.
The Faber Book of Science is a wonderfu
A Good Science Read: Metabolism
Professor Tim Coulsen and Professor Frances Ashcroft discuss 'Burn: the Misunderstood Science of Metabolism' by Herman Pontzer and 'Transformer: The Deep Chemistry of Life and Death' by Nick Lane. Both these books are concerned with science of metabolism – the process by which food is burnt to produce energy – but they approach it from different perspectives. Burn is an engaging account of Herman
A Good Science Read: 'The Fly Trap' and 'As If Human: AI and Artificial Intelligence'
Professor Sir Charles Godfray and Professor Frances Ashcroft discuss 'The Fly Trap' by Fredrik Sjöberg and 'As if Human: AI and Artificial Intelligence' by Neil Shadbolt and Roger Hampson. Professor Charles Godfray and Professor Frances Ashcroft discuss The Fly Trap by Fredrik Sjöberg and As if Human: AI and Artificial Intelligence by Neil Shadbolt and Roger Hampson.
The Fly Trap describes th
A Good Science Read: Why Sex Matters
Professor Russell Foster and Professor Frances Ashcroft discuss 'The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature' by Matt Ridley and 'Dr Tatiana's Sex Advice to All Creation' by Olivia Judson. Series 2 Episode 9
The Red Queen is an excellent and accessible overview of sexual evolution. It discusses why sex matters, why most organisms have 2 genders, why we are not all hermaphrodite, what str
A Good Science Read: A Walk on the Wild Side
Professor Richard Fortey joins Professor Frances Ashcroft to discuss 'Entangled Life' by Merlin Sheldrake and 'Wilding' by Isabella Tree. Series 2 Episode 8
Entangled Life is fascinating journey into the world of fungi - what they are, how they evolved, their hyphal networks below the ground, their mycorrhizal relationships with plants, their symbiotic interactions with algae in lichens, and the
A Good Science Read: On the Origin of Modern Humans
Professor Chris Miller and Professor Frances Ashcroft discuss 'Who We Are and How We Got Here' by the Harvard geneticist David Reich. Series 2 Episode 7: The book 'Who We Are and How We Got Here: Ancient DNA and the new science of the human past' is a compelling account of the origin of modern humans. Reich explains how our recent ability to study ancient DNA has dramatically revised our understa
A Good Science Read: How everything works
Dr Roger Highfield joins Professor Frances Ashcroft to discuss 'Pain: A Ladybird Expert book' by Irene Tracey and 'A Short History of Nearly Everything' by Bill Bryson. Pain is a very short book but it encompasses everything you want to know about pain in a clear and informative way. What it is, how we measure it, why we need it, and how we can – and often alas, cannot – treat it. A Short History
A Good Science Read: How humans changed the landscape and ourselves
Professor Peter Burge joins Professor Frances Ashcroft to discuss 'Dust: The Modern World in a Trillion Particles' by Jay Owens and 'The Species that Changed Itself or How prosperity reshaped humanity' by Edwin Gale. Dust is all around us and we breathe it in with every breath we take, but it is not something most of think much about. Yet it impacts all our lives in multiple ways, causing environm
A Good Science Read: Evolution - from Fossils to Finches
Professor Paul Smith and Professor Frances Ashcroft discuss 'Wonderful Life' by Stephen Jay Gould and 'The Beak of the Finch' by Jonathan Weiner. Wonderful Life focuses on the weird and wonderful fossils found in the Burgess Shale in the Canadian Rockies – their discovery, what they tell us about evolution and their re-evaluation many years later. The Beak of the Finch is also about evolution bu
A Good Science Read: The Secret Life of the Cuckoo
Professor Richard Boyd joins Professor Frances Ashcroft to discuss 'Cuckoo - Cheating by Nature' by Nick Davies. The cuckoo is a ruthless parasite that lays its egg in another bird’s nest, tricks them into accepting the egg as its own and entices them to feed its chick. This book is a riveting account of an extraordinary bird and it reads like a detective story. Nick Davies asks every question y
A Good Science Read: The importance of Mathematics and Engineering
Professor Marcus du Sautoy joins Professor Frances Ashcroft to discuss 'A Mathematician’s Apology' by GH Hardy and 'Exactly: How Engineers Created the Modern World' by Simon Winchester. A Mathematician’s Apology is GH Hardy’s panegyric on pure mathematics in which he claims that pure maths is the pinnacle of the sciences and that it has an inherent beauty. Exactly tells the stories of the pioneeri
A Good Science Read: The Story of Penicillin
Professor Matthew Freeman and Professor Frances Ashcroft discuss 'The Mould in Dr Florey's Coat' by Eric Lax This book tells the true story of the penicillin miracle – penicillin being the mould in Dr Florey’s coat. When most people are asked who discovered penicillin they invariably answer Alexander Fleming. But he was merely one of the people involved and arguably not even the most important.
A Good Science Read
Professor Frances Ashcroft gives a short introduction to this exciting new series
