Nicola Davis is one of Science Weekly’s presenters, alongside Ian Sample and Hannah Devlin. Madeleine Finlay is one of its regular producers, alongside Max Sanderson and David Waters
How long has the pod been running, and how has it changed since its genesis?
Madeleine Science Weekly started in March 2006, so it’s been an impressively long-running podcast. Since that first show it’s had a few different makeovers, from doing round-tables and covering news stories to speaking with authors and exploring a single scientific topic in depth. It’s even done a (really spectacular) mini-series, exploring the sonic environment of the ocean. Under each new guise, the podcast is always trying to find the best format to share science and engage its listeners. That’s why we changed things up a bit with Covid-19 – making our episodes shorter and bringing them out more frequently than usual, so we could delve into the rapidly developing pandemic and discuss the science as it was happening.
How do you decide which topics and experts to include?
Nicola When it comes to the Covid-19 outbreak, it’s about being very specific. The story has different aspects, and is fast moving, so it can be hard for people to find answers to the questions they care about. With the podcast we wanted to zoom in on key issues in a concise way. Our listeners have been a huge help, sending in fantastic questions to steer our coverage. What I particularly like about that is that it means we as a team are delving into the things that really matter to our listeners, whether that’s unpicking if Covid-19 poses a particular risk to pregnant women (happily the answer appears to be no), or delving into our understanding of immunity. We carefully research which scientists are leaders in the field, and can share not just what’s known about Covid-19, but also what remains to be unpicked.
What have been your highlights of the podcasts you’ve produced so far – especially the ones launched during lockdown?
Nicola I have so many favourite episodes. A golden oldie is the mystery of the Oxford dodo – a bird that seems to have been bumped off in peculiar circumstances – but I also loved taking listeners into the bowels of the Natural History Museum to explore some fossilised dinosaur poo. When it comes to Covid-19, my favourite episode, as a former chemist, has to be the one about why soap and water helps to tackle coronavirus. Hand washing is a simple action, but so effective.
Madeleine Of the podcasts I’ve produced during lockdown, I particularly enjoyed the episode on why people are losing their sense of taste and smell. As soon as anecdotal reports started coming out that coronavirus was causing this, usually very sudden, sensory loss I was hooked. Was it really a symptom? How was the virus affecting people in this way? What were the biological mechanisms behind it? That exemplifies one of the best things about making these podcasts – following our (and our listeners’) curiosity, and chasing down answers and insights from the experts.
What have been the most interesting things you’ve learned about Covid-19?
Nicola As with any novel virus, scientists are discovering new things all the time – every day brings new revelations. A fundamental, and fascinating, discovery was how coronavirus enters human cells. Impressively early on, scientists found that it did this by attaching its surface proteins called “spike proteins” to a receptor called ACE2. Now, vaccines are already in development that hope to introduce these spike proteins to the body and trigger an immune response.
I also think reports of people experiencing symptoms of Covid-19 for many weeks or even months are important – increasingly so as time goes on – as are the findings that men and BAME communities are at greater risk from the disease. Hopefully researchers will begin to understand these issues more in the coming months, and find ways to tackle them.
What are the biggest challenges of producing the pods now?
Madeleine Initially I thought the biggest challenge might be technological – trying to get everyone online, able to hear each other, and recorded with a reasonable sound quality. I’m sure most of us have suffered the endless back and forth of “Hello? Hello? Can you hear me?” on Zoom calls over the past few months. Occasionally getting the tech right is tough, and there have had to be some rather quick workarounds, but thankfully on day one of working from home, Max Sanderson, the head producer, sent the presenters proper microphones and recorders.
In fact, for me, what has been really challenging is the speed at which the science is evolving. For a while it felt as if each morning I’d wake up to a new discovery, question, or mystery. Despite it making things more difficult for a producer, it’s a real testament to how hard, and how fast, scientists have been working on understanding Covid-19 over the past few months.
Then, of course, there’s trying to make sure our presenters can find time on a busy news day. Their schedules were full even before the pandemic, so the effort they’re putting in now is pretty heroic.
Do you get feedback from listeners? How have people responded?
Madeleine When we first started the podcasts focusing on Covid-19, we put a call out to listeners asking for questions and feedback. I’m not sure how many responses we were expecting, but we were shocked, and thrilled, to see our inboxes fill up every week. We’ve had hundreds of interesting, surprising, and provocative questions that have really got us thinking, and guided which topics we look at each week. From the start there has been one consistent message in the feedback from listeners – they’re grateful for the information. I think knowledge and understanding make a huge difference when everything is so uncertain and unpredictable. It can make us feel safer, calmer, and a little more in control. Seeing how much our listeners appreciate discovering more about the science of the outbreak never fails to brighten up a day and motivate me onto the next question!
How does the pod complement the rest of our science coverage?
Nicola Working on the Science Weekly podcast is one of my favourite aspects of being a science reporter at the Guardian – it offers a different way of telling a story compared with writing a news article and it allows us to take listeners behind the scenes of how we delve into a story, from the kinds of questions we ask to the importance of challenging the answers we receive. It also allows us to give listeners a feel for how science works, and the people who are doing the science itself.