 |
The Science in The FictionAuthor: Marty Kurylowicz and Holly Carson
This is both a science and a science fiction podcast. We dig deep into the biggest ideas in science fiction, using science to elevate the conversation about sci-fi, and sci-fi to promote science education, curiosity and vision. We talk to science fiction authors about the science in their fiction, then talk to scientists about the same topic, and catalyze conversations between the two. Language: en-us Genres: Fiction, Science, Science Fiction Contact email: Get it Feed URL: Get it iTunes ID: Get it |
Listen Now...
William Bains on Dark Ecology in 'Shroud'
Episode 62
Tuesday, 14 October, 2025
Marty speaks with biochemist and astrobiologist William Bains on the topic of Dark Ecology, as a final chapter to our 4 previous episodes on this topic with Chris Beckett (Ep 56), Julius Csotonyi (Ep 57-58) and Adrian Tchaikovsky (Ep 59). Dr. Bains is the author of “The Cosmic Zoo: Complex Life on Many Worlds”, and has earned degrees from the universities of Oxford, Warwick and Stanford, and has held positions at the University of Bath, MIT, Imperial College London, and in addition to founding a number of biotech start-up companies is now a senior research fellow in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Cardiff University in the UK. William is exactly the kind of person we love to speak with on this show as his expertise really expands and deepens some of ideas we’ve been talking about in contemporary science fiction. Some of his recent papers carry titles like "Prospects for detecting signs of life on exoplanets in the JWST era" and "Astrobiological implications of the stability and reactivity of peptide nucleic acid (PNA) in concentrated sulfuric acid". So that’s the kind of thing we discuss in the following conversation. In addition to expanding on the details of Adrian Tchaikovsky’s worldbuilding in Shroud, we talk about the WOW signal in astronomy, the incoming 3I/ATLAS extrasolar object, and new experiments in high throughput chemistry and biochemistry.Send us a messageEmail: thescienceinthefiction@gmail.comFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/743522660965257/
