Big animals evolve to be small on islands, while tiny ones get large. The dodo, for example, was a massive pigeon, while Sicily used to be home to miniature elephants. Why does this pattern emerge? Tim and Syma talk to Tim’s wife, Sonya Clegg, about her career exploring oceanic islands in search of odd birds in an attempt to explain why evolution works like this.

Tim and Syma talk to Isabel Smallegange who is interested in tiny little eight-legged animals called mites. Why would anyone study these things and what can they tell us about how the world works?Could they even have agency?These little animals are more fascinating than you might imagine, and Isabel does an amazing job in bringing their world to life.Isabel's Website: https://isabelsmallegange.com/If you are a business and would like to take advantage and leverage the power of the fast growing podcast ad stream market, and in particular sponsoring 'Science Of The Times', please drop us a line - streamingspirespodcasts@gmail.comAdvertising via podcasts is a cost efficient way of reaching a wider market.

Your heart will beat between 2.5 and 3 billion times over the course of our life, and many of us will become ill, and potentially die, from heart disease. Our hearts are not only critical to each of us but have also played a key role in cultures across the globe for centuries.

Tim and Syma talk to Robin Choudhury, a scientist trying to understand heart disease, a clinician who treats people with heart disease, and an author who has woven together our scientific, cultural and artistic understanding of the heart in a fabulous new book “The Beating Heart: The Art and Science of our Most Vital Organ”