Prof. Steve Jones on The Life Scientific

Today I listened to a delightful conversation between Jim Al-Khalili and geneticist Steve Jones, on the former's BBC Radio 4 programme The Life Scientific. It's over a week since it was broadcast, but all episodes are available as mp3 downloads from the BBC website. I've seen Prof. Steve Jones "in the flesh" a number of times — first as part of last year's Uncaged Monkeys tour at the Basingstoke Anvil, and more recently at this year's QED, after which he stepped in to introduce his former pupil Adam Rutherford when he gave the Darwin Day Lecture at Congress Hall in London.

This half-hour conversation is a low-key affair, with many insights into what it's like to be a research scientist. Steve Jones made a surprising point about mediocre science being worthwhile despite its mediocrity. There were also comments from Jerry Coyne, with whom Steve Jones worked. Fascinating stuff.

Download the mp3 audio here:
http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/radio4/tls/tls_20120807-0930c.mp3

Subscribe to the podcast in iTunes:
itpc://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/radio4/tls/rss.xml
...or other podcatcher:
http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/radio4/tls/rss.xml

The website for The Life Scientific is here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01lhfs5