This week Alok Jha talks to author and former Guardian science editor Tim Radford about The Address Book, an epic musing on our place in the universe, starting from his own humble home in Hastings, Sussex, UK, and extending out into the cosmos.
Alok is joined by Guardian science correspondent Ian Sample and Observer science editor Robin McKie to discuss this week's science news, including a controversial proposal to ban the patenting of products of embryonic stem cell research in Europe and the impending mothballing of the Allen Telescope Array in California, a key tool in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (Seti).
We also have an extract from Ian's interview with the director of the Autism Research Centre at Cambridge University, Simon Baron-Cohen, about his new book Zero Degrees of Empathy: A New Theory of Human Cruelty. Baron-Cohen has developed a test that he uses to assess people's ability to empathise with others.
You can listen to an extended version of the interview on Science Weekly Extra.
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