We've just finished recording the latest edition of Science Weekly, our erudite-yet-laid-back look at the week's science news. In podcast form.
Our guest this week was Matt Cashmore of the BBC, who organised Hackday - essentially, a bunch of geeks got together to build robots and mess around with web 2.0 stuff. Apparently there was an edible robot made of Ryvita and assorted crackers.
Even more exciting is an interview with the great Jim Watson (of DNA discovery fame). He's been in London this week to open the Wellcome Collection.
In the press conference, he made some very interesting remarks about the future of our medicine - DNA, he said, would soon give us all the information we need to understand and treat diseases including cancer, diabetes and mental illness.
In 10 years time, he predicted that doctors would routinely use DNA when making a diagnosis.
And we should be going forward in this research hell-for-leather - ethical concerns had slowed down medicine too much in the past and cures for diseases are needed quickly, he argued. We should deal with problems if they arise, not spend too much time thinking about them beforehand. "The precautionary principle, if you use that, you'll never sequence anything," he said.
The 79-year-old Nobel laureate has never been shy to speak his mind and, when it comes to genetics, he's worth listening to. But is the future of genetics as rosy as he makes out?
Science Weekly will be available on the web site on Monday afternoon, as usual. Listen in to hear David Attenborough chatting about climate change (the full interview will be available as a Science Extra too).
