The Science of Baby Making

The Infinite Monkey Cage

BBC

Comedy, Science

4.7 • 9.4K Ratings

🗓️ 4 December 2024

⏱️ 43 minutes

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Summary

Brian Cox and Robin Ince investigate the science of baby making - don’t worry, all theory no practice! They are joined by Professor Joyce Harper, Dr Ben Steventon and comedian Sara Pascoe to discuss how just two cells can turn into trillions, or in other words, how an embryo can turn into an embryologist. The embryo building processes across species are remarkably similar, yet there is still so much we don’t know about the beginning of life. Our panel discuss these unknowns, the latest in fertility treatments and what new capabilities might be available to future parents. It seems that artificial wombs may not be science fiction for much longer and scientists are closing in on being able to make egg and sperm cells out of stem cells. So yes, Brian and Robin could one day have a baby!

Producer: Melanie Brown Executive Producer: Alexandra Feachem Researcher: Olivia Jani

BBC Studios Audio Production

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, I'm Andrew Hunter Murray, host of The Naked Week, a brand new comedy where you'll
0:06.5	probably find this kind of thing.
0:08.2	Nigel Farage, got into a punch-up with a wumble.
0:10.1	On the moon.
0:10.8	Don't be ridiculous, Duncan, there are no wumbles on the moon.
0:13.4	And this sort of thing.
0:14.6	You, Les, it's made Sadiq Khan, London's most unpopular mayor since Dick Whittington
0:18.7	charged his cat 12 quid to enter its own litter tray.
0:22.7	So join me as we go behind the headlines with unexpected guests and much satirical silliness.
0:27.9	The Naked Week. Listen on BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts.
0:36.1	Hello, I'm Brian Cox, and I'm Robin Ince, and this is the Infinite Monkey Cage.
0:40.4	Now, today we are asking, how are babies made?
0:43.6	We really are. We've been given that responsibility.
0:45.7	We know that, obviously, a lot of the tabloid newspapers will be furious.
0:48.8	Children as young as 17 told by Radio 4 how babies are made.
0:54.3	But we're not actually, we're not going to do the first bit 4 how babies are made. But we're not actually...
0:55.7	We're not going to do the first bit of how babies are made.
0:59.0	We're going to skip that bit.
1:00.7	And if you want to know how they're made,
1:02.0	apparently you can watch like Love Island or something like that.
1:05.1	Which was a reference we decided to use,
1:07.4	even though neither of us have ever seen Love Island.
	...

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