Jul 16, 2026 · 26 min · 10 segments
A few years ago a satellite speeding through the Van Allen belt in earth orbit raised concerns that it may include a nuclear weapon. An explosion in that orbit would take out much of our global space…
Areg DanagoulianGuest
Tom WhippleHost
Katie AndreasenGuest
Roland Pease
What's that? You've had enough of football? You never want to hear about football again? You now believe that hope is a curse that blights humanity to perpetual misery? Well, here at Inside Science, we consider that a baffling view, because football, for us, is about science.
Your team might have been knocked out of the World Cup, but Team Science never stops play.
Here in my role as the Thomas Tuchel of science, it is my mission to select the top football squad of peer-reviewed football-related science, but crucially, football-related science with applications far beyond football.
Yes.
We'll be cheerful, so the nation doesn't have to be.
Um, yeah, I, I've, I've spotted this lovely paper, it's a few years old now, that was looking at how you pitch, uh, robot football players against each other, and how you optimize the robots to play the best football.
And it turns out that the best way to train these robots is to base them on the way that humans learn how to move around as babies and toddlers.
And I don't know about you, but I've never seen a toddler walking in a straight line Um, they tend to just go in zigzags, don't they? They do little U-turns.
They fall over.
They get up again, so-
They're a bit- [laughs]
Okay.
So you, you know, you know the score.
Um, so they make good mid- midfielders though, I think.
But, um, so, so these, um, researchers just wondered if this whole staggering around and making it up as you go along, winky, wonky kind of world that, um, toddlers inhabit when they're learning to walk, if that's just like a design flaw amongst humans.
Are toddlers just a bit rubbish? Why can't they just walk in a straight line? Or might it just be because that's just a really good way of dealing with a world where things aren't in straight lines and where there are-
... obstacles.
Yeah, exactly.
There are people in your way in the supermarket.
What's that? You've had enough of football? You never want to hear about football again? You now believe that hope is a curse that blights humanity to perpetual misery? Well, here at Inside Science, we consider that a baffling view, because football, for us, is about science.
Your team might have been knocked out of the World Cup, but Team Science never stops play.
Here in my role as the Thomas Tuchel of science, it is my mission to select the top football squad of peer-reviewed football-related science, but crucially, football-related science with applications far beyond football.
Yes.
We'll be cheerful, so the nation doesn't have to be.
Um, yeah, I, I've, I've spotted this lovely paper, it's a few years old now, that was looking at how you pitch, uh, robot football players against each other, and how you optimize the robots to play the best football.
And it turns out that the best way to train these robots is to base them on the way that humans learn how to move around as babies and toddlers.
And I don't know about you, but I've never seen a toddler walking in a straight line Um, they tend to just go in zigzags, don't they? They do little U-turns.
They fall over.
They get up again, so-
They're a bit- [laughs]
Okay.
So you, you know, you know the score.
Um, so they make good mid- midfielders though, I think.
But, um, so, so these, um, researchers just wondered if this whole staggering around and making it up as you go along, winky, wonky kind of world that, um, toddlers inhabit when they're learning to walk, if that's just like a design flaw amongst humans.
Are toddlers just a bit rubbish? Why can't they just walk in a straight line? Or might it just be because that's just a really good way of dealing with a world where things aren't in straight lines and where there are-
... obstacles.
Yeah, exactly.
There are people in your way in the supermarket.
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3 of 5
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Could a pill really rewind biological age?
Mice Organs Don't Age
What happens when mice keep youthful organs?
Van Allen Belt Smoking Gun
Satellite's orbit hides dangerous secret detection method.
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