Science Weekly Folgen

The Breakthrough prizes are described by their Silicon Valley founders as ‘the Oscars of science’, and while they are not as glamorous, they do come with a $3m award. This year, one of the prizes was dished out to Prof Emmanuel Mignot at Stanford University and Masashi Yanagisawa at the University of Tsukuba for their work uncovering the cause of narcolepsy. Their discovery has opened the door to the development of treatments for this chronic and often debilitating condition. Madeleine Finlay speaks to Mignot about how he pinpointed the cause of narcolepsy, why it is similar to diabetes and what sleep mysteries he wants to solve next. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/sciencepod

The UK’s new health secretary, Thérèse Coffey, has not taken on an easy job. Almost two-thirds of trainee GPs plan to work part-time just a year after they qualify, reporting that the job has become too intense to safely work more. A record 6.8 million people are waiting for hospital treatment in England, and 132,139 posts lie vacant across the NHS in England. Ian Sample hears from acute medicine consultant Dr Tim Cooksley about what’s happening within the NHS, and speaks to the Guardian’s health policy editor, Denis Campbell, about how the UK’s health and social care systems ended up in crisis and whether they can be fixed. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/sciencepod

Against a backdrop of a cost of living crisis caused in part by soaring energy prices, the UK’s new prime minister, Liz Truss, appointed MP Jacob Rees-Mogg as secretary of state for business and energy. In this role, Rees-Mogg will have to tackle these issues while being responsible for the UK’s legally binding target of net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. It is a goal he has previously described as ‘a long way off’. Madeleine Finlay hears from environment correspondent Fiona Harvey about his plans to extract ‘every last drop’ of oil and gas from the North Sea, the possibility of fracking in the UK, and the importance of energy efficiency and renewables in addressing the cost of living, energy and climate crises together. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/sciencepod