Adam Rutherford

Biography

Adam Rutherford is a scientist, writer, and broadcaster. A geneticist and evolutionary biologist, he has edited Nature magazine, been a regular on everything from Horizon to The One Show, and is the host of Radio 4’s flagship science programme, Inside Science.

Since his PhD in genetics, Adam’s natural flair as a communicator has seen him write extensively for both medical and scientific journals as well as mainstream newspapers. He edited Nature for a decade and presented BBC programmes on the history of biology (The Cell), genetics (The Gene Code), dissections in art (The Beauty of Anatomy) and synthetic biology (Playing God). For Radio 4 he’s looked at MMR and autism, evolution, science as portrayed in film, astronomy and art, and scientific fraud, and also co-hosts The Curious Cases of Rutherford and Fry.

In his attempt to widen scientific understanding he’s used Lego to build an ancient computer, recorded podcasts, and toured with Brian Cox and Robin Ince on their Uncaged Monkeys tour. He’s advised the children’s cartoon The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That, the zombie apocalypse Brad Pitt movie, World War Z, the acclaimed artificial intelligence film Ex Machina, and Bjork’s science-influenced film Biophilia Live.

Adam’s books include A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived: The Stories in Our Genes and The Book of Humans: The Story of How We Became Us. He combines a serious insight into the wonder, realities and power of science with wit, and some surprising and fascinating facts. Whilst looking at subjects including risk, AI, and the media portrayal of science he also explains why DNA home testing kits reveal almost nothing about you personally and why you’re almost certain to be related to the Emperor Charlemagne.