Sign inOpen the app
Artwork for Life Without
Science

Life Without

BBC Radio 4

What if, one day, something essential to our world suddenly vanished? No warning. No explanation. Just gone. What happens next?

Life Without is a roundtable-style podcast that explores this fascinating and thought-provoking question with insight, evidence-based assumptions and a range of perspectives. Hosted by Alan Davies, each episode brings together 2 guests, scientists, psychologists, economists, sociologists and journalists to discuss the unexpected consequences of losing something vital to our world.

Each episode starts with a bold, imaginative question: What would happen if something fundamental—like the moon, salt, sleep, or even something as random as rats—suddenly disappeared from the world? What's the immediate fallout? How does society cope? And how long would it take before things started unravelling?

SubscribeListen in podnodRSS feedShow website
  • 11 episodes
  • Updated April 17

Episodes11

Newest first
  • April 3 · 14 min

    Life Without Sleep

    We all know the importance of sleep, but what happens if we literally can’t?

  • March 27 · 15 min

    Life Without Writing

    How many of us even use a pen these days and what if we never picked one up ever again?

  • March 20 · 15 min

    Life Without Sex

    Gen Z are famously having less of it. Do we even need it all?

  • March 13 · 14 min

    Life Without Bees

    No more buzzing, no more honey, no more bees – so then what?

  • March 6 · 14 min

    Life Without Salt

    A low salt diet is one thing, but a no salt life?

  • February 27 · 15 min

    Life Without Worms

    They wriggle and writhe in the earth beneath us, surely, we’d be fine if they vanished?

  • February 20 · 14 min

    Life Without Rats

    Surely a world without the rodents we look to exterminate anyway would be fine?

  • February 13 · 14 min

    Life Without the Moon

    Full moon, half-moon, total eclipse. What happens when we look up and the moon is missing?

  • February 6 · 2 min

    Introducing... Life Without

    Alan Davies hosts a thought experiment: will removing one thing from our world destroy it?