I have two reasons for choosing The Curious Cases of Rutherford and Fry to review this week. The first is that the news feels particularly bleak as the days grow darker and the prospect of spiralling energy prices and an NHS winter crisis looms, and we all need a little intellectual escapism. The geneticist Adam Rutherford and the mathematician Hannah Fry investigate everyday scientific mysteries in expert yet accessible detail that allows the over-anxious brain to switch off while still learning something. The second is that I have been accused of pro-cat bias for previous New Statesman articles, and balance is important in journalism. So this review is all about dogs.
The first episode of the new Curious Cases series begins with Hannah cooing at some puppies playing in a paddling pool. The duo want to find out how guide dogs know where they’re going, and start at the beginning. Humans have been using dogs to help us hunt for 10,000 years, Adam tells us, but how did the transition from wolves to dogs happen? “Wasn’t it just that one day there was a particularly nice wolf who was a bit less bitey than the other wolves, and then that nice wolf had nice baby wolves?” asks Hannah. This is the kind of content for which I pay my BBC licence fee.
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