2025-04-08
16 分钟Hello and welcome to this Scientific American Custom Media podcast.
I'm science journalist Izzy Clark and in this episode we're exploring safety science.
Imagine going about your day and the risks you'd encounter without safety measurements.
Crossing a road would be a nightmare if traffic lights didn't exist.
Eating would be left to a game of chance without food standards in place and don't even think about the chaos of a lab without protective equipment and procedures.
But in a busy world with increasing risks around energy,
public health and technology, what can be done to engineer a safer world?
Thankfully that's what a leading safety science organisation is currently addressing.
UL Research Institutes takes a multi-disciplinary approach to identify risks to humanity and our planet and counter them with science-based research designed to benefit people everywhere.
I spoke with Chris Kramer,
Chief Research Officer and Interim President for UL Research Institutes about the biggest safety challenges of today and what sets the organisation apart from others.
UL Research Institutes is one of three organisations
that all trace their heritage back 130 years now to the initial founding of Underwriters Laboratories and Underwriters Laboratories throughout its history has endeavoured to make the world a safer place and UL Research Institutes addresses that challenge by doing basic and applied research in order to tackle what we think of as the most pressing challenges in what we call safety science.
When we think about areas that we want to tackle, we ask ourselves three questions.
First, is it important, right?
Is the risk a salient one?
Does it affect a lot of people?
Second, is there white space?
Obviously if a lot of other organisations are already addressing that and I think of classical health risks,
cancer, diabetes,