Hello and welcome back to Backchat.

If the regular nature podcast is a highly classified dossier, then Backchat is your Facebook profile page.

In today's roundtable discussion, we're looking at celebrity scientists, sexual harassment in research, and the science behind a social media scandal.

I'm Adam Levy, and joining me in the London studio are Lizzie Gibney.

Hi Adam, I'm Lizzie. I am a reporter here in London covering mainly physics.

Davidey Castilevecki.

Hello, I'm Davide and I am the Black Hole correspondent.

And joining us for her backchat debut, we have Nisha Gained. Hi, I'm Nisha. I'm a news

editor for Nature in London. Coming up in the show, we'll reflect on the death of Stephen Hawking.

What does it take to become a famous scientist? And what are the pros and pitfalls of having a

cult of celebrity in science.

We'll also be finding out how sexual harassment impacts researchers.

This issue is under the microscope in every area,

but what aspects are unique to science?

And how does covering such sensitive topic differ from our news coverage elsewhere?

Finally, we'll discuss the science behind Cambridge Analytica. What were the research underpinnings behind this story? And how do we cover stories

on nature that are already being talked about by every other news organisation on the planet?

Now, first up, a science story that was heard around the world a few

weeks back, the death of Stephen Hawking. Hawking was incredibly famous. I think it's fair to say that

his work was less widely known than the man himself. So Davidae, just broadly, what was Stephen Hawking's

research about? Stephen Hawking's research about?

Stephen Hawking was, well, first and foremost, a cosmologist, and he worked on the general

...