You're about to listen to a BBC podcast and I'd like to tell you a bit about the

podcast I work on. I'm Dan Clark and I commissioned factual podcasts at the BBC.

It's a massive area but I'd sum it up as stories to help us make sense of the forces shaping the world.

What podcasting does is give us the space and the time to take brilliant BBC journalism

and tell amazing compelling stories that really get behind the headlines.

And what I get really excited about is when we find a way of drawing you into a subject

you might not even have thought you were interested in.

Whether it's investigations, science, tech, politics, culture, true crime, the environment,

you can always discover more with a podcast on BBC Sounds.

Thanks for downloading the Life Scientific from BBC Radio 4.

I'm Jumal Kulele and in this interview I find out if it's possible to design a silent aircraft

when I talk to one of the world's leading engineers, Professor Dame Anne Dowling.

Can you imagine a world in which planes are no more noisy than cars?

There's a nice statue of Brunel in Paddington Station. I think most people know who he is,

but in my experience most of us would be hard pushed to name a single famous contemporary engineer. Well, let me introduce you to one.

Professor Dame Anne Dowling, welcome to the life scientific. It's a pleasure to be

here. Now Anne is one of the most senior engineers in the UK and she's perhaps done more

than anyone else to make the world not only safer and more efficient but also

quieter. No third runway.

No third runway.

Give us some peace and quiet.

A crowd of campaigners gathered in July 2008 outside the House of Commons to protest against, among other things, the noise that would result

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