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.

Thank you for downloading the Life Scientific from BBC Radio 4.

John Krebs is a scientist who has for many years helped shape public policy

and been outspoken on some of the most controversial scientific issues of recent decades, from foot-a-mouth disease

and organic food to the culling of badges to stop TB infecting cattle.

As a professor of zoology at Oxford University, he studied animal behavior and is

recognized for his work on how birds remember where they hide their seeds.

In 2000, he took on the high profile post as the first chairman of the Food Standards Agency.

His appointment was criticized at the start with the consumer lobby arguing that he had no experience,

either in food policy or as a lobbyist. In the five years he was

in post he had to do battle with politicians, farmers and the press. In a TV program in 2003, he caused a storm by stating that organic food was no better for us than that grown on conventional farms.

Now Lord Krebs, his principal of Jesus College, Oxford, but is still involved in controversial

debates.

The current one is the argument over whether culling badges will prevent TB in cattle.

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