Start The Week

On Start the Week Andrew Marr talks to Peter Wothers about modern day alchemy, as we enter a new era of chemistry. In the past some scientists dismissed the vast majority of the human genome as 'junk DNA', Ewan Birney argues for renaming it 'enigmatic DNA'. And curiosity gets the better of Sanjeev Gupta as he explores the terrain on Mars. But science doesn't have all the answers as Helen Bynum charts the history of tuberculosis, from the medieval period to the present day, and looks at how this killer disease continues to spread and evolve. Producer: Katy Hickman.

On Start the Week Andrew Marr explores what it means to be Scottish. The streets and history of Edinburgh come alive in Ian Rankin's crime novels, while the Glaswegian writer and artist Alasdair Gray marries elements of realism, fantasy and science fiction in his work. With a long history of Scottish emigration, T M Devine looks at the impact on the nation left behind. And the theatre critic of The Scotsman, Joyce McMillan, believes that despite the coming Referendum on Independence, it's the arts and not politics that define Scottish-ness.Producer: Katy Hickman.Image © Alasdair Gray, A Life in Pictures, Canongate Books.

On Start the Week Andrew Marr discusses the prospect of an Iran with nuclear weapons. David Patrikarakos points to the failure to understand how far Iran's nuclear strategy is linked to its recent history and sense of identity. Geoffrey Robertson QC argues that the production of atomic bombs should be made an international crime against humanity, whereas Baroness Shirley Williams believes that politics still has a role to play in disarmament around the world. But Douglas Murray dismisses the idea that political negotiation or the law will work, and believes force may be the only answer.Producer: Katy Hickman.

On Start the Week Andrew Marr looks at Germany's role in Europe. Katinka Barysch argues that despite the crisis, support for EU integration still dominates, and that unlike Britain, the ability to compromise is seen as a skill, not a weakness. Two British MPs, from left and right, Gisela Stuart and Douglas Carswell, remain sceptical about the EU, but German-born Stuart understands her birth country's emotional connection to it. Carswell argues that the digital revolution calls for smaller, not larger governments, and Karen Leeder believes that despite Germany's belief in the European project it still has not laid to rest the ghosts of unification. Producer: Katy Hickman.

On Start the Week, Andrew Marr explores how Britain trains the artists and designers of the future. Christopher Frayling and Sarah Teasley celebrate the 175th anniversary of the Royal College of Art, the world's oldest art and design school. But one of its former teachers, the industrial designer Ron Arad argues for a broader arts education which doesn't split sculpture from painting, architecture from design. And the artist Antony Gormley redefines the limits of sculpture and building. Producer: Edwina Pitman

On Start the Week Andrew Marr talks to the award-winning director Kevin Macdonald whose films often focus on real events or people, from Touching the Void, to Marley. The filmmaker Roger Graef discusses the ethical issues in documenting real life. And the Indian writer Aman Sethi explores the margins of society with his study of the world of itinerant labourers in a Delhi market. Producer: Katy Hickman.

Start the Week is at BBC Radio 3's Free Thinking Festival in Gateshead to debate whether the world is becoming a more divided place. Andrew Marr discusses the state of politics with the former President of Ireland Mary Robinson and the writer-turned-politician Michael Ignatieff, while the Israeli author Amos Oz asks whether entrenched ideas have increasingly polarised debate. Producer: Katy Hickman.

On Start the Week the journalist Ian Cobain reveals how torture has been systematically used by the British from WWII to the War on Terror, via Kenya and Northern Ireland. David Anderson QC reviews the risks posed by terrorism in the UK. Extraordinary rendition and the language of concealment form the heart of Clare Bayley's new play, and there are more secrets uncovered by the criminal barrister-turned-crime writer, MR Hall. Producer: Katy Hickman.

On Start the Week Andrew Marr looks at the legacy of modernism. Kevin Jackson returns to 1922, the year he argues changed the literary world with publications of Joyce's Ulysses and TS Eliot's The Waste Land. And Ali Smith reveals how her writing today melds different forms to explore style, love, death and the art of writing. But Will Gompertz and the composer Julian Anderson argue that art and music respectively embraced modernism earlier and more profoundly than the world of literature. Producer: Katy Hickman.

On Start the Week Andrew Marr talks to two American authors, Richard Ford and Lionel Shriver about the state of the US. In the run-up to the Presidential elections, the journalist Edward Luce argues that the country's politics are broken, and America is facing the spectre of decline. But the chair of Republicans Abroad UK, Thomas Grant, disputes such a negative assessment. Producer - Katy Hickman.

On Start the Week Andrew Marr discusses the dying art of handwriting with the novelist Philip Hensher. As the typewriter has taken over from the pen, so email is killing off letter-writing, and Diana Athill celebrates the art of correspondence. But the poet Wendy Cope, who has just left thousands of emails to the British Library, welcomes the advent of digital communication, and the philosopher Nigel Warburton tweets, blogs and podcasts. Producer: Katy Hickman.

On Start the Week Andrew Marr discusses Central Europe from the Soviet occupation to membership of the EU. Anne Applebaum looks back at what happened when the Iron Curtain came down after WWII. Victor Sebestyen and Helen Szamuely disagree over the benefits of European integration after 1989. And Mark Mazower explores the chequered history of international government, and the vision of harmony at the heart of the European project. Producer: Katy Hickman.

On Start the Week Andrew Marr celebrates myth and fairy tales. With the coming 200th anniversary of the first edition of the Grimm Brothers' Tales, Philip Pullman presents new versions of his favourite stories, from the classic quests and romance to the lesser-known tales of villainous kings and wicked wives. Sara Maitland explores the idea that these fairy tales are intimately connected to forests. The theatre director, Tim Supple looks east to the tales of life and death in One Thousand and One Nights. And at the Royal Opera House, Keith Warner, presents his production of the vast, mythical world of Richard Wagner's Ring Cycle. Producer: Katy Hickman.

In a special edition of Start the Week Andrew Marr talks to Salman Rushdie. For a decade the writer was forced to live under police protection after being 'sentenced to death' by the Ayatollah Khomeini following the publication of his novel, The Satanic Verses. He talks about living in hiding, under an alias, Joseph Anton, and how he gradually secured his freedom. Rushdie argues that we are 'story-telling animals', but more than twenty years since his controversial book was banned around the world, Andrew Marr asks what impact this has had on the stories we tell.

On Start the Week Andrew Marr talks to Maajid Nawaz about his journey from Islamist extremist to a champion of democracy. Growing up in Britain in the 1980s Nawaz found his sense of identity in political Islam. National identity and the state of the nation is at the heart of Robert Chesshyre's book in which he argues that the roots of many of today's problems, especially the increase in inequality, were planted under Margaret Thatcher's leadership. But one of the new intake of Conservative MPs, dubbed the 'New Radicals', Elizabeth Truss, looks to an alternative future where "decline is not inevitable." And the former ambassador, Sir Christopher Meyer, turns his attention to the rich and powerful across the world, to see how different power networks operate.

On Start the Week Andrew Marr goes in search of a better life. The psychoanalyst Adam Phillips praises the life unlived: the people we have failed to be, and explores how far frustration is interlinked with satisfaction. While the philosopher Julian Baggini argues that Aristotle has more to tell us about how to live than Freud. The writer Helen Dunmore slips between past and present, and in her latest collection of poems stories of loss intermingle with rediscovery. And the scientist Frances Ashcroft has transformed the lives of those born with diabetes, and discusses how her breakthrough gave meaning to her own life.

On Start the Week Andrew Marr asks how far scientific evidence can influence the political agenda. Professor David Nutt is a respected researcher working in the field of drugs, but is best known as the government advisor who was sacked by the Home Secretary for comparing the risks of horse-riding with taking ecstasy. He argues for a rational debate on drugs policy based on objective evidence. Mark Henderson despairs that this will never happen while only one of our 650 MPs is a scientist. But the former Labour minister, David Blunkett, defends his profession, arguing that even evidence-based policy must take into account public opinion and perception. And for former No. 10 advisor Jill Rutter evaluates the evidence for and against. Producer: Katy Hickman.

On Start the Week Andrew Marr discusses how World War II still grips the public imagination. No other period in history has presented greater dilemmas for both leaders and ordinary people, and in two sweeping accounts Max Hastings and Antony Beevor discuss the power politics at play, ideological hypocrisy, egomania, betrayal and self-sacrifice. Juliet Gardiner discusses how military history has been largely replaced by social history, as the lives of those who lived through war and its aftermath take centre stage. And for this year's Reith Lectures, Niall Ferguson questions whether the Western world, in the aftermath of WW2 and the Cold War, has become so in thrall to its institutions of democracy and the rule of law that it can no longer find solutions to today's crises. Producer: Katy Hickman.

In a specially recorded edition of Start the Week Andrew Marr is at the Charleston Festival with Grayson Perry, Virginia Nicholson, Faramerz Dabhoiwala and Janice Galloway. As the home of Vanessa Bell, Virginia Nicholson's grandmother, Charleston was a by-word for sexual freedom and the Bohemian lifestyle. But Dabhoiwala insists that far from the 1920s being the time of real sexual revolution, that honour goes to the 18th century, the origin of our modern attitudes to sex. Janice Galloway brings the story up-to-date as she relives her adolescence in small town Scotland in the 1970s. And the celebrated potter Grayson Perry explores changing social attitudes in relation to taste: the choices people make in the things they buy and wear, and uses these details of modern life to create six tapestries, called 'The Vanity of Small Differences'. Producer: Katy Hickman.

On Start the Week Andrew Marr goes in search of ancient landscapes with the writer Robert Macfarlane. With a mix of geology, cartography and natural history, Macfarlane journeys on foot to explore ideas of pilgrimage, trespass and ancient pathways. Jonathan Meades is equally preoccupied with a sense of place, but turns his attention to its architecture and the futility of landmark buildings. Anna Minton argues against the increasing privatisation of public space. And size is no matter to the designer Thomas Heatherwick - from a new London double decker, to a bridge that curls up and a handbag made from zips - he always has the human scale in mind. Producer: Katy Hickman.