The sci-fi film Don’t Look Up is an end-of-the-world satire that has garnered both praise and scorn from viewers, critics and scientists. In this episode of the Physics World Weekly podcast, we explore the scientific themes of the film and give our verdicts on how A-list actors Jennifer Lawrence and Leonardo DiCaprio played two hapless astronomers who discover a comet that could destroy the Earth.

Also this week, John Allen, professor of biosensors and bioinstrumentation at Coventry University, talks about photoplethysmography (PPG), a simple low-cost optical measurement technique with a myriad of healthcare applications. He also discusses a new focus collection in the journal Physiological Measurement, which examines the state-of-the-art in PPG methods and applications.