The last of three episodes of Little Atoms in association with the 2015 Royal Society Winton Prize for Science Books, ahead of the award ceremony on Thursday 24 September.

This week Neil Denny talks with Matthew Cobb, and there’s a repeat of our interview with Alex Bellos from May 2014. The show also includes a short chat with chair of judges Ian Stewart.

Matthew Cobb is Professor of Zoology at the University of Manchester where his research focuses on the sense of smell, insect behaviour and the history of science. His books include The Egg & Sperm Race and acclaimed accounts of the French Resistance during the Second World War and the liberation of Paris in 1944. His latest book, Life’s Greatest Secret: The Race to Crack the Genetic Code, is shortlisted for the 2015 Royal Society Winton Prize for Science Books.

Alex Bellos is the bestselling author of Alex’s Adventures in Numberland, which was shortlisted for the BBC Samuel Johnson Prize. In 2002 he wrote a critically acclaimed book about Brazilian football, and in 2006 he ghost-wrote Pele’s autobiography, which was a number one bestseller. He is the Guardian’s maths blogger, and has worked for the paper in London and Rio de Janeiro as its unusually numerate foreign correspondent. He is a curator-in-residence at the Science Museum and has a degree in Mathematics and Philosophy from the University of Oxford. His latest book, Alex Through the Looking-Glass: How Life Reflects Numbers and Numbers Reflect Life, has been shortlisted for the 2015 Royal Society Winton Prize for Science Books.