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675 afleveringen, van nieuw naar oud

Orion Launch; Fake Mars trip; XDNA; Richard the Third's skeleton

4 december 2014 · 28 min
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A NASA space capsule, Orion, that could transport humans to Mars is due to make its maiden flight. Given that this is a first outing, there will be no people aboard. The capsule will orbit the earth twice in four and a half hours, before splashing down in the Pacific. BBC correspondent Jonathan Amos is on location at Cape Canaveral and gives Adam the latest news. Lees meer

This is a step towards a crewed mission to Mars. But how do humans cope with being confined for the 8 months it takes to get there? The European Space Agency studied this question in 2010. 6 volunteers were shut up in a replica space shuttle for over a year. Engineer Diego Urbina was one of them. He shares his thoughts on taking part in a fake Mars mission.

Philip Holliger from the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge heads the team that two years ago built XNA, a set of genetic molecules that behave just like DNA, but are man-made. Like DNA, those XNAs didn't actually do that much, but this week, the team has published a paper where they have got them working. These are the first synthetic enzymes on Earth.

Back in 2012, a shallow grave was uncovered underneath a car park in Leicester. Evidence suggested the skeleton in it was King Richard the Third. Finally this week, the DNA confirmation by geneticist Turi King is in. And something is rotten in the state of his lineage. Kevin Schurer, historian, and Richard Buckley, the lead archaeologist on the dig, talk us through the DNA anomaly that hints at infidelity in the royal line.
Campylobacter in Chicken; Artificial Intelligence Guru Demis Hassabis; Sexology; Lucy

27 november 2014 · 28 min
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Food Standards Agency report reveals 70% of supermarket chicken contaminated.
Chicken: It's the nation's favourite meat. But today, a report released by the Food Standards Agency has revealed that around three quarters of that chicken is infected by campylobacter - a family of bacteria, 12 species of which are known to cause food poisoning. The estimated cost to the UK economy is £900 million per year. All supermarkets are implicated and all supply chains too. It doesn't cause outbreaks and thorough cooking kills all the bugs. Professor Hugh Pennington tells Dr Adam Rutherford why campylobacter is such a tough bug to crack. Lees meer

Can machines think?
Neuroscientist, chess master and world-champion gamer, Demis Hassabis is this week's winner of the Royal Society's Mullard Award. In 2011, he founded an AI company, Deep Mind which was acquired by Google earlier this year for £400million.He tells Adam why he believes one of the best tests for artificial intelligence is an ability to learn how to play computer games.

Why scientists study sex
Sex between humans has long been something of a taboo for scientists. But the Institute of Sexology is tackling it head-on. It's a new exhibition at London's Wellcome Collection, a frank exploration of sex and the scientists who've studied it for the past century or so. Tracey Logan went to preview the display, and asked: Why do scientists study sex?

Australopithecus discovery 40 years on
23rd November 2014 was a significant 40th birthday. Or, to be a bit more precise, it was a 3 million, 200 thousand and 40th birthday. On that day in 1974, Donald Johanson and his team in Ethiopia discovered the fossilised remains of AL 288-1, who became universally known as Lucy. Don talks to Adam Rutherford about the young woman who changed his life.

Producer: Anna Buckley & Fiona Roberts
Assistant Producer: Jen Whyntie.
Comet landing detects organics molecules; Lunar Mission One; Biological warfare

20 november 2014 · 28 min
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Philae lander detects organic molecules on Comet 67P
Rosetta scientist, Professor Monica Grady from the Open University discusses the latest news from last week's historic comet mission. Philae, the Rosetta robot probe, made history last week when she finally landed on the surface of Comet 67P. But she ended up lying on her side, and only in partial sunlight. Her batteries were on borrowed time. After around 60 hours, Philae powered down, and went into hibernation mode. However, her instruments harvested some data and now the first results are in. Lees meer

UK-led crowdfunded Moon mission
Lunar Mission One aims to land a robotic spacecraft on the unexplored lunar South Pole by 2024. It's a space mission with a difference: it could be funded by you. For a small fee supporters can send a human hair to the Moon in a Blue Peter-style time capsule. And the spacecraft will drill up to 100 metres below the surface to ask questions about the Moon's origin, aiming to find out more about the minerals that exist there, several of which are potentially valuable. Our reporter Sue Nelson went to the British Interplanetary Society's Reinventing Space conference in London to hear more.

The Selfish Gene debate
As another bout of biological warfare breaks out between two scientific superpowers, Adam Rutherford gets to grips with evolutionary theory, with social insect expert Professor Adam Hart. He hears from Richard Dawkins and E.O. Wilson and finds out why, after forty years of promoting the idea of kin selection, E O Wilson now dismisses the whole idea as 'rhetoric'.

Presenter: Adam Rutherford
Producer: Anna Buckley
Assistant Producer: Jen Whyntie.
Rosetta; Thought-controlled genes; Biophonic Life; Arecibo message 40 years on

13 november 2014 · 28 min
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Rosetta
After a nail-biting, bumpy, bouncy landing, European Space Agency's Rosetta probe - 'Philae' -lands on the comet 67P. It's already collecting data and beaming back some very impressive images of this dusty, icy space projectile. BBC Space correspondent Jonathan Amos fills us in on the latest news. Lees meer

Thought-controlled genes
Brainwaves from human participants activated a light, which in turn switches on specific genes in mice. In this proof of concept study, Professor Martin Fussenegger hopes that one day this technology could be used to control pain, pre-empt epileptic seizures, or in fact communicate with people who have locked in syndrome. It's another example of two very exciting techniques - brain machine interfacing and optogenetics.

Arecibo Message Anniversary
40 years ago, on 16 Nov 1974, a message designed to inform intelligent alien civilisations about human existence was beamed into space. Whilst Frank Drake's binary picture message was primarily put together to show the capabilities of the upgraded Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico, it has inspired interest and enthusiasm around the world. Veteran of subsequent space message projects Dr Carolyn Porco joins Adam to talk about how space science has progressed in the interim decades, and what these ventures mean to humankind.

Biophonic Life
Sound installation "The Sounds of Others: A Biophonic Line", by artist Marcus Coates is currently delighting visitors to Manchester's Museum of Science and Industry. It explores the sounds of animals, from field crickets to humpback whales. By speeding and slowing each sound, his work reveals unimagined connections between species, and unearths common patterns and forms that would normally be beyond the reach of the human ear. The Sounds of Others looks for commonality between the human and non-human worlds, through sound. Marcus Coates, and collaborator wildlife sound-recordist Geoff Sample talk Adam through some of the surprising sounds of nature. Can you…
Science of ageing; Microneedles; Firelab; Rosetta; Scientific authorship

6 november 2014 · 28 min
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What is ageing?
In 1900, the global average life expectancy was 31, today it's 70, and the number of people over 85 in the UK is predicted to double in the next 20 years. How has ageing evolved, and do we know what is happening in our cells as we age? Professor Richard Faragher, University of Brighton, explains. Lees meer

Sticking plaster-like needle replacement
Microneedles on a sticking-plaster-like patch may be the painless and safe way doctors will test for drugs and infections, and give vaccinations in the future. Roland Pease tries an alternative to the traditional injection at Queen's University Belfast with Dr Ryan Donnelly.

Science of fire
It's November, and these are the days when you may well have a smouldering bonfire in your back garden. Marnie Chesterton meets scientists whose lives are devoted to the behaviour of fire.

Comet landing mission nears
The Rosetta Mission is entering the final stages before landing on a comet. By this time next week, we will know if the European Space Agency has successfully achieved what could be an extraordinary feat. Paolo Ferri, Head of Mission Operations at the European Space Agency, outlines the challenge.

Dr Stronzo and other cases
Dr Stronzo Bestiale made his debut in the world of scientific publications in 1987, authoring a paper entitled 'Diffusion in a periodic Lorentz gas', in the Journal of Statistical Physics. However, he doesn't exist. This phantom physicist is not an isolated incident: Mike Holderness at New Scientist has been tracking scientific author apparitions for some time.

Producer: Marnie Chesterton
Assistant Producer: Jen Whyntie.
The Making of the Moon

30 oktober 2014 · 28 min
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It's the nearest and most dominant object in our night sky, and has inspired artists, astronauts and astronomers. But fundamental questions remain about our only natural satellite. Lees meer

Where does the Moon come from?
Although humans first walked on the Moon over four decades ago, we still know surprisingly little about the lunar body's origin. Samples returned by the Apollo missions have somewhat confounded scientists' ideas about how the Moon was formed. Its presence is thought to be due to another planet colliding with the early Earth, causing an extraordinary giant impact, and in the process, forming the Moon. But, analysing chemicals in Apollo's rock samples has revealed that the Moon could be much more similar to Earth itself than any potential impactor. Geochemist Professor Alex Halliday of the University of Oxford, and Dr Jeff Andrews-Hanna, Colorado School of Mines - who is analysing the results from NASA's Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) lunar mission - discuss the theories and evidence to-date.

Are we going back?
Settling the question of the Moon's origin seems likely to require more data - which, in turn, requires more missions. BBC Science correspondent Jonathan Amos tells us about the rationale and future prospects for a return to the Moon, including the Google Lunar XPrize.

As the Moon's commercial prospects are considered, who controls conservation of our only natural satellite?
If commerce is driving a return to the Moon, who owns any resources that may be found in the lunar regolith? Dr Saskia Vermeylen of the Environment Centre at Lancaster University is researching the legality of claiming this extra-terrestrial frontier.

Producer: Jen Whyntie.
Hobbit; Genetics of height; Solar science; Snails

23 oktober 2014 · 28 min
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It's 10 Years since an unusual skeleton was unearthed on the island of Flores. This species, Homo floresiensis, dubbed 'the Hobbit' because of its short stature, offered a whole new picture of human evolution and has been causing divisions among scientists ever since. Lucie visits Professor Chris Stringer in the Natural History Museum to pick over the bones of a controversial find. Lees meer

Tall parents tend to have tall children. We already know that height is genetic. Less well known is how various genes control the growing process. Recent research from the University of Exeter found nearly 700 genetic variants that play a role in influencing a person's height. Professor Tim Frayling, a lead author, explains how the work, which involve scanning more than a quarter of a million genomes, could help with disease, forensics and predicting a child's adult height.

Great ball of fire. The Sun throws out more than just light and heat; for solar scientists, it is also a source of many mysteries. Why is the surface of the sun less hot than its corona, or outer atmosphere? New research using the NASA satellite telescope, IRIS, or the Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph is providing new insights.

Earlier this month, a group of more than 100 snail experts (malacologists) from across Europe gathered in Cambridge to discuss the latest research into molluscs - the group of animals that includes everything from squid and octopus in the seas to slugs and snails on land. After three days of lectures, the malacologists were let loose in the Cambridge Botanic Gardens. Reporter Helen Scales went with them on a snail hunt.

Producer - Fiona Roberts.
Ebola; Ada Lovelace Day; Space Weather

16 oktober 2014 · 28 min
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Ebola Outbreak
As the World Health Organisation announces that the situation in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone is deteriorating, with widespread and persistent transmission of Ebola Virus Disease, the UK has introduced screening measures at Heathrow airport for passengers arriving from Ebola-affected countries. How has this particular outbreak become so widespread, and where did it start? Lucie Green discusses the source, spread and science of Ebola with Jonathan Ball, Professor of Molecular Virology at the University of Nottingham. Lees meer

Ada Lovelace Day
Leading the charge in inspiring and celebrating women scientists, technologists and mathematicians is 19th century computer programmer Ada Lovelace. Daughter of poet Lord Byron, collaborator with inventor Charles Babbage, and accomplished mathematician herself, October 14th has been set aside for Ada Lovelace Day. Event founder Suw Charman-Anderson tells us more.

Space Weather
The Met Office Space Weather Operations Centre is designed to protect the UK from severe problems caused by space weather. It's been known since 1859 that weather in space can cause problems on Earth, but scientists say our growing dependence on technology puts us at greater risk. Our satellites, power grids and radio signals are all vulnerable to damage from extreme space weather events. Lucie Green heads down to the new space weather centre in Exeter, to see how they monitor the sun's activity, and how that translates into an extra-terrestrial forecast.

Producers: Fiona Roberts & Marnie Chesterton
Assistant Producer: Jen Whyntie.
Nobel Prizes 2014; Gauge; Genetics and Diabetes; UK Fungus Day

9 oktober 2014 · 28 min
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Nobel Prizes 2014
The annual Nobel Prizes for Physiology or Medicine, Physics and Chemistry were announced this week. Lees meer

The Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine has been awarded to UK-based researcher Prof John O'Keefe as well as May-Britt Moser and Edvard Moser who discovered the brain's "GPS system". They discovered how the brain knows where we are and is able to navigate from one place to another. Their findings may help to explain why Alzheimer's disease patients cannot recognise their surroundings.

The 2014 Nobel Prize for physics has been awarded to Professors Isamu Akasaki, Hiroshi Amano and Shuji Nakamura in Japan and the US, for the invention of blue light emitting diodes (LEDs). This enabled a new generation of bright, energy-efficient white lamps, as well as colour LED screens.

The 2014 Nobel Prize in Chemistry has been awarded to Eric Betzig, Stefan Hell and William Moerner for improving the resolution of optical microscopes. This type of microscope had previously been held back by the presumed limitation that obtaining a better resolution than half the wavelength of light would be impossible. But the laureates used fluorescence to extend the limits of the light microscope, allowing scientists to see things at much higher levels of resolution.

GAUGE
The UK has a database for the amount of greenhouse gases we emit each year - usually measured in Gigatonnes of carbon. It's compiled by adding up emissions from various individual sources - be it a coal-fired power station or a wetland bog. This amount is used worldwide, but it is an estimate. A project called Greenhouse gas UK and Global Emissions, or GAUGE, is - for the first time - verifying these estimates by measuring what's in the atmosphere on a much larger scale.

Genetics and Diabetes
Type 2 diabetes is globally the fastest growing chronic disease. The World Health Organisation estimates more than 300 million people are currently afflicted, rising to more than half a billion by 2030. It might se…
Women, Science and the Royal Society; Open Access Research

2 oktober 2014 · 28 min
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Royal Society investigates the decline in their awards to female scientists
Last week, the UK's national science academy, the Royal Society, announced its latest round of University Research Fellows (URFs). And they are almost all fellows - in the male sense of the word. Out of 43 new posts, only two of them are women. These positions are for early-career, post-doctoral researchers. But, at the top of the tree, fewer than one in ten science professors are women, and one of the top UK scientific accolades - a Royal Society Fellowship - is held by only one in twenty. To their credit, The Royal Society were "horrified" by this latest round, and their president, Sir Paul Nurse, immediately called for a full investigation into how this happened, saying "this sends out a bad message to young female scientists". Lees meer

Our reporter Tracey Logan asks why Royal Society grants are so important to young scientists, and whether this year's number of female recipients is a sign of gender bias on the awarding committees, or just a statistical blip in a fair process? And Adam Rutherford meets Professor Julia Higgins to hear the latest just after participating in a diversity working group meeting at the Royal Society in London.

Getting science out from behind paywalls
You pay for science research via your taxes, but you may not get to see the results unless you pay again to read the journals that publish them. With two major UK science publishers, the Royal Society publishing and Nature, announcing one apiece of their journals are going fully open access -broadly, free for anyone to read online - we're discussing the way science makes it from the lab to the public, via the ever controversial system of publishing and peer review. Adam is joined by Fiona Godlee, Editor of the British Medical Journal; Lesley Anson, Chief Editor of Nature Communications; and Chris Lintott, Professor of Astrophysics and Citizen Science Lead at the University of Oxford.

Producer: Fiona Roberts
Assistant Pro…
Cosmic inflation latest; Indian space success; Science and language; Wax Venus

25 september 2014 · 28 min
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BICEP - gravitational waves and dust
One of the biggest scientific claims of 2014 has received another set-back. In March this year, the BICEP2 research team claimed it had found a swirling pattern in the sky left by the rapid expansion of space just fractions of a second after the Big Bang. This announcement was quickly criticised by others, who thought the group had underestimated the confounding effects of dust in our own galaxy. And now, new analysis from the European Space Agency's Planck satellite suggests dust found in our own galaxy may have confounded what was thought to be a universal revelation. Lees meer

India's Mars satellite enters orbit
India has successfully put a satellite into orbit around Mars, becoming the fourth nation or geo-bloc to do so. Following a few teething troubles with a planned engine burn shortly after launch on 5 November 2013, and a long journey, the Mangalyaan probe has started sending back images of the Red Planet. It is the first time a maiden voyage to Mars has entered orbit successfully and it is the cheapest mission to-date.

Science of language
Professor Steven Pinker talks to Adam Rutherford about the language of scientists and the science of language. He has a new book out, "The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person's Guide to Writing in the 21st Century", discussing how the latest research on linguistics and cognitive science can improve writing.

The Anatomical Venus
Adam visits the Wellcome Collection to see an 18th-Century Florentine Wax Venus - complete with removable abdominal organs. He discusses our preoccupation with death, with Joanna Ebenstein. And finds out if these beautiful, if slightly unnerving, statues were the cutting edge of anatomical learning, or a gory sideshow.

Producer: Fiona Roberts
Assistant Producer: Jen Whyntie.
European ancestry; Cern is 60; Graphene plasters; Penguins

18 september 2014 · 28 min
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European Ancestry
New genetic investigation of ancient human remains, combined with archaeological evidence, is shedding new light on the origins of the early European populations. The international team has provided a detailed analysis of waves of immigration from the near east into Europe, and the emerging agricultural practices that came with it, which has come to dominate the traditional practices of indigenous residents. Lees meer

CERN - Artificial retina
The human eye and the parts of the brain that process images are second to none when it comes to pattern recognition and concentrating on the important images and ignoring the rest. They have inspired physicists to create a processor that can analyse particle collisions 400 times faster than any other device. In these collisions, protons, that is, ordinary matter, are smashed against protons at close to the speed of light. These processes may produce new particles and help scientists understand matter's mirror - antimatter. Professor Tara Shears, a particle physicist at the University of Liverpool, explains how this algorithm could help sift through data from collisions at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN.

Graphene plaster
Since it was discovered 10 years ago, the wonder material graphene has taken the world by storm. What's not to like about it? A sheet of carbon one-atom thick, it was the first two-dimensional material discovered. It's stronger than steel, conducts electricity better than copper. We are told it will be used in touch screens of the future. It may be the secret to miniaturising electronics when current chip technology runs out of steam. But at the other end of the technology market a team at Surrey University has found it useful to blend graphene with rubber bands to make cheap effective bio-sensors.

Penguins
In a new citizen science project, 'penguinologists' are asking the public to classify images of penguin colonies in Antarctica, to help the team monitor their health. Thousands of images taken…
Jack the Ripper; Future of Scottish science

11 september 2014 · 38 min
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Jack the Ripper "identified"
Some of us are morbidly fascinated by the legend of Jack the Ripper - not the world's first serial killer, but the one that coincided with the birth of mass media, and set the ghoulish tone for the 20th century's obsession with murderers. This week a shawl acquired at an auction in 2007 is in the spotlight. Claimed to be found in 1888 at the murder scene of a woman asserted to be the fourth victim of the supposed Ripper, DNA evidence from the fabric is stated to imply one of the most plausible suspects - Aaron Kosminski. However, there are many problems with this "identification" sequence - some historical, some legal, and some scientific. Adam Rutherford focuses on the science by speaking to Jari Louhelainen, a forensic geneticist at Liverpool John Moores University, who produced the forensic analysis. Jon Wetton, another forensic geneticist at the University of Leicester, offers broader insight into how DNA can be used in detecting crime. Lees meer

Future of Scottish science
Scottish science has a rich history: Alexander Fleming, James Watt, Dolly the sheep and much, much more. This week, with the upcoming referendum on independence, Dr Adam Rutherford takes the opportunity to look at the future of science in Scotland. He's joined by scientists representing the Academics for Yes and Better Together campaigns. Making the case for independence are Dr Stephen Watson and Professor Mike Lean, both from the University of Glasgow. Dr Patrick Harkness, also from the University of Glasgow, and Professor Hugh Pennington, emeritus professor at the University of Aberdeen, make the case for remaining in the union.

Producer: Fiona Roberts.
Bardarbunga volcano; Geology in Minecraft; Synthesising opioids; Ammonia

4 september 2014 · 31 min
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Bardarbunga
A group of earth scientists was in Iceland performing annual maintenance of its equipment, when the volcano Bardarbunga erupted. Professor Simon Redfern has now joined them and speaks to Adam Rutherford from the slopes of neighbouring volcano Askja. He explains how all this recent volcanic activity is the expression of Europe's tectonic drift away from America. And rather than this being a smooth, continuous process, the plates move at the surface in a jerky way - causing these earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. Lees meer

Geology in Minecraft
The British Geological Survey has built a full version of the geology of Britain into the online game Minecraft. Minecraft is a so-called 'sandbox' game, meaning there are no specific objectives, but players are free to explore existing worlds or collaborate to build their own with a range of virtual building blocks. The game is a huge phenomenon, with over a 100 million registered users, mostly under the age of 30. By adding an extra layer of geological features, the BGS hopes to encourage interest and add a further dimension to the game.

Synthesising opioids
Opiates such as morphine are commonly used in pain-relief medicines, but their chemical complexity means that commercial production is limited and the pharmaceutical industry has to rely on extracting them from poppies. However, researchers at Stanford University are working on a synthetic-biology system using yeast to produce opiates like morphine, and the pharmacologically more attractive opioids like hydrocodone and oxycodone. They haven't got all the steps in the pathway in place yet. But they're not far off.

Ammonia
In recent years there's been renewed interest in ammonia, as a fuel. It could work as a replacement for petrol and diesel in cars with very little engine change. In fact it was used as such during the Second World War in Belgium.

Producer: Fiona Roberts.
Manipulating mouse memory; London pollution; Nature of knowing; Snail fur

28 augustus 2014 · 28 min
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Manipulating mouse memory
Optogenetics allows researchers to use light to turn the genes involved in memory, in the brain, off and on. It's a powerful tool for seeing exactly where specific types of memory are formed and processed. Researchers at MIT have been using the technique to manipulate fearful or pleasurable memories associated with a particular location, in mice. This is so they can see how memories are overwritten in the brain's processing regions. Lees meer

London pollution
Cities in Britain have moved on a great deal from air pollution events, like the London smog of 1952, where 4000 people died in a week. But a recent report has put London air pollution levels as bad as some of the worst in the world, on a level with Mexico City and Beijing. Pollution is a mixture of gases and tiny particulate matter (or PM) -particles too small to be filtered out by our noses, and which end up going straight into our lungs. Dr Rossa Brugha and reporter Marnie Chesterton take a bicycle ride through London's busy streets and parks with an air pollution monitor. Back in the studio, Rossa and Adam talk through the results...

Nature of knowing
Philip Ball, the programme's on-call polymath and author of 'Invisible, the Dangerous Allure of the Unseen', comes into the studio to answer a listener's question about how science can possibly understand the unseeable, if it is supposed to be dealing with the observable universe.

Snail fur and how to grow a new head
Why is it that some animals can regrow lost body parts and others, like us, can't? Even some closely related species, for instance salamanders, can regrow a lost tail, but fellow amphibians, the frogs, can't regrow lost legs? One of the best-studied 're-generators' is the sea creature - Hydractinia, or Snail fur, because it grows like fur on the back of the snail-shell homes of hermit crabs. By studying Hydractinia's regenerative powers at the cellular level, researchers think that most animals, including us, may have the poten…
TB in the New World; Trusting Wikipedia; Shipwreck of the London; @LegoAcademics

21 augustus 2014 · 28 min
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TB in the New World
Brand new work in comparative genetics is shedding light on the spread of TB. Scientists have shown that the initial spread of the deadly bacterial disease tuberculosis to the Americas didn't come with the European explorers and invaders. Skeletons of pre-Columbian Peruvians have shown signs of TB. So where did it come from? DNA samples collected from the ancient bacteria show they're closely related to the TB strain that infects seals and sea lions. So did the disease pass from humans in Africa to seals on the coast which then crossed the ocean and infected the Peruvians, 1000 years ago? Lees meer

Truth, Trust and the internet
A recent YouGov poll revealed that the British public trusts the online encyclopaedia Wikipedia more than it trusts the BBC. The internet has revolutionised how we receive information and check references. But how much should we trust online facts? Adam talks to Carl Miller, from the Centre for Analysis of Social Media at think-tank Demos, about how Wikipedia entries are created and regulated. And he asks him whether the democratisation of facts - created by crowd-sourced opinion rather than individual experts - is something we should welcome?

Shipwreck of the London
The London was a 64-gun second-rate ship of the line of the English Royal Navy, launched in June 1656 and commanded by Captain John Lawson. The ship was accidentally blown up in 1665 and sank in the Thames Estuary. The wreck was rediscovered in 2008, and is considered important partly for its historical references and partly for its insight into an important period in British naval history. English Heritage and Cotswold Archaeology are examining the remains in the murky Thames estuary before they decide what to do next. Although the wreck could be at risk from increasingly acidified water and invasive shipworm, it's thought unlikely that they will raise the ship, due to a lack of museum space.

Lego Academics
Campaigns for better female scientist role-models are not …
Anaesthesia; Chilean earthquakes; Strange weather; Jellyfish

14 augustus 2014 · 28 min
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Anaesthetics.
General anaesthetic is an essential part of modern medicine. Millions of surgical procedures, many life-saving, simply could not be performed without rendering the patient unconscious with one of a long list of drugs that induce anaesthesia. But, we don't know how they work.
Part of this mystery is because we're not entirely sure what we mean when we say unconscious. But part of it is that there's a whole fleet of different molecules than can work as an anaesthetic, so there's no well-known pathway we can study. Neuroscientist, Luca Turin at the Alexander Fleming Research Center in Greece thinks that the answer to how they work, could lie, not at the chemical level, but at the quantum level. Lees meer

2014 Iquique Earthquake in Chile
Before the massive 8.1-8.2 Magnitude earthquake struck Iquique in Chile, in April, this year, there were a series foreshocks at the fault line. Adam Rutherford asks Roland Pease if these creaks could be a way of warning us about an imminent big quake in the future. They also discuss whether the stress released by the megathrust quake means the region will be seismically inactive for a while. The experts think not.

Strange Weather
We are obsessed with the weather. It is a powerful, shared daily experience, offering us an immediate talking point. Yet when we talk about climate change the sense of guilt or powerlessness can often be enough to kill the conversation. A new exhibition at Science Gallery at Trinity College Dublin aims to engage conversations about both weather and climate in a playful, provocative way. By bringing together works by artists, designers, scientists, meteorologists and engineers STRANGE WEATHER asks questions such as: Should human culture be reshaped to fit strange weather or should we reshape weather to fit our strange culture? Who is going to take advantage of climate chaos and how will strange weather benefit me? How will you choose to work, celebrate, live and die when weather gets weird?

Strange Weath…
New dinosaur; GM chickens; Lightning; Rosetta; Diatoms

7 augustus 2014 · 28 min
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Dinosaur
A jumble of bones found in Venezuela belong to a group of very early dinosaurs, that could have been herd animals. Paul Barrett from the Natural History Museum explains to Professor Alice Roberts how a jumble of bones found in a 'bone bed' belong to a number of individual Laquintasaura venezuelae dinosaurs. They are an ancient, small, omnivorous dinosaur, which could have survived the Tertiary/Jurassic extinction event 200 million years ago. Lees meer

Genetically Editing Chickens
Diseases devastate livestock around the world. In chickens for example the deadly strain of bird flu and the lesser known bacterial infection Campylobacter, does not only harm the chickens but is also a real threat to human health and welfare. Scientists are continually trying to develop vaccines, but the strains of bacteria keep evolving resistance to them. One of the solutions being explored at the Roslin Institute in Edinburgh, is genetic. Using a subtle form of genetic modification, called genome editing. The team are trying to find the genetic components of natural resistance in a wide group of chicken breeds, which they can then insert into the genome of livestock fowl in the hope of breeding healthier, safer chickens.

Lightning
A listener asks why lightning is jagged. Rhys Phillips from Airbus Group in Cardiff makes lightning in a lab. He has the answer.

Rosetta
The European Space Agency's robotic spacecraft Rosetta has reached the orbit of the comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko, and is about to start its detailed study. In the audacious and risky mission, the craft will follow the orbit of the comet as it approaches and passes the Sun. It will attempt to land a probe on the surface of the icy, rocky mass. It's hoped the mission will provide great insight into what comets are made of, how they behave as they heat up, creating its gassy coma and tail. And it's hoped Rosetta and its lander will be able to tell about where Earth's water and even some of the building blocks for life might ha…
ExpeRimental; Rosetta; MOOCs

31 juli 2014 · 28 min
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ExpeRimental
There's an online wealth of science demonstrations you can try at home with your kids. But what's sometimes lacking is the encouragement of questioning the science in these DIY experiments. Science teacher and film maker Alom Shaha has devised a series of videos with the Royal Institution showing parents experimenting with home-made lava lamps, bubbles and bottle cannons. He hopes that amidst the mess and mistakes, some scientific thinking can be nurtured. Lees meer

Rosetta
The European Space Agency's robotic spacecraft Rosetta is about to start its detailed study of the comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko. In the audacious and risky mission, the craft will follow the orbit of the comet as it approaches and passes the Sun. It will attempt to land a probe on the surface of the icy, rocky mass. It's hoped the mission will provide great insight into what comets are made of, how they behave as they heat up, creating its gassy coma and tail. And it's hoped Rosetta and its lander will be able to tell about where Earth's water and even some of the building blocks for life might have come from.

MOOCs
Massive Open Online Courses are free and open to anyone with access to the internet. You can study a huge range of topics from cancer and dental photography to quantum physics, and even the archaeology and history of Hadrian's Wall. Critics say these higher education courses are just a PR exercise by universities, and that it will set up a two tier system in education. But Kathryn Skelton from FutureLearn, a platform for many of these MOOCs, argues that they encourage people who would not normally extend their education to take part and the universities providing the courses can gain great insight into the changing face of teaching methods.

Evolutionary Psychology
Last week Adam Rutherford and Alice Roberts had a robust discussion on the biologising of the human condition, with Professor David Canter. Listeners wrote in to complain that we didn't give an evolutionary psychologis…
Science's fascination with the face

24 juli 2014 · 28 min
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Face recognition
The software that analyses images of your face, captured online or when you're out and about, has rapidly improved. Adam visits Amscreen, to test the cameras they deploy at supermarket checkouts to determine your age and sex, to inform advertisers of the best demographic to target. This raises ethical and privacy issues which Adam discusses with privacy expert Professor Colin Bennett and author of "The formula, about algorithms and the algorithm culture", Luke Dormehl. Lees meer

Quantifying expressions
Is a look of contempt, or a smile, a universal expression or do they vary across cultures? Marnie Chesterton visits Glasgow University's Institute of Neuroscience and Psychology, where the scientists are building a huge database of faces, in order to unpick and quantify our expressions. Dr Oliver Garrod from the Generative Face Grammar Group demonstrates how they can capture your face, and animate it.

Evolutionary psychology
There is a long list of evolutionary explanations for the human condition. Mostly these are quite trivial. Teen boys develop acne on their faces to deter females from fertile but psychologically immature mates. Babies cry at night to prevent parents further procreating, resulting in potential sibling rivals. At the other end of the scale, these sorts of explanations have been used to suggest deeply problematic ideas, such as rape being an evolutionary strategy.

Professor David Canter, a psychologist from University of Huddersfield has railed against this fashion for 'biologising' our behaviour. And evolutionary biologist Professor Alice Roberts is also critical of 'adaptionism' - the idea that everything has evolved for an optimal purpose.

Producer: Fiona Roberts.
A special programme on plants and their pollinators, poisons and pests

17 juli 2014 · 28 min
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Plants and bees
The relationship between flowering plants and bees is a long-evolved, complex one. Plant scientists at the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew are currently conducting field trials to see how Acontium, or Monkshood, uses toxins to protect itself against nectar-thieving, short-tongued bumblebees. But how does it make sure it doesn't poison the helpful, pollinating long-tongued bumblebees? Lees meer

Plants from Roots to Riches
Professor Kathy Willis, Director of Science at the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew will be presenting a new series on BBC Radio 4 exploring our relationship with plants from the birth of botany through to modern day. She describes some of the series highlights.

The Azolla Event
A tiny ancient fern-like pond weed could have been responsible for changing the fate of the planet. Some scientists think that Azolla could have played a significant role in reversing an increase in the greenhouse effect that occurred 55 million years ago. The researchers claim that massive patches of Azolla growing on the (then) freshwater surface of the Arctic Ocean consumed enough carbon dioxide from the atmosphere for the global greenhouse effect to decline, eventually causing the formation of ice sheets in Antarctica and the current "Icehouse period" which we are still in.

Chomping caterpillars
Plants can hear. Well, they can sense sound-vibrations. New research from the University of Missouri shows that when the mustard-like Arabidopsis senses the chomping sounds of a caterpillar munching on leaves, it primes itself for a chemical response.

Composting low down
A listener asks why orange peel takes so long to rot down in the compost heap? Is it because it's an exotic fruit? Adam asks Kew's Head of Horticulture and 'keeper of the heap' Dave Barns.

Producer: Fiona Roberts.
Behavioural profiling at airports; Light and colour in art; Hadrian's Wall; Cassini

10 juli 2014 · 28 min
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Airport security has been tightened recently. Passengers must be able to switch on their electronic devices to prove they don't contain explosives. Inside Science asks about the science behind spotting a potential terrorist. Adam asks whether behavioural profiling works. Can trained security staff tell the difference between a nervous traveller and a potential terrorist? Lees meer

Light and colour in art
Pigments and paint evolved over time, and these changes are one focus of the 'Making Colour' exhibition at the National Gallery. Different paints fade and degrade in different ways; often the patina of age is what appeals when looking at art, so how do you decide which hue to use when restoring paintings? Another intriguing issue is how you light a painting. The National Gallery is moving away from tungsten lighting, to more modern, tuneable LED lights. How does this affect the way visitors view the art? An interactive experiment is helping them to unpick light perception.

Hadrian's Wall
A listener asks how did the Romans knew where to build the great defensive wall. We get the answer from Professor Ian Haynes, an archaeologist at Newcastle University, who reveals that the Romans were obsessed with measuring.

Cassini mission to Saturn
Cassini-Huygens is an unmanned spacecraft sent to the planet Saturn. The NASA-ESA-ASI robotic spacecraft has been orbiting and studying the planet and its many natural satellites for 10 years. Adam talks to the mission's leader of the imaging science team, Carolyn Porco, about how successful it's been. And he offers her a blank cheque to choose her next mission.

Producer: Fiona Roberts.
Informed consent, El Nino, Gravitational Waves, Cloud cover

3 juli 2014 · 29 min
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Informed consent
Facebook has been under fire for running a controversial 'emotion manipulation' study on 689,003 Facebook users. The experiment, to find out whether emotions were contagious on the social network, involved minor changes to users' news feeds. It's contentious because the users were not informed that they were taking part in an experiment. Facebook says, check the terms and conditions, but Dr Chris Chambers at Cardiff University says that the ethical standards for science are higher, and should involve informed consent. Dan O'Connor, Head of Medical Humanities at the Wellcome Trust, gives a short history of consent in experimentation. Lees meer

El Nino
According to the Met Office, the world is almost certain to be struck by the "El Nino" phenomenon this year, with the potential to induce "major climactic impacts" around the world. Roland Pease investigates this flip in the climate state of the Pacific basin, and asks the experts studying this phenomenon, whether it'll be a major event and how it might affect the climate.

Gravitational Waves
The announcement, earlier this year, that the BICEP 2 telescope at the South Pole had detected evidence that gravitational waves exist may have been premature. Gravitational waves are theoretical phenomena, based on observation of polarisation of ancient cosmic light. Finding them, adds to the evidence that the Universe is expanding. The data has now been made public, but the confidence in the numbers is being questioned.

Cloud cover
A listener asks about cloud cover and night time temperatures, and how air temperature and moisture content interact. Our expert Peter Sloss from the Met Office answers.

Producer: Fiona Roberts.
Longitude Prize Winner; Solar cells; New species; Fiji fisherwomen; Physics questions

26 juni 2014 · 28 min
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Longitude Prize 2014 Winning Challenge
Antibiotics resistance has been selected as the focus for the £10m prize. The World Health Organization (WHO) has warned of a "post-antibiotic era" where key drugs no longer work and people die from previously treatable infections. The next step in the challenge is to tackle this resistance, by developing a simple, cheap, quick test that allows you to tell whether an infection is bacterial or not. This will conserve the 50% of antibiotics that are currently given in situations where they have no effect. Lees meer

Solar Cells
A popular form of photovoltaic, or solar, cells is made using a harmful and expensive chemical called cadmium chloride. Now a team has found a new, cheaper, safer way of making solar cells by replacing the toxic element in the process with a material found in bath salts, magnesium chloride, and these are just as efficient. Professor Ken Durose from Liverpool University explains how it could reduce the cost of solar energy.

New Species
How easy is it to find a new species for science? Whilst in the Bornean jungle, Dr Tim Cockerill discovered that it was relatively easy - one fell in his cup of tea! It was a tiny parasitic wasp. Another new species, of the same type of parasitic wasp, was recently discovered in a school playground in the UK. So new insects seem to be quite easy to find, but what about a new mammal or bird? Tim reveals that finding the creature is just the start of a lot of work needed to get his finding published and accepted.

Fijian Fisherwomen
More and more conservationists are turning to local knowledge to work out the best way to save ecosystems. A great illustration of this grass-roots approach is underway in Fiji. They use a traditional system where villages will close an area of fishing grounds for a few months for fish stocks to recover. Conservationists are now learning about this system, known as 'tambu', to see if it can be used on a longer-term basis to help give fish stocks, that have …
Antarctic Invaders; Patents; Longitude Challenges for Water and Antibiotics

19 juni 2014 · 29 min
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Antarctic Invasion
Antarctica is the most pristine place on Earth, having only been visited by humans in the last 200 years, and being tens of thousands of miles from the nearest land. But these days, around 40,000 tourists and hundreds of scientists visit the Antarctic every year, and with them come stowaways in the form of bugs, beetles and plants. As a result, the ice -free areas of the Antarctic are at severe risk of invasion. Is it too late to do anything about it? Lees meer

Longitude Prize: Water
How can we ensure everyone can have access to safe and clean water? Water is becoming an increasingly scarce resource. 44 per cent of the world's population and 28 per cent of the world's agriculture are in regions where water is scarce. The challenge is to alleviate the growing pressure on the planet's fresh water by creating a cheap, environmentally sustainable desalination technology. London's Becton desalination plant is expensive to run, and so used for emergencies only. Marnie Chesterton meets some Danish chemists using membranes from nature which could help make salt water drinkable, without the energy requirement of current technology.

Patents in science
European Inventor Award winner Christofer Toumazou explains his invention - a USB microchip that reads a patient's DNA. He tells Adam Rutherford how the patent system has protected his ideas.

Longitude Prize: Antibiotics
Dame Sally Davies explains why, in an era of growing antibiotic resistance, it's important to have a cheap, easy-to-use test to identify bacteria. Muna Anjum from the Animal Health and Veterinary Laboratories Agency is working on identifying those resistance genes in certain bacteria. Paul Freemont's team at Imperial College is using synthetic biology to build a device that can detect specific bacteria - precisely the sort of work that might answer the Longitude Prize's challenge.

Producer: Fiona Roberts.
Turing test; World Cup exo-skeleton; Plant cyborgs; Music hooks

12 juni 2014 · 28 min
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The first ball kick of the opening ceremony of the 2014 World Cup is taken by a young paraplegic Brazilian, wearing a robotic exo-skeleton, controlled using his mind. Adam hears from Miguel Nicolelis, the neurophysiologist behind the high profile science stunt. Closer to home Sophie Morgan, paralysed for a decade, demonstrates her robot exo-skeleton, or REX, which allows her to walk and stand. Lees meer

This week, scientists at the University of Reading claim to have created a computer that has successfully duped humans into thinking it was a 13-year-old boy. This has been widely reported as the first computer to pass the Turing test, but is it? Is this a leap forward in artificial intelligence or a case of moving the goalposts. Anil Seth from the University of Sussex, gives us his opinion.

Forget the Internet of things, welcome, the internet of vegetables. An EU-wide project has developed "cyborg plants" with in-built sensors. These allow the plant to "talk" to scientists, giving them updates on water and nitrogen levels. Koushik Maharatna from the University of Southampton explains the benefits of being able to talk to plants.

We are surprisingly good at remembering songs we haven't heard for many years, but what is it about a song that makes it so memorable? Is there a perfect formula? Scientists hope that a new game will find out. A citizen science project plans to analyse thousands of results from the songs best remembered by the public. Adam Rutherford sings along and asks Dr Ashley Burgoyne, a computational musicologist from the University of Amsterdam, why some songs are more memorable than others.

Producer: Fiona Hill.
Moving Mountains; Invasive Species; Football Stickers

5 juni 2014 · 28 min
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Moving Mountains
Removing the tops off mountains was common practice in the eastern United States to strip mine for coal. Critics have previously called for it to be banned because of the health risks. But in China, the same thing is now happening but on a much larger scale, all to create new land for people to live on. In a comment piece in this week's Nature journal, Chinese scientists call this unprecedented geo-engineering "folly", and liken the practice to "performing major surgery on Earth's crust". Dr Adam Rutherford talks to Dr Emily Bernhardt from Duke University in the US about the potential risks of the Chinese mountain moving. Lees meer

Alien Invader Species
Inside Science bug man, Tim Cockerill, responds to headlines that alien killer snakes, capable of killing dogs, cats and even children, are on the loose in Britain. He goes to look for the supposedly terrifying reptiles, and finds out instead, about a colony of aesculapian snakes, whose biggest meal might be a rat. In search of more danger, he goes on to Sheerness in Kent, to hunt for the "alien" yellow-tailed scorpion. These arachnids don't prove much of a threat either, he discovers. As long as you keep your trousers tucked in your socks.

Longitude Prize: Zero Carbon Flight
If our use of air travel continues to rise at the current rate, by 2050, it'll make up 15 per cent of global warming from human activities. If the Longitude Prize topic chosen is flight, the challenge will be to design and build a zero or close-to-zero-carbon aeroplane that is capable of flying from London to Edinburgh, at comparable speed to today's aircraft. Marnie Chesterton speaks to physicist Helen Czerski and Professor Callum Thomas, from Manchester Metropolitan's Centre for Aviation, Transport and the Environment, about the possible options.

Football Stickers
"Got, Got, Got, Need!". With the football World Cup upon us, footy-mad kids barter to fill their world cup sticker books. Adam talks to mathematician Professor Yvan Veleni…
Women scientists; Mapping the ocean floor; Amplituhedron

29 mei 2014 · 29 min
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Women of science
London's Royal Society was buzzing last week as historians and scientists chewed over the lives of iconic women scientists. But at a time when far more women go into science, the percentage who make it to professor is still alarmingly low compared to men. Last week's Revealing Lives event by The Royal Society was also about learning lessons from history which are of benefit to women working in science today. Lees meer

Mapping the ocean floor
We really do know less about the ocean floor on Earth than we do about the surface of Mars, Venus and the Moon. In the case of the Red Planet, the maps are about 250 times better. This gap in our home-planet knowledge has recently been highlighted by the search for the missing Malaysia airlines plane MH370. The suspected search area in a remote part of the Indian Ocean is so poorly mapped, it's not even clear how deep the deepest parts are. Ocean floor mapping can be done by ship board echo-sounders, bouncing sound waves off the sea floor. But this is very expensive. A new cheaper, quicker way is to use a satellite to measure fluctuations in the sea surface caused by gravitational perturbations caused by underwater topography.

Longitude Challenge 2014 - Food security
By 2050 there will be an estimated 9.1 billion people on the planet. In the face of limited resources and climate change, how can we feed the world with less? Michael Moseley thinks eating insects is a start whilst Marnie Chesterton checks out a field of self-fertilising crops. And the issue that it's not always the amount of food, but the right food is highlighted in a report from the Metropolitan Manila area of the Philippines where a portion of fries and a burger is cheaper than a kilo of carrots.

Amplituhedron
Particle physicists have discovered a mysterious jewel-like object that exists in higher dimensions in mathematical space. This multifaceted object, The Amplituhedron, greatly simplifies the complex calculations that explain what happens during …
Longitude Prize 2014; Dementia; Matter from light; Coastal deposition

22 mei 2014 · 28 min
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Longitude Prize 2014
The Longitude Prize offers a £10 million prize pot to help find the solution to one of the greatest issues of our age. Votes from the British public will decide what that issue will be. This week, the six shortlisted challenges have been unveiled. They cover flight, food, antibiotics, paralysis, water and dementia. Alice Roberts talks to Adam about why we need an X-factor for science. Over the next month, Inside Science will profile each of these challenges and explain how you can cast your vote. Lees meer

Matter from Light
In 12 months' time, researchers say they will be able to make matter from light. Three physicists were sitting in a tiny office at Imperial College London and while drinking coffee they found what they call a fairly simple way to prove a theory first suggested by scientists 80 years ago: to convert photons - i.e. particles of light - into electrons (particles of matter) and positrons (antimatter). Adam discusses the work with theoretical physicist Professor Steven Rose from Imperial College London and science writer Philip Ball.

Longitude challenge - Dementia
How can we help people with dementia to live independently for longer? Dr Kevin Fong is the champion for this Longitude Challenge, arguing that we all use technology to support our lifestyles but that people with dementia need extra tech. Marnie Chesterton visits Designability, a Bath-based design charity that works with people with dementia to develop new technologies. Their Day Clock shows that a simple design can produce radical results.

Coastal deposition
The destructive winter storms that hit the UK caused were flooded by the worst tidal surge on the east coast in 60 years.
Sand dunes play an important defensive role on our coastline but little is known about their resilience or recovery rate. So after the December 5th storm, scientists sprang into action in Lincolnshire with a new project that officially began in February. The aim is to help future coastal management by …
Antarctic melt; brain enhancing devices, atomic clocks and anti-bat moth sounds

15 mei 2014 · 28 min
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Melting Antarctic Ice Shelf
Nothing can stop the collapse of the Antarctic Western Ice shelf. That’s according to NASA this week. Key glaciers in Antarctica are irreversibly retreating, and according to the scientists studying this region they’ve reached a state of irreversible retreat - the point of no return. Lees meer

Brain enhancing devices
If given the option, would you think faster or increase your attention span? Neuroscientists now say that non-invasive brain stimulation using electrical currents could do just that. The technology is still fairly new but is now being sold by commercial companies often marketed to gamers suggesting that it could increase your attention and make you think faster. But do they actually work? Inside Science sent Melissa Hogenboom to Oxford try one out and to discuss the science behind the hype.

Black holes
How big can black holes get? A listener asks and Professor Andy Fabien, Director of the Institute of Astronomy at Cambridge University answers.

Optical and atomic clocks
At this week’s ‘Quantum Timing, Navigation and Sensing’ Showcase at the National Physical Laboratory, researchers are working on sensors that allow us to see through walls; super-accurate atomic clocks the size of matchboxes; and GPS trackers that can elude an enemy jamming the signal. We sent Inside Science reporter Tracey Logan to work on her time management.

Bat jamming moth noises and other insects that go bump, chirrup, squeak in the night
Inside Science’s resident entomologist, Dr. Tim Cockerill has been exploring a whole soundscape that’s hidden from our limited hearing range. Including, eavesdropping on a secret sonic arms race between echo-locating bats and bat-jamming acoustics created by the genitals of a hawkmoth.

Producer: Fiona Roberts
Colin Pillinger; Fire? Artificial DNA

8 mei 2014 · 28 min
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Artificial DNA
DNA is the molecule of life, conserved across all living species for 4 billion years. But now scientists have made a new, artificial version, by introducing two extra letters, not found in nature, into the genetic code of a common microbe.
The E. coli bacteria are able to grow and replicate as normal despite these artificial additions.
In future, this research might create organisms that can make new proteins, which could offer new drugs and vaccines. Lees meer

What is fire?
A listener wrote in to ask about fire – what is it? And what is the difference between a super-hot gas and plasma? We went straight to Dr. Guillermo Rein, Mechanical Engineer at Imperial College and Editor-in-Chief of the journal Fire Technology. It turns out, they’re great questions and even the experts can’t quite agree on the answers.

Obituary - Colin Pillinger
British planetary scientist Professor Colin Pillinger, best known for his 2003 attempt to land a spacecraft on Mars, has died aged 70. .

Oxford Maths Institute
The new Maths Institute at Oxford University is named the Andrew Wiles Building, after the mathematician, who solved Fermat’s Last Theorem. The Institute includes some nods to other mathematical theories included in the design. From the never-ending Penrose paving at the entrance to lighting based on solving complex equations and mathematical illusions build into the construction. The architects hope the building will inspire the next generation of mathematicians.

Carlos Frenk
Professor Carlos Frenk, astronomer at Durham University has just joined the ranks of Steven Hawking, Edwin Hubble and Albert Einstein by winning the Royal Astronomical Society’s Gold Medal for Astronomy.

Producer: Fiona Roberts
Mice & Men; Fuel from CO2; fRMI; Insect calls

1 mei 2014 · 28 min
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A recent paper demonstrated that mice show elevated stress levels in the presence of male hormones. What implications does this have for future mouse research? Adam Rutherford heads to University College London to speak to Dr Clare Stanford, who works with mice and men. Lees meer

How do you get jet fuel from thin air? Just add water, carbon dioxide and a large amount of concentrated sunlight. A team from the European Solar Jet Project has, for the first time, proved that you can make 'green' or carbon neutral paraffin, the hydrocarbon used in jet fuel. It's feasible; the next step is to try and make this process commercially viable.

Neuroscience is a fast growing and popular field, so naturally there are an abundance of stories reported in the press often illustrated with a beautiful picture of the brain. But despite the advances, when an area of the brain 'lights up" it does not tell us as much as we'd like about the inner workings of the mind. Adam Rutherford speaks to neuroscientists to get to the bottom of what brain imaging can be useful for and when over-interpretation is an issue.

Our resident zoologist Dr Tim Cockerill recently found himself filming animals deep in the jungles of Borneo. Before he left, we gave him an audio recorder to see what he could discover about the animal communities there, just by listening to them. It seems you can set your watch by some of their calls.

Producer: Marnie Chesterton.
Y chromosome; Everest avalanche; Aphid survey; Longitude

24 april 2014 · 28 min
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Y Chromosome
We learn from a young age that if a fertilised egg carries XX chromosomes it will be a girl, but with XY it will be a boy. This male Y sex chromosome has lost many genes along its evolution over the past 180 million years and now only about 20 genes remain. Now two new studies in Nature journal have given clues into how the Y chromosome evolved into its current state by looking at the genetic make up of 15 species the team built an archaeological record of all the mutations that occurred over time - to trace the timing of how the Y originated.... Professor Henrik Kaessmann from the University of Lausanne in Switzerland explains that the genes that remain play a more important role than previously believed. Lees meer

Everest Avalanche
Last week the biggest single loss-of-life event occurred on Everest: a huge avalanche killed 16 Sherpa guides. All were so-called "icefall doctors", possibly the riskiest job of all, which involves finding a route through the broken mass of icefall, and then securing ladders and ropes for mountaineer tourists to follow.
The Himalayan Sherpas have abandoned the climbing season out of respect for the fallen. There are many questions about health and safety, but we want to know what could be done to help? BBC Science Reporter Victoria Gill has been looking at the science behind avalanches, Are avalanches predictable? And will global warming in the Himalayan region make them more common?

Aphid Survey
This month the Rothamsted Research in Hertfordshire's Insect Survey will have been monitoring national aphid populations for fifty years. Aphids, such as greenfly and blackfly, can cause extensive damage to plants and crops. The aphid season - as many gardeners will know - is just about to start. But how has the recent mild, wet winter affected their numbers?

Lichens
An Inside Science listener emailed in to ask about lichens - what are they and how do they live. We called in plant ecologist Professor Howard Griffiths, at the University o…
Sperm and egg; Dogs; Automatic Facebook; Invasive species

17 april 2014 · 28 min
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How sperm recognises the egg
The discovery of a protein on mammalian sperm almost a decade ago, sparked the search for the corresponding receptor on the egg. Now researchers in the UK have found this receptor in mouse egg cells. They propose to call it Juno, after the Roman Goddess of fertility and marriage. The finding indicates that these two proteins need to interact for normal fertilisation to occur. And in humans, it could lead to early screening of couple to decide which appropriate fertility treatment they require. Lees meer

Dogs as clinical models
Dogs play an important companion role in society, but man's best friend can suffer from hundreds of different diseases. Surprisingly, many of these are very similar to human diseases, including cancer and autoimmune conditions. Research into a range of naturally occurring canine conditions has the potential to lead to some ground-breaking medical advances and improve human health.

Automatic Facebook
Keeping up with your online social network of 'friends' on Facebook can sometimes be time consuming and arduous. Now artificial intelligence expert, Boris Galitsky, has invented a robot to do the bulk of his social interactions online. But how realistic is it? And does it fool his cyber pals?

Artistic brains feedback
Last week we ran an item showing that researchers have found that artists' brains were structurally different from those of non-artists. This sparked a lot of listener feedback and debate on what is the difference between being an artist and being creative? Is it nature or nurture, or both? We attempt to get your points across!

Invasive Alien Species
The European Parliament has approved new legislation which hopes to contain the spread of invasive species of plants and animals in Europe. It has proposed bans on the possession, transport, selling or growing of restricted species. The list, which includes plants like Japanese knotweed and Himalayan balsam and animals like the "killer" shrimp, which can wreak havoc…
Whales; Dark Matter; Falling; Arty brains

10 april 2014 · 28 min
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Whaling
The International Court of Justice in the Hague recently ruled that Japan should stop whaling in the Antarctic “for scientific purposes.” They found that the primary purpose of the science programme, JARPAII, was not science. In that case, what was it for? Inside Science puts that question to whale biologist Vassili Papastavrou, and Lars Walløe, Japan’s expert witness at the ICJ. Lees meer

LUX Experiment to detect dark matter
Scientists are entering a critical phase in the quest to find the one of most mysterious particles in the Universe. An experiment called LUX, in South Dakota is about to be switched on that offers the best hope yet of detecting dark matter - a substance thought to make up a quarter of the Universe, yet one that nobody has ever seen.

Falling in the elderly
As we age, we tend to fall more and the repercussions of falling are more serious But why? Even if you rule out physical reasons for why you might be more likely to fall, older people still fall more often. Professor Raymond Reynolds, at the University of Birmingham, thinks it might be something happening in their heads – the balance system could be letting them down. Tracey Logan climbs aboard the shake shack to find out.

Arty Brains
Artists often have lifestyle that requires complete immersion into their world, now a team finds that this difference is reflected in their brains too, that is, their brains are structurally different to non-artists. Participants' brain scans revealed that artists had increased grey matter in areas relating to fine motor movements and visual imagery. Our reporter Melissa Hogenboom speaks to artists and the authors of the new research to find out what exactly is different about their brains. The study is published in NeuroImage.

Producer: Fiona Roberts
Calorie Restriction; Moon Age; Mars Yard; IPCC.

3 april 2014 · 28 min
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Calorie restriction
Careful restriction of the number of calories eaten, without causing malnutrition, extends the lifespan of numerous organisms – from worms to mice – but whether it works in monkeys is controversial. Building on results from a long-running primate experiment, a team at the University of Wisconsin show a reduction in mortality, in response to caloric restriction. So there seem to be some benefits, but Tracey Logan asks if this can be applied to humans? And would we want to live longer on a tightly controlled diet? Lees meer

Dating the Moon
New work by planetary scientists from France, Germany and the USA, has given the most accurate date yet for the birth of the moon. The Moon is believed to have formed out of debris from a massive collision with another Mars-sized planet. The date of this event has always been controversial as radioactive decay readings have produced wildly different results. But this clock uses a different approach, and rules out an early-forming moon. The later the moon formed, the less time for life to evolve.

Mars Yard
In 2016 Europe launches a mission to mars. ESA’s robotic rover will land on Mars in 2019, and in the meantime, needs to practice. To test it, scientists have recreated the surface of Mars, with 300 tonnes of sand. Reporter Sue Nelson went to Stevenage to play in the sandpit, for science.

IPCC
This week sees the most recent report from The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the IPCC. And the message is the same: the climate is changing as we continue to add greenhouse gases to the atmosphere.
Should we concentrate on adapting to climate change, rather than stopping it? Professor of Coastal Engineering at Southampton University, Robert Nicholls and Dr Rachel Warren of the UEA’s Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research discuss adaptation plans.

Producer: Fiona Roberts
Fracking; Purple GM tomatoes; Bionic humans; Shark attacks

27 maart 2014 · 29 min
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School Report on Fracking
This week, Inside Science is taken over by BBC School Reporters and Melissa Hogenboom eavesdrops on a school in Lancashire, preparing their report on fracking. They discuss the issues very local to them, as well as the wider international angles and how best to present the story. Lees meer

Purple GM tomatoes
The chemical that gives blackberries, blackcurrants, blueberries and some red grape varieties their distinctive purple colour is Anthocyanin. It’s been shown to have some possible anti-cancer properties as well as some protection against cardiovascular disease. So scientists at the John Innes Centre have inserted the ‘purple gene’ into tomatoes to try and boost their health-giving properties. This step is relatively easy, compared to navigating the rules and regulations of getting to the stage of producing purple ketchup. Gareth Mitchell asks the School reporters what they think about Genetic Modification of food crops.

Artificial humans
With progress in 3D printing of organs, brain-machine interfaces and even artificial skin. Materials scientist at University College London, Professor Mark Miodownik, thinks that the future really could be bionic. Would the School Reporters want to become half human, half machine? And would these technological advances just be used for repairing people who have been injured or really need it, or will it mean that those with enough money could enhance themselves to superhuman states?

Shark Attacks
Potentially dangerous sharks are being culled off the coast of Western Australia. The government claim it’s as a result of a rise in the number of deaths by shark attack. Many people are outraged by the killings. Shark attacks are still really rare compared to car accidents or even deaths from bee stings – so do the School Reporters think this is a good idea? Or do they think listening to what the scientists studying shark behaviour and developing shark deterrents say, is a better way to go?
Cosmic inflation; LISA; Photonic radar; Bird stress camera; Water research; Taxidermy

20 maart 2014 · 28 min
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Cosmic Inflation and Gravity waves
Scientists in the BICEP 2 Group say they've found the earliest rumbles of the Big Bang. Theory predicts how the universe first expanded. Now we have the first observation of the phenomenon behind it. The universe was kick-started by a so called 'inflation' - vigorous growth within a fraction of a second of the Big Bang going bang. To confirm inflation you need to detect ripples in the fabric of space called gravitational waves. And to find those, you need to look for twists and kinks in this stuff. The BICEP 2 radio telescope, at the South Pole, has been measuring the direction of twists of light from the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation - which is a form of primordial light, a remnant of the Big Bang. The signals have been released that show distortions in that light that can only have been caused by gravitational waves. They could only be there if there was inflation. In other words, these observations have shored up one of the most important theories in cosmology. Gareth Mitchell discusses what this means with BBC Science Correspondent Jonathan Amos and Astronomer at UCL Dr. Hiranya Peiris. Lees meer

Photonic Radar
As the search closes in on missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH 370, radar technology has been in the spotlight. At the same time, new research published in this week's Nature journal reports on field trials of the next generation of radars - photonics based. Lead-author Paolo Ghelfi, from the National Laboratory of Photonics networks in Pisa, Italy explains their methods. Professor David Stupples, a radar expert from City University, London, explain that this cheaper, more accurate technology could end up in your car.

Show Us Your Instrument - Infrared camera
Infrared cameras detect heat, and process this as a colourful image. Dominic McCafferty, from Glasgow University, uses this kit to study stress levels in birds. When an animal is stressed, blood is drawn away from its skin and routed to the essential organs. This '…
Tracking planes; Peer review; Mega-virus; Astronaut

13 maart 2014 · 28 min
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Are black boxes outdated technology? With GPS widely available in everyday gadgets like mobile phones, how could Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 just disappear? Adam Rutherford speaks to Dr Matt Greaves, a Lecturer in Accident Investigation at Cranfield University, about how we track aircraft. Lees meer

Earlier this year, a new study from Japan announced a curiously easy way to make stem cells, by placing them in a mild acid bath. It seemed too good to be true, and according to recent critics, it is. One of the authors has declared that the paper should be withdrawn, that he has 'lost faith in it'.

Ivan Oransky runs the site RetractionWatch, dedicated to scrutinizing irregular research. He talks to Adam about the value of post-publication peer review, and public scrutiny of science on the internet.

A 30,000 year old killer, buried 100 feet under the Siberian permafrost, has risen from the dead. It's a mega virus, with the largest genome of any known virus, and, happily, only infects amoebae. Virologist Professor Jonathan Ball, of the University of Nottingham, explains the implications of reanimating dead viruses.

And actual spaceman, retired NASA pilot Captain Jon McBride, came into the studio to share his out-of-this-world memories and prediction that the next generation of astronauts will be chosen on brains not brawn.

Producer: Fiona Roberts.
LG - Chemical weapons, Turtles, Tech for wildlife, Climate

6 maart 2014 · 28 min
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Chemical weapons
Disposing of Syria's chemical weapons is a difficult task, both politically and technically. The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), responsible for the decommissioning, has kitted out a special ship, the MV Cape Ray to hydrolyse "priority" toxic substances. Hamish de Bretton Gordon, a chemical weapons expert from SecureBio, explains why destroying chemical precursors on dry land is not an option and whether the job will be done on time. Lees meer

Tracking turtles
Satellite tags have finally given researchers insight into the "lost years" of loggerhead turtles.
After many failed attempts, researchers have worked out how to attach the tiny tags to the months-old animals during the uncertain period when they leave US coastal waters and head out into the Atlantic Ocean. The data suggests the loggerheads can spend some time living in amongst floating mats of Sargassum seaweed, in the Sargasso Sea.

Technology for Nature
The tools and gadgets available to remotely track animals and monitor populations and their habitats are getting better and more mechanised. Cameras mounted on birds can record where they fly; audio recordings capture bat calls; satellite images monitoring habitat change. However all this digital data needs to be analysed. Professor Kate Jones, an expert on biodiversity at University College London, thinks that this is where more technological advances are needed. She wants image recognition programmes to scan through millions of remote camera images, or sound recognition of hundreds of thousands of bat calls to be developed.

Climate
The recent extreme rainfall has left many asking, is this weather linked to climate change? A new project 'weather@home' 2014, aims to use a large citizen science experiment to answer this question. Myles Allen, Professor of Geosystems Science at the School of Geography and the Environment, and Dr Nathalie Schaller, both of Oxford University, explain that they aim to run two sets of weather…
Brain Machine Interfaces; Question on Gay Genes; Studying Drinking Behaviour

27 februari 2014 · 28 min
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Neuroscientist Miguel Nicolelis is one of the world's leading researchers into using the mind to control machines. He is involved in the "Walk Again Project" which aims to build a suit that a paraplegic person can wear and control so that he or she can kick a football at the opening ceremony of the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. Adam is joined by biomedical engineer, Professor Christopher James from Warwick University, who puts the field of Brain Machine Interfaces in context. Lees meer

Work published last week by Professor Ziv Williams looks at the possibility of rewiring the body. Paralysis is normally confined to spinal cord damage, not the limbs themselves. Ziv Williams' work aims to use implanted chips to bypass the injury and have the individual control their own paralysed arms.

Listeners ask if there is a gene for fundamentalist intolerance. We put the question to Professor Tim Spector, author of Identically Different.

Adam Rutherford heads down to the psychology department at London's South Bank University... for a pint. Dr Tony Moss has built a fake pub, complete with lighting, music and even a fruit machine, to make drinkers feel that they are in a real bar. He says the venue treads a middle ground between a sterile lab, and an actual pub, where there are too many variables to reliably study behaviour.

Professor John Shepherd from Cardiff studies alcohol and behaviour from the other end - the drunken nights out that end up in A&E. A few simple initiatives have helped reduce violence levels by 40%

Producer: Fiona Roberts.
Bees; Whales; Pain; Gay genes

20 februari 2014 · 28 min
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Bees - Nearly all bees in the UK suffering serious declines. They're mostly threatened by habitat and land-use change. But disease also plays a part. Adam Rutherford talks to Professor Mark Brown about new work he's done looking at the evidence of diseases harboured by honeybees, spilling over into wild bumblebees. Lees meer

Pain and epigenetics - Marnie Chesterton goes to Kings College, London to watch identical twins being tested for pain tolerance. The study is to gain insight into the genetic components of pain perception. One area which is fascinating researchers like Professor Tim Spector is the role of epigenetics in how we process pain. Our epigenome is a system that changes the way our DNA is interpreted. Genes can be dialled up or down, like a dimmer switch, by adding little chemical tags to the DNA. These chemical tags, unlike DNA, are changeable, in response to the changing environment. So could the way we live affect the pain we feel?

Whales from Space - More listeners' questions, this time, asking whether surveys using images from satellites to see whales underwater, could be hijacked by whale hunters? Peter Fretwell from the British Antarctic Survey has the answer.

Genetics of sexual preference - The media is all of a twitter this week over unpublished work recently revealed on research looking for genes related to homosexuality. We hear from Professor Tim Spector on the topic, and Adam talks to Professor Steve Jones about the science.

Producer: Fiona Roberts.
Whales from space; Flood emails; SUYI JET Lasers; CERN's new tunnel; Discoveries exhibition

13 februari 2014 · 28 min
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Whales from Space. Scientists have demonstrated how new satellite technology can be used to count whales, and ultimately estimate their population size. Using Very High Resolution (VHR) satellite imagery, alongside image processing software, they were able to automatically detect and count whales breeding in part of the Golfo Nuevo, Peninsula Valdes in Argentina. Lees meer

The new method could revolutionise how whale population size is estimated. Marine mammals are extremely difficult to count on a large scale and traditional methods are costly, inaccurate and dangerous; several whales researchers have died in light aircraft accidents.
How long will the floods last? Is this a trend caused by climate change? Should I turn on the kitchen taps so that house is at least flooded with clean water? We put listeners' flood questions to experts from the Centre of Ecology and Hydrology and the British Geological Survey.

The instrument we're shown this week is from JET (Joint European Torus) in Culham,. It's the world's largest 'tokamak' - a type of nuclear fusion reactor. The hope is that in a few decades it could be supplying much of the world's electricity. It works by fusing nuclei of hydrogen together to produce helium and a lot of excess energy. It's the power source of the Universe, as all stars run on fusion energy. But on Earth we have to go to much more extreme conditions to achieve it. Upwards of 100 million degrees Celsius, which is around ten times hotter than the Sun. Joanne Flannagan, shows us her lasers which measure the hot fusion plasma inside JET.

CERN wants a new tunnel. The 27km long, Large Hadron Collider in Geneva found evidence of the Higgs boson recently. But if we want to know more about this elusive particle and others that make up our universe, the physicists say they're going to have to go bigger. With a 100km long tunnel, in fact. Talks are afoot as to where and how they will build it. But Lucie asks reporter Roland Pease whether it'll be worth it?

The…
Engineering for floods; Neanderthal genes; Switching senses; Genes in Space game

6 februari 2014 · 28 min
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The warning that floods are likely to become more common, or more severe, won't be a high priority for those with homes currently deluged. But it is something architects, engineers and planners have been taking very seriously. Dr. Adam Rutherford finds out about some of the innovations, both in UK and abroad, being designed for homes in areas prone to flooding - from simple door guards and waterproofing which can be retrofitted to existing houses - to entire city re-landscaping, or 'waterscaping' which aims to make room for the river, rather than fighting against it. Lees meer

Last week Adam talked about research showing that most people of European or East Asian descent carry a small percentage of Neanderthal DNA - about 2%. He examined some of the physical characteristics we may have got from the genes of our ancient cousins. This week Inside Science addresses some of the questions this fascinating work prompted.

A new study in the journal Neuron this week, looks at what happens in the brain when one of the senses is dulled. Dr. Patrick Kanold, from the University of Maryland in the States, and his colleagues simulated blindness in mice by keeping them in the dark for a week, to see what happened to the parts of their brains involved in hearing. The found that the mouse's hearing improved. We sometimes talk about the brain being 'hardwired': all the neurons locked in place from early childhood. It was assumed that there was only a short, finite period when the brain was still capable of changing, but the new research shows parts of the brain still has room to manoeuvre.

A recurring problem in science is that we are far better at collecting vast amounts of scientific data than we are at actually analysing them. To combat this problem, the charity Cancer Research UK have just launched a mobile phone game, 'Genes In Space', that farms statistical analysis out to the masses. Under the guise of flying a spaceship through a meteor storm, game players actually navigate their w…
Neanderthals; Plague; Wind Tunnel; Music Timing; Stem Cells

30 januari 2014 · 28 min
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We now know that Neanderthals and our ancestors interbred over 40,000 years ago. Recent research has shown that most people of European or East Asian descent carry a small percentage of Neanderthal DNA - about 2%. But two new papers this week examine some of the physical characteristics we may have got from the genes of our ancient cousins. They include some disease susceptibilities and hair and skin characteristics, which may have helped our forebears survive in northern climes. Lees meer

There have been many sensationalist headlines in the news this week suggesting that the deadly bubonic plague could return, when really, it never went away. And while it can still be deadly, it can be treated early with antibiotics. In the Middle Ages the Black Death is thought to have killed up to half of the European population and so too did the Justinian Plague 800 years earlier. Now scientists have compared these two plague genomes to find that they were both caused by distinct strains of the same bacterium, Yersinia Pestis. Knowing how the pathogen evolved in the past is crucial to our understanding of possible future strains of plague. Lead author Dr David Wagner from the University of Arizona tells Dr Adam Rutherford that it's very unlikely the plague will return on a mass scale.

It's a windy Show Us Your Instrument this week - Prof Konstantinos ('Kostas') Kontis, Professor of Aerospace Engineering shows us around his wind tunnel. It's used to help develop more effective plane wings, helicopter rotors, and wind turbine blades, but cyclist Sir Chris Hoy has also been a test sample. Glasgow University is currently building a hypersonic wind tunnel, which can test air flow at speeds of up to Mach 10.

We all unconsciously synchronise our movements and researchers at the University of Birmingham have shown how professional musicians make tiny adjustments in their playing to keep time with their colleagues. Alan Wing, Professor of Human Movement in Psychology tells Adam how this resea…
Higgs Boson; Neutrinos; Antarctic echo locator; Rainforest fungi; Alabama rot

23 januari 2014 · 28 min
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The Higgs boson has been discovered, providing the final piece of the jigsaw puzzle for the Standard Model of particle physics, a description of how the universe works. But what physicists haven't found yet, which they should have, are supersymmetry or SUSY particles. Roland Pease attended a recent meeting of top physicists, and shares with Adam Rutherford the latest discussions about where to look next. Lees meer

The history of neutrinos is littered with interesting characters. It was Wolfgang Pauli who first suggested their existence. Pauli was so unsettled by his proposal that he bet a case of champagne against anyone being able to discover these "pathologically shy" particles. Since then, scientists have built ever more elaborate experiments to try and detect these particles. Ray Jayawardhana, Professor of Astrophysics and author of a new book "The Neutrino Hunters" explains more about the most abundant particle in the universe.

This week's Show Us Your Instrument is a tool used to help scientists measure the glaciers in the Antarctic. Julian Dowdeswell, a glaciologist from the University of Cambridge, uses an echo-locator to look at the dynamics of large ice masses and their response to climate change.

Fungi, not viewed favourably by gardeners, can be good for rainforest biodiversity. Dr Owen Lewis from Oxford University tells Melissa Hogenboom that plots sprayed with fungicide soon become dominated by a few species at the expense of many others, leading to a marked drop in diversity.

A mysterious illness killing dogs has been in the headlines this week. David Walker a veterinary specialist, says that although it's not clear what's causing the disease, people should not panic.
Personal genetics kits; Persister cells; Earthquake mapping; Scorpions

16 januari 2014 · 28 min
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For a couple of hundred quid, one of many companies will send you a kit for sampling your own genome, and most will tell you your genetic risk for some diseases. In December the US Food and Drug Administration imposed a ban on one of these companies, 23andme. The reasoning was that if the organisation is offering medical advice, it needs to be medically regulated. Geneticist Professor Robert Green from Harvard Medical School argues that people can cope responsibly with their genetic information and that the FDA is being over-cautious. Lees meer

Most people are familiar with recurrent infections caused by bacteria such as tonsillitis and bladder infections, where you pick up an infection, get treated with antibiotics and then after a few weeks or months the infection reappears and you need another course of antibiotics; this is a problem that can go on for many years, and is a major healthcare burden world-wide. Marnie Chesterton met a team from Imperial College studying the elusive persister cells responsible for these relapses.

Earthquakes usually occur in subduction zones, where one tectonic plate plunges beneath another. Now a team at University of Aberdeen has analysed a large earthquake database and developed a global map giving clues to which areas could be capable of causing giant earthquakes. Professor Nicholas Rawlinson explains the difficulties of predicting.

The venom of scorpions contains neurotoxins, which attack the nervous system
of animals - it's one of the reasons why it's not a good idea to be stung by a scorpion. The structure of these toxins very closely resembles the structure of a group of proteins with a completely different purpose, called defensins. Professor Jan Tytgat from KU Leauven suggests that venom evolved from these defensins.
Antarctica weather and climate change; GM Fish Oils; Melanin Fossils; Time Travel

9 januari 2014 · 28 min
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Scientists following in the footsteps of Edwardian explorer, Douglas Mawson, have been trapped in pack ice in the Antarctic. The Chinese vessel that came to their rescue also became "beset" in the ice. The BBC's Andrew Luck Baker talks to Adam Rutherford about the catacylsmic event that caused multi-year ice to break away and trap the Academik Shokalskiy and Professor John Turner of the British Antarctic Survey underlines the importance of differentiating between extreme weather events and the impact of climate change. Lees meer

A team at Rothamsted Research in Hertfordshire has succeeded in genetically engineering plant seeds to contain the Omega-3 oil usually found in oily fish. Seeds from Camelina sativa (false flax) plants were modified using genes from microalgae - the primary organisms that produce these beneficial fatty acids.The oil has now been incorporated into salmon feed to assess whether it's a viable alternative to wild fish oil. Dr Johnathan Napier tells Melissa Hogenboom that he hopes the plants will provide a sustainable source of long chain polyunsaturated fatty acids.

From fossils we know an awful lot about the animals that walked on the Earth, swam in the sea and flew in the air. But fossils have never been good at revealing the colour of these animals. With increasingly sophisticated sampling techniques however, scientists are starting to get a much better, technicolour glimpse into these extinct fauna. And it turns out that colour played a much more important role than just camouflage and decoration. Johan Lindgren form Lund University in Sweden has been finding out how the pigment, melanin, allowed ancient marine reptiles to travel all over the oceanic globe.

Show Us Your Instrument: Dr Andrew Polaszek, Head of Terrestrial Invertebrates at the Natural History Museum reveals his compound microscope (with Nomarski Differential Interference Contrast) which he uses to discover "hidden biodiversity", particularly in parasitoid wasps.

Stephen Hawking thr…
Ancient Human Occupation of Britain

6 januari 2014 · 27 min
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The ancient inhabitants of Britain; when did they get here? Who were they? And how do we know? Alice Roberts meets some of the AHOB team, who have been literally digging for answers. Lees meer

The Natural History Museum's Chris Stringer, is the Director of AHOB, the Ancient Human Occupation of Britain, a project which, over the past 12 years, has brought together a large team of palaeontologists, archaeologists, geologists and geographers, to pool their expertise in order to unpick British History.

Nick Ashton from the British Museum has been in charge of the north Norfolk site of Happisburgh, where the crumbling coast line has revealed the oldest examples of human life in Britain, 400,000 years earlier than previous findings of human habitation, in Boxgrove in Sussex.

The ancient landscape had its share of exotic animals. Hippos have been dug up from Trafalgar Square, mammoths have been excavated from Fleet Street. Professor Danielle Schreve is an expert in ancient mammal fossils, and tells us what these bones reveal about the ancient climate. Less glamorous than the big fossils, the humble vole is so useful and accurate as a dating tool that it has been nicknamed "the Vole Clock."

Carbon dating has improved vastly in the past few years. Rob Dinnis, from Edinburgh University, explains why the AHOB team has been returning to old collections and redating them.
Bacteriophages; Breath-detecting disease; Our bees electric and DNA Barcoding

26 december 2013 · 28 min
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Professor Alice Roberts talks bacteriophages: viruses that infect the bacteria that infect us. With the rise of antibiotic resistance they are a potential weapon against infection. Lees meer

We hear from Paul Hebert, the biologist behind the International Barcode of Life project – a global effort to classify the entire world’s species according to their DNA.

Bristol researchers have discovered that it is more than scent and colour that draws a bee to a flower – there is also an electric field.

Claire Turner from the Open University shows us the instrument she uses to detect disease. It can sense when a heart transplant patient is rejecting their new organ, purely through monitoring their breath.

Alle afleveringen

Orion Launch; Fake Mars trip; XDNA; Richard the Third's skeleton

Campylobacter in Chicken; Artificial Intelligence Guru Demis Hassabis; Sexology; Lucy

Comet landing detects organics molecules; Lunar Mission One; Biological warfare

Rosetta; Thought-controlled genes; Biophonic Life; Arecibo message 40 years on

Science of ageing; Microneedles; Firelab; Rosetta; Scientific authorship

The Making of the Moon

Hobbit; Genetics of height; Solar science; Snails

Ebola; Ada Lovelace Day; Space Weather

Nobel Prizes 2014; Gauge; Genetics and Diabetes; UK Fungus Day

Women, Science and the Royal Society; Open Access Research

Cosmic inflation latest; Indian space success; Science and language; Wax Venus

European ancestry; Cern is 60; Graphene plasters; Penguins

Jack the Ripper; Future of Scottish science

Bardarbunga volcano; Geology in Minecraft; Synthesising opioids; Ammonia

Manipulating mouse memory; London pollution; Nature of knowing; Snail fur

TB in the New World; Trusting Wikipedia; Shipwreck of the London; @LegoAcademics

Anaesthesia; Chilean earthquakes; Strange weather; Jellyfish

New dinosaur; GM chickens; Lightning; Rosetta; Diatoms

ExpeRimental; Rosetta; MOOCs

Science's fascination with the face

A special programme on plants and their pollinators, poisons and pests

Behavioural profiling at airports; Light and colour in art; Hadrian's Wall; Cassini

Informed consent, El Nino, Gravitational Waves, Cloud cover

Longitude Prize Winner; Solar cells; New species; Fiji fisherwomen; Physics questions

Antarctic Invaders; Patents; Longitude Challenges for Water and Antibiotics

Turing test; World Cup exo-skeleton; Plant cyborgs; Music hooks

Moving Mountains; Invasive Species; Football Stickers

Women scientists; Mapping the ocean floor; Amplituhedron

Longitude Prize 2014; Dementia; Matter from light; Coastal deposition

Antarctic melt; brain enhancing devices, atomic clocks and anti-bat moth sounds

Colin Pillinger; Fire? Artificial DNA

Mice & Men; Fuel from CO2; fRMI; Insect calls

Y chromosome; Everest avalanche; Aphid survey; Longitude

Sperm and egg; Dogs; Automatic Facebook; Invasive species

Whales; Dark Matter; Falling; Arty brains

Calorie Restriction; Moon Age; Mars Yard; IPCC.

Fracking; Purple GM tomatoes; Bionic humans; Shark attacks

Cosmic inflation; LISA; Photonic radar; Bird stress camera; Water research; Taxidermy

Tracking planes; Peer review; Mega-virus; Astronaut

LG - Chemical weapons, Turtles, Tech for wildlife, Climate

Brain Machine Interfaces; Question on Gay Genes; Studying Drinking Behaviour

Bees; Whales; Pain; Gay genes

Whales from space; Flood emails; SUYI JET Lasers; CERN's new tunnel; Discoveries exhibition

Engineering for floods; Neanderthal genes; Switching senses; Genes in Space game

Neanderthals; Plague; Wind Tunnel; Music Timing; Stem Cells

Higgs Boson; Neutrinos; Antarctic echo locator; Rainforest fungi; Alabama rot

Personal genetics kits; Persister cells; Earthquake mapping; Scorpions

Antarctica weather and climate change; GM Fish Oils; Melanin Fossils; Time Travel

Ancient Human Occupation of Britain

Bacteriophages; Breath-detecting disease; Our bees electric and DNA Barcoding