Today CERN announced that on 23rd March the largest single machine the world has ever seen gets plugged in, switched on, and rebooted after a 2 year rest. The Large Hadron Collider was crashing particles at energies just off the speed of light, and in doing so, simulating the universe in its neonatal form. It will be shortly achieving energies twice as great as before and as Adam Rutherford hears from particle physicists Tara Shears and Malcolm Fairbairn, vast new opportunities for discovery wil...
Mar 12, 2015•28 min
How does the brain lay down memory? For decades the limits of microscopes have meant that a detailed look at the way brain cells encode particular learned skills and events has proved elusive. But in a report published this week a team of researchers has identified how changes in specific connections encode a particular behavioural response. Adam Rutherford talks to Tony Zador of Cold Spring Harbour laboratories who's become the first to crack a piece of the neural code for learning and memory w...
Mar 05, 2015•28 min
A computer system has taught itself how to play dozens of video games. AI researchers claim this is a significant step toward machine intelligence, because the learning process is similar to how humans learn. The program, labelled DQN by its creators at Google DeepMind, performed as well as or better than humans at assorted Atari video games, such as Breakout, and Pong. This style of "Deep learning" is useful because it can be more readily applied to real world scenarios. As Adam Rutherford disc...
Feb 26, 2015•29 min
Alzheimer's disease is becoming increasingly common as the global population ages. It is estimated that currently 44 million victims of Alzheimer's dementia exist in the world and that this will grow to more than 100 million cases by 2050. The announcement this week of the creation of the Drug Discovery Alliance - a network of labs to fast track dementia treatment aims to address the urgent need to identify drugs that prevent, slow the progression, or improve the symptoms of Alzheimer's. But wha...
Feb 19, 2015•28 min
Adam Rutherford explores new insights into what lies at the very centre of the Earth. New research from China and the US suggests that the innermost core of our planet, far from being a homogenous iron structure has another, distinct region at its centre. He talks to the study's lead researcher Xiangdong Song and to geophysicist Simon Redfern about what this inner-inner core could tell us about the very long history of the Earth and the long suspected swings in the earth's magnetic field. Profes...
Feb 12, 2015•29 min
As Helen MacDonald's "H is for Hawk" secures 2014's Book of the Year at the Costa Awards, a paper appears describing the hunting tactics of the Northern Goshawk, quite literally, from a birds' eye view. Suzanne Amador Kane of Haverford College in the US describes her work analyzing footage from tiny cameras mounted on the head of the predatory raptor. The Planck Consortium releases yet more findings from the very beginning of the universe. A new age for the very first stars confirms our best mod...
Feb 05, 2015•28 min
We all remember the floods across much of central and southern England this time last year, and the devastating effect they had on people's lives and livelihoods. Today, a group of researchers at Cardiff University published a report on how people's perception of climate change has evolved in the wake of the floods. To what extent has our belief in man-made climate change altered? Do we now regard last year's events as a sign of things to come? Adam Rutherford talks to Nick Pidgeon from Cardiff ...
Jan 29, 2015•28 min
It is likely that scientists will soon engineer strains of "friendly" bacteria which are genetically recoded to be better than the ones we currently use in food production. The sorts of bacteria we use in cheese or yoghurt could soon be made to be resistant to all viruses, for example. But what if the GM bacteria were to escape into the wild? Researchers writing in the Journal Nature propose this week a mechanism by which GMO's could be made to be dependent on substances that do not occur in nat...
Jan 22, 2015•28 min
This year is the Food and Agriculture Organisation's International Year of Soils. Adam Rutherford, ably assisted by Manchester University's Richard Bardgett, takes a look at new research seeking to further our understanding of soil behaviour that determines much of our existence. A handful of soil contains many tens of thousands of different species of microbial life, all competing to the death with each other for nutrients and resources. Yet most of those species are very poorly understood, bec...
Jan 15, 2015•28 min
Adam Rutherford investigates the news in science and science in the news. This week's announcement of the discovery of 8 planets lying within the habitable zones of their stars has again raised the prospect of an earth like planet existing outside our solar system, But if we're to understand how "earth like" these exoplanets really are, we need to gain vital clues from earth's "evil twin" Venus argues environmental engineer Richard Ghail. Adam Rutherford hears about his proposed new mission to V...
Jan 08, 2015•28 min
Adam Rutherford and guests oceanographer Dr Helen Czerski, cosmologist Dr Andrew Pontzen and zoologist Dr Tim Cockerill answer the listeners' science questions. Producer: Adrian Washbourne.
Jan 01, 2015•28 min
Microplastics For the first time, scientists have studied the abundance of microplastics in deep sea sediments They have found that tiny fibres of plastic are everywhere and that levels found in the ocean sediments are 4 times higher than in contaminated sea-surface waters. Marine debris, mostly consisting of plastic, is a global problem, negatively impacting wildlife, tourism and shipping. However, despite the durability of plastic, and the exponential increase in its production, there was a co...
Dec 18, 2014•28 min
Where does the Earth's water come from? It's thought that it arrived from space, carried by comets. But recent research suggests otherwise. Professor Katrin Altwegg is principal investigator in charge of Rosina - the tool on the recent Rosetta mission that is charged with answering this mystery. DNA can survive a trip into space, according to a recent experiment. Dr Lewis Dartnell, an astrobiologist from Leicester University, explains the implications. What sounds do the oceans make? Anand Jagat...
Dec 11, 2014•28 min
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. 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? Th...
Dec 04, 2014•28 min
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 thor...
Nov 27, 2014•28 min
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 ...
Nov 20, 2014•28 min
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. 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 hop...
Nov 13, 2014•28 min
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. 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 ...
Nov 06, 2014•28 min
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. 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 ...
Oct 30, 2014•28 min
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. Tall parents tend to have tall children. We already know that height is genetic. Less well known is how various gen...
Oct 23, 2014•28 min
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 V...
Oct 16, 2014•28 min
Nobel Prizes 2014 The annual Nobel Prizes for Physiology or Medicine, Physics and Chemistry were announced this week. 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 surro...
Oct 09, 2014•28 min
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 ...
Oct 02, 2014•28 min
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 s...
Sep 25, 2014•28 min
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. CERN - Artificial retina The human eye and the parts of the brain that...
Sep 18, 2014•28 min
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 impl...
Sep 11, 2014•38 min
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 earth...
Sep 04, 2014•31 min
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. London pollution Cities in Britain ha...
Aug 28, 2014•28 min
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 f...
Aug 21, 2014•28 min
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 w...
Aug 14, 2014•28 min
