Discover more episodes in the series by searching for 28ish Days Later on BBC Sounds. What do you really know about the menstrual cycle? India Rakusen explores the whole bloody story, discovering facts that could change your life. Periods are just the beginning. India Rakusen journeys into the womb with Dr. Dornu Lebari, and Dr. Jackie Maybin. We peel back the layers and meet the fallopian tubes, ovaries, cervix and the endometrium. India is also joined by Dr. Elinor Cleghorn to discuss the anci...
Apr 01, 2022•15 min
Zoologist Lucy Cooke is on a mission: to break down the 'sexist stereotype' she believes has permeated our understanding of the natural world. In Political Animals, she sets out to prove that females of the species can be just as fiesty, ardent, manipulative, aggressive, strategic, varied and political as males - questioning some of the theories laid out by the 'father of evolution', Charles Darwin, and hearing from pioneering scientists moving evolutionary biology beyond a male-centric narrativ...
Mar 03, 2022•29 min
Zoologist Lucy Cooke is on a mission: to break down the 'sexist stereotype' she believes has permeated our understanding of the natural world. In Political Animals, she sets out to prove that females of the species can be just as fiesty, ardent, manipulative, aggressive, strategic, varied and political as males - questioning some of the theories laid out by the 'father of evolution', Charles Darwin, and hearing from pioneering scientists moving evolutionary biology beyond a male-centric narrativ...
Mar 03, 2022•29 min
Zoologist Lucy Cooke is on a mission: to break down the 'sexist stereotype' she believes has permeated our understanding of the natural world... In Political Animals, she sets out to prove that females of the species can be just as fiesty, ardent, manipulative, aggressive, varied, strategic and political as males - questioning some of the theories laid out by the 'father of evolution', Charles Darwin, and hearing from pioneering scientists moving evolutionary biology beyond a male-centric narrat...
Feb 24, 2022•29 min
Ben Garrod and Jess French get under the skin of Mola mola the world's largest bony fish to unravel this bizarrely shaped predator's ability to swim to a huge range of depths. Produced by Adrian Washbourne. First broadcast on Tuesday 21 December 2021.
Dec 22, 2021•29 min
Ben Garrod and Jess French delve deep inside the predatory Burmese python to examine its extraordinary body plan that enables it to catch, constrict and consume huge prey whole. Presented by Prof Ben Garrod and Dr Jess French and produced by Adrian Washbourne. First broadcast on Tuesday 14 December 2021.
Dec 17, 2021•29 min
Wild Inside embarks on something we hardly ever witness – a look inside some of nature’s most wondrous animals. Its a rare chance to delve deep into some enigmatic and very different wild animals – from a reptile, to a mammal to a fish – unravelling the intricate internal complexity inside three of the most amazing animals ever to evolve. What makes the ultimate predator? What are the keys to successful survival in an ever-changing environment? Whilst we’ve gained a lot by observing their behavi...
Dec 07, 2021•29 min
As part of Radio 4's Day of the Scientist Harriett Gilbert asks two scientists and broadcasters to choose a book on a science theme. Adam Rutherford chooses Kazuo Ishiguro's dystopian love story Never Let Me Go. Dr Farrah Jarral says when she first read the novella she has chosen - Octavia Butler's Bloodchild - it blew her mind dealing as it does with interspecies procreation and with underlying themes of control and power imbalance. Harriett Gilbert's choice is Piranesi by Susanna Clarke in whi...
Oct 12, 2021•28 min
How damaging is the stereotype of white males in white coats? Do scientists think differently? Or do the qualities we associate with being a nerd do them a disservice? Is specialism the best way to solve 21st century problems when so many great discoveries are made in the cracks between the disciplines? In short, what makes a scientist, a scientist? Jim and distinguished guests consider the lessons learnt from nearly 250 leading scientists talking with extraordinary honesty about their life and ...
Oct 12, 2021•57 min
As Chief Scientific Advisor to the government during a pandemic, Sir Patrick Vallance's calm, clear summaries of the state of our scientific understanding of the virus were welcomed by many. But what was going on behind the scenes? In this extended interview with Jim Al-Khalili on Radio 4's Day of The Scientist, Sir Patrick opens up and together they explore that trickiest of relationships - the one between scientists and politicians. How do we make sure we get evidence-based policy not policy-b...
Oct 12, 2021•37 min
Prof Andrea Sella on the shifting image of the scientist in popular culture, from Victor Frankenstein to Iron Man via victorious post-war boffinry and megalomanical Bond villainry. The monster unleashed by Mary Shelley in her 1818 tale of gruesome gothic horror was in many senses not the creature itself, but the image of its careless creator. The recklessness of the lone scientist whose blind ambition fails to foresee the societal and practical consequences of his discovery or invention. Through...
Oct 12, 2021•57 min
This week in Scientifically… we celebrate the life of Sir Clive Sinclair with this episode from the series Computing Britain that looks at how 'micro computers' invaded the home in the 1980s. In this episode, Hannah Fry discovers how the computer was transported from the office and the classroom right into our living room. From eccentric electronics genius Clive Sinclair and his ZX80, to smart-suited businessman Alan Sugar and the Amstrad PC, she charts the 80s computer boom - a time when the UK...
Sep 17, 2021•14 min
In an ideal (quantum) world, Jim Al-Khalili would be interviewing himself about his life as a scientist but since the production team can’t access a parallel universe, Adam Rutherford is stepping in to ask Jim questions in front of an audience at The Royal Society. Jim and his family left Iraq in 1979, two weeks before Saddam Hussein came to power, abandoning most of their possessions. Having grown up listening to the BBC World Service, he had to drop his ts to fit in at school in Portsmouth whe...
Sep 03, 2021•35 min
CRISPR is the latest and most powerful technique for changing the genetic code of living things. This method of gene editing is already showing great promise in treating people with gene-based diseases, from sickle cell disease to cancer. However, in 2018 the use of CRISPR to edit the genes of two human embryos, which were subsequently born as two girls in China, caused outrage. The experiment was done in secrecy and created unintended changes to the children's genomes - changes that could be in...
Aug 11, 2021•29 min
Professor Matthew Cobb looks at how genetic engineering became big business - from the first biotech company that produced human insulin in modified bacteria in the late 1970s to the companies like Monsanto which developed and then commercialised the first GM crops in the 1990s. Were the hopes and fears about these products of genetic engineering realised? First broadcast on Tuesday 27 July 2021.
Jul 28, 2021•29 min
Biologist Matthew Cobb presents the first episode in a series which looks at the fifty year history of genetic engineering: from the concerns around the first attempts at combining the DNA of one organism with the genes of another in 1971, to today’s gene editing technique known as Crispr. The first experiments to combine the DNA of two different organisms began at Stanford University in California in 1971. The revolutionary technique of splicing genes from one lifeform into another promised to ...
Jul 21, 2021•29 min
This is the story, and the sound, of Puerto Rican scientist Wanda Díaz-Merced, who is revolutionising astronomy by turning data from space into audio that can be explored by ear. This process, ‘sonification’, is not only making the universe accessible to people with visual disabilities, it takes advantage of the human ear’s ability to explore vast ranges of data and spot patterns that could be missed by other means. It’s already proved its worth scientifically, with discoveries being made that a...
Jun 24, 2021•28 min
Mark Miodownik, explores the environmental consequences of the throwaway society we have become and reveals that recycling electronic waste comes second to repairing broken electronics. He asks what we can learn from repair cultures around the world , he looks at manufacturers who are designing in repair-ability, and discovers the resources available to encourage and train the next generation of repairers. Presented by Mark Miodownik and produced by Fiona Roberts. First broadcast on Monday 10 Ma...
May 12, 2021•36 min
Many electronics manufacturers are making it harder and harder for individuals and independent repairers to fix their broken kit. There are claims that programmed obsolescence is alive and well, with mobile phone batteries designed to wear out after just 400 charges. The manufacturers say it's for safety or security reasons, but it drives the consumer model of constant replacement and upgrades. But people are starting to fight back. Episode 2 - The Right to Repair Mark Miodownik talks to the fix...
May 05, 2021•36 min
We love our electronic gadgets, gizmos and appliances. But when it comes to repairing and caring for them, UK citizens are second only to Norway when it comes to producing electronic waste. We have a culture of buying single-use, throwaway, cheaper-the-better, irreparable electronic goods. But the Age of Consumerism is over. If the kettles, toasters, phones and fridges we buy aren’t made to be repairable, and aren’t repaired, we are going to run out of things to buy, stuff to make them from and ...
Apr 30, 2021•34 min
On 12 April 1961, cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became an explorer like none other before him, going faster and further than any human in history, into what had always been the impenetrable and infinite unknown. Raised in poverty during the Second World War, the one-time foundry worker and a citizen of the Soviet Union became the first human to fly above the Earth in the vastness of space. In doing so he became an instrument in The Cold War – an ideological battle between the superpowers: East versus W...
Apr 21, 2021•58 min
Nick Baker’s collection of programmes and interviews reflects on how the impact of technology has changed, from the dawn of language to the age of virtual reality. In this final episode, ‘Anywhere’, Nick looks at bigger changes in our physical perceptions, and experiences a new medium – Virtual Reality, as developed in the BBC Virtual Reality hub. But there’s a different, more subtle way in which digital technology changes our perception of personal space, and that idea’s probed in an edition of...
Apr 07, 2021•1 hr
Nick Baker’s collection of programmes and interviews reflects on how the impact of technology has changed, from the dawn of language to the age of virtual reality. In this episode, Software, Nick revisits two of the past music software formats that used to dominate. In The Curse of the Cassette [from 1997], he recalls the downside of a much reviled format. Then, in the AB of CD [from 1988] Simon Bates looks at what the then revolutionary medium would bring to pop music. Nick also meets Simon Roo...
Mar 31, 2021•59 min
Nick Baker’s three-part collection of programmes and interviews reflects on how the impact of technology has changed, from the dawn of language to the age of virtual reality. This first episode, Hardware, features Stephen Fry along with an edition of Fry’s English Delight about the physicality of written language, from its earliest scrawlings to the digital age. Also, in The Persistence of Analogue, tech writer Leigh Alexander says despite all the boundless conveniences of the digital world, it ...
Mar 25, 2021•1 hr
Stephen M. Stigler's Law of Eponymy states that no scientific discovery is named after its original discoverer. Professor Stigler, a statistician at Chicago University, defined his own law in a tributary paper to his friend, the sociologist Robert Merton, in 1980. Merton had been famous in sociology for writing about the "self-fulfilling prophecy", amongst other things, and also for a long treatise about how often the same law or principle in science has been discovered multiple times by differe...
Feb 15, 2021•14 min
n 1969, Canadian educationist Lawrence J. Peter developed an unorthodox concept that became known as The Peter Principle: “In a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence". His satirical insights into business struck a chord with many subordinates across a range of organisations. Peter went on to develop his theory further, claiming that "in time, every post tends to be occupied by an employee who is incompetent to carry out his duties". So how is any work achieved? Are ...
Feb 15, 2021•15 min
If a newspaper headline ends in a question mark, is the answer always no? And if so, are journalists who use them being lazy and cynical? Ian Betteridge described what is now known as Betteridge's Law of Headlines in a small blog post in 2009. Is it still relevant in our current age of clickbait and media bubbles? Robin Ince puts these questions to Caroline Frost, an ethicist, entertainment journalist and broadcaster, often seen reviewing the papers on a Sunday night on the BBC News Channel, and...
Feb 15, 2021•15 min
Cyril Northcote Parkinson may have trained as a naval historian, but it was his succinct humorous essay for the Economist magazine in 1955 that was to overshadow much of his career. In it, he laid out his fundamental law of bureaucracy - "work expands to fill the time available" - and he went on to explain how organisations become bloated regardless of the work in hand. It was instantly recognised by subordinates, and made for uncomfortable reading for those near the top of any institutional hie...
Feb 15, 2021•14 min
“If anything can go wrong, it will go wrong.” Murphy’s Law is now a part of our culture, used to describe wrong outcomes of every sort, from how buttered toast falls to the way catastrophes strike. People have uttered similar laments since time immemorial. But the modern origin of the phrase traces back to two men on one fateful day in 1949 at Edwards Air Force Base in California: Colonel John Stapp whose work would later save countless lives in safer cars and airplanes and Captain Ed Murphy who...
Feb 15, 2021•14 min
After becoming ill with covid six months ago, Inside Science presenter Adam Rutherford is only now getting back to normal. He didn’t go to hospital and, like many, thought he’d be back on his feet within a week or two. But his symptoms of fatigue and shortness of breath are taking months to subside and he’s still not 100%. He is not alone. The scale of what’s become known as ‘long covid’ is only now coming to light. Tens of thousands of people are still enduring serious and oddly diverse symptom...
Sep 30, 2020•28 min
