The James Webb Space Telescope has revealed the clearest ever view of the stunning Cassiopeia A supernova, complete with a weird feature called 'the green monster'. Professor Dan Milisavljevic, an astronomer at Purdue University, tells us all about his research into this space-based beauty. Professor Tamara Davis from the University of Queensland has been turning her eye to far more distant supernovas, and explains how they have given us new insight into the Universe's expansion. Moving on to hu...
Jan 11, 2024•31 min•Transcript available on Metacast In this episode of Science in Action, we find out that tuberculosis (TB) is the leading cause of death in South Africa. After visiting a clinic dedicated to the diagnosis and treatment of TB, Roland Pease meets researcher Professor Grant Theron at Stellenbosch University, who explains why the disease is still so prevalent. Next we hear from Professor Novel Chegou and his student Candice Snyders, also based at Stellenbosch University. They are researching biomarkers to diagnose tuberculosis and h...
Jan 04, 2024•30 min•Transcript available on Metacast In this special episode of Science in Action, Roland Pease travels to South Africa to gain a deeper understanding of human origins. Along the way, he speaks to ichnologist Charles Helm and national parks ecologist Mike Fabricius, who take him to a special – and extremely windy – location, where early human footprints are permanently preserved in the rock. At the University of Cape Town, Roland speaks to Rieneke Weij and Georgina Luti. They are studying the geochemistry of rocks that existed in c...
Dec 28, 2023•28 min•Transcript available on Metacast This week, the Reykjanes volcano in Iceland has erupted, following weeks of seismic activity. Edward Wayne Marshall, from the University of Iceland, brings us the latest science about the volcano. Also this week, the UK's 40-year-old JET fusion facility has been switched off. Roland Pease went along to watch. Fusion facilities are trying to create clean energy by replicating the processes in the Sun. And the Sun itself is currently approaching solar maximum, which means we may get to enjoy more ...
Dec 21, 2023•31 min•Transcript available on Metacast An international team of researchers led by the University of Cambridge’s Prof Stephen O’Rahilly have discovered that sensitivity to the hormone GDF15 may cause severe morning sickness during pregnancy. Dr Marlena Fejzo, who took part in the study, tells us more. Back in September, the OSIRIS-REx craft dropped a sample from the asteroid Bennu into the Utah desert. Now, scientists around the world have started studying the dust fragments in earnest. We join Dr Ashley King from the Natural History...
Dec 14, 2023•31 min•Transcript available on Metacast The burning of fossil fuels releases the greenhouse gas CO2. Many countries at COP28 have expressed an interest in using carbon capture technology to permanently capture and store this CO2. Climate and energy expert Dr Richard Black tells us more about this technology and how helpful it is in the fight against climate change. Sticking with COP28, Dr Manjana Milkoreit, from the University of Oslo, contributed to this week’s Global Tipping Points report, which revealed the Earth could be racing to...
Dec 07, 2023•26 min•Transcript available on Metacast This week, the RRS Sir David Attenborough arrived in Antarctica to start its first full season of science in the polar region. Dr Nadine Johnston reveals more about the mission and the research they’ll be carrying out. Next up, medical geneticist Professor Shahida Moosa and her student Jessica Jane Cormick are working to help diagnose and treat rare diseases. They explain why better genetic databases for Africans are urgently needed. We also hear from Simon Evans of the Carbon Brief, who has jus...
Nov 30, 2023•31 min•Transcript available on Metacast This month, Brazil has seen some of its highest recorded temperatures. The country’s Pantanal wetlands, the largest tropical wetlands in the world, have been scorched by wildfires. The region is home to vibrant wildlife, including jaguars, anacondas and various birds. Professor Letícia Couto Garcia, leader of the Intervention Ecology Lab at Mato Grosso Federal University in the South, Brazil, talks about some of the challenges she’s experienced. Staying with extreme temperatures, Dr Robert Rohde...
Nov 23, 2023•30 min•Transcript available on Metacast Increased tremors have been felt in Iceland, and concerns about an impending eruption have led to the evacuation of the town of Grindavik. Geophysicist Dr Freysteinn Sigmundsson reveals more about the events and whether this area of Iceland may be entering a new period of volcanic activity that could span centuries. Also, Google DeepMind’s new GraphCast system could revolutionise weather forecasting. Rémi Lam from Google DeepMind and Dr Matthew Chantry from the European Centre for Medium-Range W...
Nov 16, 2023•30 min•Transcript available on Metacast This week we're out in the wild and noisy spaces in and around Cape Town, South Africa. Ichnologist Charles Helm takes Roland on a bumpy ride in Walker Bay Nature Reserve to hunt for fossilised animal tracks, with a few brilliant surprises. Producer Ella Hubber visits the SANCCOB seabird rehabilitation centre to speak to researcher Katta Ludynia about what challenges the African penguin faces. We also hear about the ever-present threat of bird flu from SANCCOB vet David Roberts. And, in the beau...
Nov 09, 2023•26 min•Transcript available on Metacast Category 5 hurricane Otis, which devastated Acapulco, was supercharged by global warming; hurricane expert Kerry Emanual tells Science in Action. Also, Brazilian ecologist Erika Berenguer has witnessed the destruction caused by the prolonged drought in Amazonia, where the rivers are drying up and the forest is burning. And, climate scientists now say there is less time than previously thought to avoid further dangerous warming. Two climate scientists, Chris Smith and Norman Loeb, break the bad n...
Nov 02, 2023•26 min•Transcript available on Metacast Fear that the highly infectious variant of avian influenza, H5N1, would reach the Antarctic region and put isolated bird populations at risk has finally come to fruition as the first birds on Bird Island in the Atlantic Ocean have come down with the devastating illness. Science manager of the island, Ashley Bennison, explains the situation. Then, from one extreme climate to another - mummified mice have been found on the summit of volcanoes across the Andes, raising questions as to the capacity ...
Oct 26, 2023•28 min•Transcript available on Metacast Accelerating seismic tremors are raising concerns for the thousands of people living atop a volcanic hot spot close to Naples, Italy. Volcanologist Alessandro Pino has been keeping a watchful eye on the developing situation. We stay in Naples where, almost 2000 years ago, the eruption of Mount Vesuvius buried Pompeii, including thousands of scrolls turned to charcoal by the immense heat. This hasn’t stopped people from trying to read the scrolls, destroying hundreds in the process. Now, computer...
Oct 19, 2023•27 min•Transcript available on Metacast Lying atop a network of fault lines, where the Indian and Eurasian tectonic plates meet, Afghanistan is prone to earthquakes. However, the Herat area has not seen an event for almost 1000 years. As such, it was the least likely area to experience the series of devastating earthquakes and aftershocks which are reported to have killed thousands this week. Afghani seismologist Zekaria Shnizai discusses the factors which led to the disaster. After a couple of delays, NASA’s Psyche mission is due to ...
Oct 12, 2023•26 min•Transcript available on Metacast The 2023 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to Katalin Karikó and Drew Weismann for their contributions to developing the fundamentals that led to life saving mRNA vaccines. Although funding and support were not always assured on their road to the Nobel, Katalin Karikó tells Roland she used these setbacks to drive her towards success. On the other side of the coin, allegations of scientific misconduct over bold room temperature superconductivity claims. Earlier this year, eleven a...
Oct 05, 2023•30 min•Transcript available on Metacast What did a 465-million-year-old trilobite eat for dinner? And how can we possibly know? Archaeologist Per Ahlberg has used x-ray to peer into the guts of one ancient scuttling creature and worked out what it what was munching on in its final moments. From life in ancient earth rocks to potential life in space rocks, mineralogist and astrobiologist Bob Hazen has been training AI to spot signatures of life on Earth. He now hopes to use this tool on space samples. We also ask experimental particle ...
Sep 28, 2023•27 min•Transcript available on Metacast Storm Daniel devastated the city of Derna in Libya after heavy rainfall broke a dam, causing extreme flooding downstream. The World Weather Attribution (WWA) reports that severe flooding in Libya and across the Mediterranean has been made more likely and more intense due to human induced climate change. WWA scientist Friederike Otto gets into the report. Back in 2020, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx scooped up rock and dust samples from asteroid Bennu and on Sunday September 24th, 2023 the sample capsule will...
Sep 21, 2023•28 min•Transcript available on Metacast Earlier this week the deadly Mediterranean cyclone, Storm Daniel, swept through the small city of Derna in Libya, collapsing a 50-year-old dam in its wake, and triggering devastating floods which have killed over 5000 people. We speak to atmospheric scientist, Stavros Dafis, about the cyclone’s characteristics and to civil and structural engineer, Lis Bowman, about the dam collapse. Unsurprisingly, it all comes back to climate change. Far, far from Earth, the James Webb Space Telescope has set i...
Sep 14, 2023•27 min•Transcript available on Metacast In September 2012 Arctic sea ice melted to its minimum ever recorded and the German research ice breaker, Polarstern, ventured deep into the region North of Russia to record findings. It’s now retracing its steps, over a decade later, to observe how things have progressed. Autun Purser and Antje Boethius describe the journey and the importance of documenting developments in the face of climate change. Some 75 million individuals are believed to live with Long Covid and, in order to treat the ple...
Sep 07, 2023•28 min•Transcript available on Metacast Global sea levels are rising more than 3mm per year under current climate conditions. At this rate we are due to hit an alarming 7mm rise per year by the end of the century. If this is not slowed, it could lead to the drowning of essential coastal ecosystems like mangroves and lagoons, professor of environmental science Neil Saintilan tells Science in Action. The seas are also heating up. We’ve covered the devastating effect of marine heatwaves on vibrant sea life like coral reefs before. But wh...
Aug 31, 2023•28 min•Transcript available on Metacast Advances in brain-computer interfaces have allowed patients with paralysis to communicate faster, more accurately and more expressively with direct brain to speech translation. Co-author of an exciting new paper in the field, bioengineer Alex Silva, tells Science in Action about his team’s work with patient Ann. The world has been following the Indian and Russian race to land on the lunar south pole. Producer Ella Hubber gives a timeline of the events leading up to that historic landing. Also th...
Aug 24, 2023•29 min•Transcript available on Metacast Hawaii is still reeling from the devastating fires that consumed Lahaina on the island of Maui last week. Professor of Meteorology from the University of Hawaii, Kevin Hamiliton, joins Science in Action to discuss the factors that make these events more likely across the Hawaiian Islands. Amongst these is climate change. Also this week we discuss the concerning reports of a sudden spike in methane levels in the Arctic with Xin Lan of the US National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration. A few we...
Aug 17, 2023•29 min•Transcript available on Metacast ProMED is one of the most useful scientific tools you’ve never heard of. It’s a global surveillance system of infectious disease outbreaks which is available, for free, to researchers and the public alike. But ISID, the society which runs the platform, claim they have run out of money to support ProMED and will be switching to a subscription service, against the wishes of both users and staff. ProMED editor Marjorie Pollak tells Science in Action about the vital service ProMED has played in pand...
Aug 10, 2023•26 min•Transcript available on Metacast Science in Action returns to H5N1, the fast spreading strain of bird flu which has caused devastation in the sky, sea, and land over the last few months, with no end in sight. Roland visits Skomer Island and the coast of Wales where sea bird colonies are threatened and hundreds of guillemots have washed ashore dead, struck down by bird flu. We also hear of outbreaks on Finnish fur farms where controversial plans are in progress for culls of wild birds, of mysterious infections of domestic cats i...
Aug 03, 2023•30 min•Transcript available on Metacast A large system of ocean currents known as the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) has been making headlines this week as a new paper predicts its imminent collapse. This could have devastating consequences for the climate. But not all climate scientist and oceanographers are convinced by the results. Stefan Rahmstorf and Eleanor Frajka-Williams debate the contentious paper. In more positive news, huge steps have been made in the field of gene therapy. Stefano Rivella and Hamideh P...
Jul 27, 2023•26 min•Transcript available on Metacast For the third year running, Iceland’s Reykjanes peninsula is experiencing another spectacular volcanic eruption. Volcanologist Evgenia Ilyinskaya has been out in Iceland witnessing the sight and getting samples of the noxious fumes. Across the rest of the Northern Hemisphere heat domes persist, bringing extreme weather ranging from wildfires to tornadoes. We keep on seeing that this year “is the warmest in 120,000 years”. But what does that mean? Two paleoclimatologists, Bette Otto-Bliesner and ...
Jul 20, 2023•26 min•Transcript available on Metacast As extreme heat returns to much of the world we hear the impact of last year’s heatwaves in Europe, where 62,000 people are estimated to have died. Joan Ballester, Associate Research Professor at Barcelona Institute for Global Health, discusses the figures from his latest paper and his concerns for the future. This week the European Court of Human Rights ruled in favour of middle-distance runner and Olympic champion Caster Semenya in a case related to testosterone levels in female athletes. Marn...
Jul 13, 2023•26 min•Transcript available on Metacast Record-breaking global temperatures are accelerating Greenland ice melt at an alarming rate. Professor of glaciology Alun Hubbard has witnessed the melt first hand. He tells us how the ice sheet is being destabilised and what this could mean on a human level. Also, how safe are Japanese plans to dispose of nuclear waste from the Fukushima accident? We get reassurance from molecular pathology expert, Professor Gerry Thomas. And last week was a big one for cosmology news. We catch up on science be...
Jul 06, 2023•27 min•Transcript available on Metacast We have entered a “permacrisis”, an extended period of instability and insecurity, fuelled not only by natural disasters but pandemics, climate change and war. This week, Science in Action is at the Royal Society as they host the All European Academies assembly on the importance of research in crises. Roland speaks to international experts on how research contributes to responding to and preparing for the multiple and entangled crises of our time. Presenter: Roland Pease Producer: Ella Hubber Ed...
Jun 29, 2023•29 min•Transcript available on Metacast Over the last week, news of “synthetic human embryos” has made headlines around the world. Science in Action is getting to the bottom of the sensational story. We talk to two of the researchers who have made the embryo models from stem cells in their labs; Professor Magdalena Zernicka-Goetz from the University of Cambridge and California Institute of Technology, and Professor Jacob Hanna from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel. They tell us how they made the embryo models, what their ai...
Jun 22, 2023•27 min•Transcript available on Metacast 
