News broke this week that rocks picked up by NASA’s Perseverance rover on Mars may have found chemical signatures left by living organisms. With the search for life on the red planet capturing our imaginations for decades, Victoria Gill is joined by science journalist Jonathan Amos to look at what we know about the history of life on Mars, and what could be different about this discovery.As commemorations take place this week for the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, we hear about the project helping to protect birds in New York from the effects of a giant annual light display in memory of the victims of the tragedy.Dr Andrew Farnsworth, from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, tells us how they’re working with the organisers of the Tribute in Light memorial to help save the lives of a wide range of birds.Victoria is joined by managing editor of the New Scientist, Penny Sarchet, to look through this week’s most exciting scientific discoveries.And in our series profiling the six books shortlisted for this year’s Royal Society Trivedi Book Prize, we speak to neuroscientist and clinical neurologist Professor Masud Husain about his book Our Brains, Our Selves, and what his encounters with patients reveal about how our brains make up who we are.Presenter: Victoria Gill
Producers: Clare Salisbury, Dan Welsh, Jonathan Blackwell, Tim Dodd
Editor: Martin Smith
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30:09
What does caffeine do to our bodies?
Sweet, caffeinated energy drinks are in the headlines again as the UK Government says it wants to ban under 16s from buying them. Some can contain the equivalent caffeine as 2 to 4 espressos. James Betts, Professor of Metabolic Physiology at the University of Bath, explains the science behind how caffeine affects the bodies of adults and children. Earthquake scientist Dr Judith Hubbard from Cornell University in the US explains what we are learning from the magnitude 6 earthquake which hit Afghanistan this week. Professor Dan Levitin is a neuroscientist, cognitive psychologist, musician, and the third author shortlisted for the 2025 Royal Society Trivedi Book Prize. In his book ‘Music as Medicine’ he explores whether music can be harnessed to heal us. And BBC science journalist Caroline Steel brings her selection of brand new research.To discover more fascinating science content, head to bbc.co.uk search for BBC Inside Science and follow the links to The Open UniversityPresenter: Marnie Chesterton
Producers: Dan Welsh, Jonathan Blackwell, Lucy Davis, Tim Dodd, Clare Salisbury
Editor: Martin Smith
Production Co-ordinator: Jana Bennett-Holesworth
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28:21
Does warm weather mean more rats in UK towns and cities?
Summer heatwaves and missed bin collections have created panic in the press that rat numbers in the UK are increasing. We ask Steve Belmain, Professor of Ecology at the Natural Resources Institute at the University of Greenwich for the science. This summer Wales became the first country in the UK to ban plastic in wet wipes, with the other nations pledging they will do the same. Over the past few weeks there’s been work to remove a giant mound of them, known as ‘Wet Wipe Island’ on the Thames in west London. Marnie Chesterton has been to find out how they got there and what damage they could be doing to the river’s ecosystem.Professor Sadiah Quereshi, Chair in Modern British History at the University of Manchester explains why we should see the extinction of species as a modern, and often political phenomenon. Her book Vanished: An Unnatural History of Extinction is the second book we’re featuring from the shortlist for the 2025 Royal Society Trivedi Science Book Prize.And Lizzie Gibney, senior physics reporter at Nature brings us a round up of the news causing a stir in science circles this week.Presenter: Marnie Chesterton
Producers: Ella Hubber, Jonathan Blackwell and Clare Salisbury
Editor: Ilan Goodman
Production Co-ordinator: Jana Bennett-Holesworth
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32:27
Could solar panels in space be the energy source of the future?
As new research looks at the financial and environmental case for solar panels in space, we explore how likely the technology could be to power our future energy needs back on Earth. Marnie Chesterton hears from the author of a new study into the topic, Dr Wei He from King’s College London, and is joined by Professor Henry Snaith from Oxford University to look at the future of solar panel technology.We also hear from conservation scientist Adam Hart about his views on whether allowing trophy hunting could actually help to protect threatened species in the long term.Marnie also speaks to the author of one of the books shortlisted for the annual Royal Society Trivedi Book Prize, Simon Parkin. His book, The Forbidden Garden of Leningrad, explores the story of the botanists working at the world’s first seed bank during World War Two, and the extraordinary lengths they went to to protect the specimens they were keeping. We also hear from one of the judges of the awards, the crime writer Val McDermid.And science journalist Caroline Steel joins us to highlights the week’s most fascinating new pieces of research.
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What will we be wearing in the future?
What are you wearing today? What processes, chemical and otherwise, have gone into creating the garments in your wardrobe? And how might they be improved, honed, transformed in the future?Professor of Materials & Society at UCL, Mark Miodownik, Dr Jane Wood, Lecturer at the University of Manchester and expert in textile technology, and materials scientist, writer and presenter Dr Anna Ploszajaki join Marnie Chesterton to take a closer look at possibly the most familiar materials we own, our clothes.Presenter: Marnie Chesterton
Producers: Clare Salisbury and Lyndon Jones
Editor: Martin Smith
Production Co-ordinator: Jana Bennett-Holesworth
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