Science In Action

BBC World Service
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  • SCIENCE
  • UPDATED BIWEEKLY
Science In Action Podcast

The BBC brings you all the week's science news.

  1. 4 DAYS AGO

    The spread of rabies into Cape fur seals

    In June this year there was the first detected occurrence of rabies in Cape fur seals, discovered after a rabies case in a dog that had been bitten by a seal. Professor Wanda Markotter, Director of the Centre for Viral Zoonoses at University of Pretoria, has been trying to work out how the virus spread into seals and how to keep people (and their pet dogs) safe. The Japan Meteorological Agency issued a seismic “advisory” last week alerting local authorities and the public to a heightened risk of a massive, tsunami-generating earthquake on its southeast coast. Californian emergency manager and sociologist James Goltz, has been working with Japanese experts to evaluate a new dynamic alert system that they introduced after the great 2011 earthquake and tsunami which claimed up to 20,000 lives further north. We hear from Professor Alan Jamieson from the depths of the Tonga Trench. He recently dived into it to see what weird and wonderful creatures he’d find there – but when he reached the bottom, he didn’t see what he expected...! And Steven Goderis of the Free University of Brussels tells us about the Chicxulub impactor - the massive asteroid smacked into Earth off the Mexican coast causing the mass extinction event which wiped out the dinosaurs. He’s part of a paper in the journal Science, looking into the history of the impactor - revealing it was a rare carbonaceous asteroid from beyond Jupiter. Presenter: Roland Pease Producer: Jonathan Blackwell Production Coordinator: Andrew Rhys Lewis (Image: Fighting Seals. Credit: Edwin Remsberg via Getty Images)

    30 min

  2. AUG 8

    Detecting undetected bird flu cases

    Cases of bird flu in farm workers in the US may be going underreported, due to supposed poor surveillance and lack of testing. We hear from Amy Maxmen of KFF Health News who has been reporting on a study in Texas. We hear from Bradley Moore, Professor of Marine Chemical Biology at University of California, San Diego about marine algae using massive enzymes, dubbed PKZILLAs to biosynthesize fish-killing toxins. BBC Science Correspondent Jonathan Amos gives us the latest on the two American astronauts who blasted off on a test mission to the International Space Station on 5 June, expecting to be back home in a matter of days. But the pair are still there, floating high above the Earth two months later - stuck indefinitely - now facing the sudden prospect of missing the summer entirely and even spending Christmas and New Year in space. And sea lion camera crews are helping researchers explore previously unmapped ocean habitats in southern Australia. Nathan Angelakis of the University of Adelaide tells us about working with the animal camera operators and what we can learn from viewing their movements. Presenter: Roland Pease Producer: Jonathan Blackwell Production co-ordinator: Jana Bennett-Holesworth (Image: Young Farmer and Cows on Dairy Farm. Credit: EyeJoy via Getty Images)

    32 min

  3. AUG 1

    Examining Nasa's new evidence for Martian life

    Nasa's Perseverance Rover has found a fascinating rock on Mars that may indicate it hosted microbial life billions of years ago. Abigail Allwood, exobiologist at Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Lab, is on the team scrutinising the new Martian data. And a couple of newly discovered, approximately 500 year old fossils from the ‘Cambrian explosion’ of complexity caught presenter Roland Pease’s eye this week. First Martin Smith from Durham University tells us about a tiny grub that is ancestor to worms, insects, spiders and crustaceans. Then Ma Xiaoya, who has positions at both Yunnan University in China and Exeter University in the UK, tells us about a spiny slug that was also discovered in a famous fossil site in China. And the first sightings of the landscapes on the underside of the ice shelves that fringe Antarctica. These float atop the ocean around the frozen continent but effectively hold back the glaciers and ice sheets on the vast landmass. Their physical condition therefore is pretty critical in this warming world, Anna Wåhlin of Gothenburg University tells us. Presenter: Roland Pease Producer: Jonathan Blackwell Production co-ordinator: Jana Bennett-Holesworth (Photo: Nasa’s Perseverance Mars rover taking a selfie on Mars. Credit: Nasa/JPL-Caltech/MSSS)

    30 min

  4. JUL 25

    The human cost of the decline of nature’s carcass cleaners

    The near extinction of vultures in India may be responsible for an additional half a million human deaths between 2000 and 2005. The widespread use of the painkiller diclofenac in herds of cattle, starting in 1994, led to a massive decline in vulture populations in India, as the drug is poisonous to them. We hear from environmental economist Anant Sudarshan of Warwick University. Cooking like a Neanderthal - Mariana Nabais of the Catalan Institute of Human Paleoecology and Social Evolution has been replicating ancient butchering methods to learn how Neanderthals ate birds. A faster test for sepsis – we hear from Sunghoon Kwon of Seoul National University about a new method for identifying the pathogens involved in sepsis cases. The test has the potential to reduce the turnaround times normally associated with developing treatments for infections and may improve patient outcomes. And it seems we may have inherited some conversational habits from chimps – or rather from whatever came before us and chimps 6 million years ago. Cat Hobaiter of the School of Psychology and Neuroscience of St Andrews University and her colleagues have found that like humans, wild chimps engage in snappy, turn-taking conversations. Presenter: Roland Pease Producer: Jonathan Blackwell Production Coordinator: Jana Bennett-Holesworth (Image: World Wildlife Day - Gyps fulvus feeding on a buffalo carcass at Kaziranga National Park in Assam, India. Credit: Anuwar Hazarika/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

    32 min

  5. JUL 18

    Destination Asteroid Apophis

    There’s an update from asteroid expert Patrick Michel about the European Space Agency’s Rapid Apophis Mission for Space Safety. The ESA have received permission to begin preparatory work for the planetary defence mission which will rendezvous with the asteroid Apophis, that will be passing by the Earth on Friday, April 13th 2029. And in news from the Moon this week – a massive cave has been discovered on its surface that might be a window into the body’s sub-surface, and even a ready-made lunar base for future astronauts to use. The claim was made in Nature Astronomy by a team of Italian planetary scientists, and two experts in remote sensing who have been re-interpreting radar data from a NASA orbiter - Leonardo Carrer and Lorenzo Bruzzone from University of Trento in Italy. In the magazine Science, there’s a call for a re-doubling of efforts to tackle malaria in Africa as signs grow that a leading treatment, Artemisinin, is becoming less effective. Deus Ishengoma, a malaria expert with the Tanzanian National Institute for Medical Research, is worried, having seen the transformation Artemesinin made in the past. Tiny solar-powered flying robots - an ultra-lightweight, solar-powered micro aerial vehicle capable of sustained flight is described in a paper published in Nature. Peng Jinzhe of the School of Energy and Power Engineering at Beihang University was part of the team behind the 8 millimetre robot. Presenter: Roland Pease Producer: Jonathan Blackwell Production Coordinator: Jana Bennett-Holesworth (Image: ESA’s Ramses mission to asteroid Apophis. Credit: The European Space Agency)

    34 min

  6. JUL 11

    Hurricane Beryl’s trail of destruction

    The 2024 north Atlantic hurricane season has started with a bang, with Hurricane Beryl traversing the whole ocean, and leaving a trail of destruction across the Caribbean, into Mexico and Texas. Presenter Roland Pease speaks to climate expert Michael Mann of Pennsylvania University about this hurricane season and the role of climate change. And Roland speaks to Amie Eisfeld of the Influenza Research Institute at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, who has been looking at the infection and transmission of bovine H5N1 influenza (bird flu). The virus is shown to be transmitted through the milk of cows with bovine flu to mice and by intranasal exposure to mice and ferrets. The findings are published in Nature this week. Ancient genomics: Neolithic farmers hit hard by the plague. Repeated outbreaks of plague may have contributed to the decline in Neolithic populations in Scandinavia, a Nature paper suggests. The analysis of ancient DNA from more than 100 individuals sheds light on the fate of these farmers around 5000 years ago. Roland speaks to geneticist Frederik Seersholm of the Lundbeck Foundation GeoGenetics Centre in Copenhagen. And a cheap coating that can be painted easily onto the glass of greenhouses converts part of the sunlight spectrum into red light that should boost the rate at which plants grow. Roland joins the chemists and crop scientists to see if there really is a difference with tomatoes and strawberries. Presenter: Roland Pease Producer: Jonathan Blackwell Production Coordinator: Jana Bennett-Holesworth (Image: Hurricane Beryl batters northern Jamaica after killing 7 people in southeast Caribbean. Credit: Anadolu/Getty Images)

    29 min

  7. JUL 4

    Cleaner mining, cleaner batteries

    Science in Action is at the UK's Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition, hunting for dark matter, melting ancient ice, cleaning up disused mines and looking for the batteries of the future. Presenter: Roland Pease Producer: Alex Mansfield Production Coordinator: Jana Bennett-Holesworth (Image: Pile of used batteries ready for recycling. Credit: Mindful Media via Getty Images)

    29 min

  8. JUN 27

    On the road to halting HIV

    An injectable antiviral "PrEP" therapy that gives 100% protection against HIV infection. Trials among young women in South Africa and Uganda proved so effective, they were wound up early to accelerate its use. Linda-Gail Bekker of the Desmond Tutu HIV Foundation shares her excitement. A new kind of gene therapy that uses the cell's own “epigenetic” mechanisms to silence troublesome portions of our DNA, tested against the prion protein responsible for some brain diseases. Jonathan Weissman led the research at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research in Massachusetts. Accelerated evolution is being tested in Matthew Nitschke’s labs in the Australian Institute for Marine Science to see if it can help protect natural corals against future global warming. The amazing 4.200 km transatlantic flight of some Painted Lady butterflies – and the extraordinary detective work ecologist Gerard Talavera and team needed to prove it. Presenter: Roland Pease Producer: Jonathan Blackwell Production Coordinator: Jana Bennett-Holesworth (Image: HIV Vaccine Efficacy Trial Conducted In Uganda. Credit: Luke Dray / Stringer via Getty Images.)

    29 min
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About

The BBC brings you all the week's science news.

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  • Creator
    BBC World Service
  • Years Active
    2007 - 2024
  • Episodes
    272
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © (C) BBC 2024
  • Show Website
    Science In Action

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