Bbc Inside Science

Bees - Nearly all bees in the UK suffering serious declines. They're mostly threatened by habitat and land-use change. But disease also plays a part. Adam Rutherford talks to Professor Mark Brown about new work he's done looking at the evidence of diseases harboured by honeybees, spilling over into wild bumblebees.Pain and epigenetics - Marnie Chesterton goes to Kings College, London to watch identical twins being tested for pain tolerance. The study is to gain insight into the genetic components of pain perception. One area which is fascinating researchers like Professor Tim Spector is the role of epigenetics in how we process pain. Our epigenome is a system that changes the way our DNA is interpreted. Genes can be dialled up or down, like a dimmer switch, by adding little chemical tags to the DNA. These chemical tags, unlike DNA, are changeable, in response to the changing environment. So could the way we live affect the pain we feel?Whales from Space - More listeners' questions, this time, asking whether s

Whales from Space. Scientists have demonstrated how new satellite technology can be used to count whales, and ultimately estimate their population size. Using Very High Resolution (VHR) satellite imagery, alongside image processing software, they were able to automatically detect and count whales breeding in part of the Golfo Nuevo, Peninsula Valdes in Argentina.The new method could revolutionise how whale population size is estimated. Marine mammals are extremely difficult to count on a large scale and traditional methods are costly, inaccurate and dangerous; several whales researchers have died in light aircraft accidents. How long will the floods last? Is this a trend caused by climate change? Should I turn on the kitchen taps so that house is at least flooded with clean water? We put listeners' flood questions to experts from the Centre of Ecology and Hydrology and the British Geological Survey.The instrument we're shown this week is from JET (Joint European Torus) in Culham,. It's the world's largest 'to

The warning that floods are likely to become more common, or more severe, won't be a high priority for those with homes currently deluged. But it is something architects, engineers and planners have been taking very seriously. Dr. Adam Rutherford finds out about some of the innovations, both in UK and abroad, being designed for homes in areas prone to flooding - from simple door guards and waterproofing which can be retrofitted to existing houses - to entire city re-landscaping, or 'waterscaping' which aims to make room for the river, rather than fighting against it.Last week Adam talked about research showing that most people of European or East Asian descent carry a small percentage of Neanderthal DNA - about 2%. He examined some of the physical characteristics we may have got from the genes of our ancient cousins. This week Inside Science addresses some of the questions this fascinating work prompted.A new study in the journal Neuron this week, looks at what happens in the brain when one of the senses is d

We now know that Neanderthals and our ancestors interbred over 40,000 years ago. Recent research has shown that most people of European or East Asian descent carry a small percentage of Neanderthal DNA - about 2%. But two new papers this week examine some of the physical characteristics we may have got from the genes of our ancient cousins. They include some disease susceptibilities and hair and skin characteristics, which may have helped our forebears survive in northern climes.There have been many sensationalist headlines in the news this week suggesting that the deadly bubonic plague could return, when really, it never went away. And while it can still be deadly, it can be treated early with antibiotics. In the Middle Ages the Black Death is thought to have killed up to half of the European population and so too did the Justinian Plague 800 years earlier. Now scientists have compared these two plague genomes to find that they were both caused by distinct strains of the same bacterium, Yersinia Pestis. Know

The Higgs boson has been discovered, providing the final piece of the jigsaw puzzle for the Standard Model of particle physics, a description of how the universe works. But what physicists haven't found yet, which they should have, are supersymmetry or SUSY particles. Roland Pease attended a recent meeting of top physicists, and shares with Adam Rutherford the latest discussions about where to look next.The history of neutrinos is littered with interesting characters. It was Wolfgang Pauli who first suggested their existence. Pauli was so unsettled by his proposal that he bet a case of champagne against anyone being able to discover these "pathologically shy" particles. Since then, scientists have built ever more elaborate experiments to try and detect these particles. Ray Jayawardhana, Professor of Astrophysics and author of a new book "The Neutrino Hunters" explains more about the most abundant particle in the universe.This week's Show Us Your Instrument is a tool used to help scientists measure the glacier

For a couple of hundred quid, one of many companies will send you a kit for sampling your own genome, and most will tell you your genetic risk for some diseases. In December the US Food and Drug Administration imposed a ban on one of these companies, 23andme. The reasoning was that if the organisation is offering medical advice, it needs to be medically regulated. Geneticist Professor Robert Green from Harvard Medical School argues that people can cope responsibly with their genetic information and that the FDA is being over-cautious.Most people are familiar with recurrent infections caused by bacteria such as tonsillitis and bladder infections, where you pick up an infection, get treated with antibiotics and then after a few weeks or months the infection reappears and you need another course of antibiotics; this is a problem that can go on for many years, and is a major healthcare burden world-wide. Marnie Chesterton met a team from Imperial College studying the elusive persister cells responsible for these

Scientists following in the footsteps of Edwardian explorer, Douglas Mawson, have been trapped in pack ice in the Antarctic. The Chinese vessel that came to their rescue also became "beset" in the ice. The BBC's Andrew Luck Baker talks to Adam Rutherford about the catacylsmic event that caused multi-year ice to break away and trap the Academik Shokalskiy and Professor John Turner of the British Antarctic Survey underlines the importance of differentiating between extreme weather events and the impact of climate change.A team at Rothamsted Research in Hertfordshire has succeeded in genetically engineering plant seeds to contain the Omega-3 oil usually found in oily fish. Seeds from Camelina sativa (false flax) plants were modified using genes from microalgae - the primary organisms that produce these beneficial fatty acids.The oil has now been incorporated into salmon feed to assess whether it's a viable alternative to wild fish oil. Dr Johnathan Napier tells Melissa Hogenboom that he hopes the plants will pro

The ancient inhabitants of Britain; when did they get here? Who were they? And how do we know? Alice Roberts meets some of the AHOB team, who have been literally digging for answers.The Natural History Museum's Chris Stringer, is the Director of AHOB, the Ancient Human Occupation of Britain, a project which, over the past 12 years, has brought together a large team of palaeontologists, archaeologists, geologists and geographers, to pool their expertise in order to unpick British History.Nick Ashton from the British Museum has been in charge of the north Norfolk site of Happisburgh, where the crumbling coast line has revealed the oldest examples of human life in Britain, 400,000 years earlier than previous findings of human habitation, in Boxgrove in Sussex.The ancient landscape had its share of exotic animals. Hippos have been dug up from Trafalgar Square, mammoths have been excavated from Fleet Street. Professor Danielle Schreve is an expert in ancient mammal fossils, and tells us what these bones reveal abo

Professor Alice Roberts talks bacteriophages: viruses that infect the bacteria that infect us. With the rise of antibiotic resistance they are a potential weapon against infection.We hear from Paul Hebert, the biologist behind the International Barcode of Life project – a global effort to classify the entire world’s species according to their DNA. Bristol researchers have discovered that it is more than scent and colour that draws a bee to a flower – there is also an electric field.Claire Turner from the Open University shows us the instrument she uses to detect disease. It can sense when a heart transplant patient is rejecting their new organ, purely through monitoring their breath.

Antibacterial soaps and body washes make up an industry worth millions of pounds, but in the USA, producers have been told that they have just over a year to prove their products are safe, or, re-label or reformulate them. Many believe that using antimicrobial soaps, which often include the chemicals triclosan or triclocarban, keeps you clean and reduces the chance of getting ill or passing on germs to others. But the Food and Drug Administration in the USA says it's the job of manufacturers to demonstrate the benefits, to balance any potential risks. Professor Jodi Lindsay, expert in microbial pathogenesis from St Georges, University of London, tells Dr Adam Rutherford where this leaves British and European consumers.The world's most powerful satellite camera was launched today into space. Its mission, to map the billion stars in our galaxy. Professor Gerry Gilmore, Principal Investigator for GAIA, tells Inside Science about the planned "walk through the Milky Way" and BBC Science Correspondent, Jonathan Amo

Food crime is now big business that criss crosses national boundaries, according to today's report into the safety and authenticity of our food. Public Analyst, Dr Duncan Campbell tells Dr Adam Rutherford that he and his colleagues are hampered by lack of funding and the lack of a national plan for a sustainable laboratory infrastructure. While report author, Professor Chris Elliott, the director of the Global Institute for Food Security at Queen's University, Belfast describes how he wants the UK's scientific infrastructure to be strengthened to avoid yet another serious food scandal.Show Us Your Instrument: Cosmic Scientist Dr Natalie Starkey from the School of Planetary and Space Sciences at the Open University reveals the NanoSims instrument.Thousands of miles apart the same species of microbes seem to crop up deep beneath the earth's surface in cracks of hard rock. Yet nobody seems to quite know how they spread so widely. Scientists now believe they may have survived completely isolated from the surface

Badger culls in England have ended and Professor Roland Kao from the University of Glasgow discusses with Dr Adam Rutherford the scientific options remaining to tackle the spread of bovine tuberculosis. Field trials of the TB cattle vaccine are due to start next year and Professor Kao hopes that their success in sequencing the genome of Mycobactrium bovis will also provide a greater understanding about how this devastating disease spreads. The name of Douglas Mawson isn't discussed along with the famous triumvirate, Scott, Amundsen and Shackleton, but one hundred years ago, he led the first science-only Australasian Antarctic Expedition. A century later, Professor Chris Turney is co-leading a repeat expedition, where scientists will repeat many of the measurements of the Mawson trip.Rising inflexion at the end of your sentences is known as "uptalk" or "valleygirl speak" and it's usually associated with young Californian females. But now a new study shows that uptalk is expanding to men. Professor Amalia Arvan

Therapeutic hypothermia is standard treatment for cardiac arrest patients to protect against the damaging or deadly repercussions of a beatless heart. But this global practice has been called into question after research in the New England Journal of Medicine reported no difference in survival rates between patients chilled to 33 degrees and those cooled to just below normal body temperature to 36 degrees. Dr Jerry Nolan, vice chair of the European Resuscitation Council tells Dr Adam Rutherford how doctors worldwide are reacting to this new study and Dr Kevin Fong, author of "Extremes, Life, Death and the Limits of the Human Body" describes how medicine has historically harnessed hypothermic states to heal.Show Us Your Instrument: The European Space Agency's GAIA mission is due to launch just before Christmas. It will spend the next 5 years recording space, using a billion pixel camera. This camera is made up of charge-couple devices, similar to the ones you'd find in your smart phone. These are damaged by sp

Every twenty years there's a detailed survey of the birds of the UK and Ireland and today, the 2007-2011 Bird Atlas is published. Adam Rutherford hears from Dawn Balmer from the British Trust for Ornithology about the citizen scientists, the forty thousand volunteers who collected data on a staggering 19 million birds - 502 different species - and meets their record breaking volunteer, Chris Reynolds. A 73 year old retired maths teacher, Chris took part in the previous three atlases and walked thousands of miles in all seasons across his patch in the Outer Hebrides. Dawn describes the avifaunal picture revealed in this latest Atlas.In 2009, Williams developed a flywheel - which temporarily stores energy - for their formula 1 car. After the Research and Development was done, the F1 governing body changed the rules, and there was no longer space for a flywheel on their car. No matter, these things have other uses. Mark Smout from Smout Allen has proposed a design for the Isle of Sheppey in Kent, which uses bank

Global experts in DNA identification are flying to the Philippines to assess whether they can help families to determine, beyond doubt, which of the hundreds of victims of Typhoon Haiyan are their relatives. The International Commission on Missing Persons in Sarajevo used DNA matching to identify the thousands killed in the former Yugoslavia and has since helped in conflict zones around the world. Now, working with Interpol, scientists from the ICMP are called on to assist in victim identification after natural disasters as well, and head of forensic services, Dr Thomas Parsons, tells Adam Rutherford that a team will be sent to the Philippines on Monday.The enormous ash cloud following the 2010 eruption of the Icelandic volcano, Eyjafjallajokell, grounded aircraft across Europe for more than a week and caused unprecedented disruption. Dr Fred Prata has invented a weather radar for ash, and off the Bay of Biscay, his AVOID infra red camera system, the Airborne Volcanic Object Imaging Detector, has just been te

A hundred thousand Britons are being asked to donate their sequenced DNA, their personal genome, to a vast database on the internet, so scientists can use the information for medical and genetic research. The Personal Genome Project-UK was launched today and participants are being warned, as part of the screening process, that their anonymity won't be guaranteed. Stephan Beck, Professor of Medical Genomics at University College London's Cancer Institute and the Director of PGP-UK, tells Dr Lucie Green that anonymised genetic databases aren't impregnable, and that it is already possible for an individual's identity to be established using jigsaw identification. This new "open access" approach, he says, will rely on altruistic early-adopters who are comfortable with having their genetic data, their medical history and their personal details freely available as a tool for research. Jane Kaye, Director of the Centre for Law, Health and Emerging Technologies at the University of Oxford, describes the rigorous sele

A NASA spacecraft the size of a sofa is currently orbiting the Moon, gathering information about the toxic perils of moon dust. Dirt from the moon is sharp, spiky and sticky and it caused enormous problems for early astronauts as Professor Sara Russell from the Natural History Museum tells Dr Lucie Green. Joining Lucie from NASA HQ in Washington DC, Sarah Noble, programme scientist on the LADEE Mission, tells her that understanding the make-up and movement of lunar dust is vital to ensure humans can work on the Moon in the future.Electroceuticals is the new research area for medicine, tapping into the electricity transmitted through the vast network of nerves that run throughout our bodies. Kerri Smith reports on how the body's natural wiring could become a valuable tool for treating organs affected by disease. Glaxo Smith Kline has just invested £30 million into electroceuticals and researchers in labs around the world are working on devices that could "plug" into troubled organs and correct the electrical s

Britain's legacy of nuclear waste dates back 60 plus years and a long term solution to deal with it hasn't yet been found. After this week's announcement that the UK will have a new nuclear power station, Hinkley C in Somerset, Dr Adam Rutherford asks Professor Sue Ion, former Director of Technology at British Nuclear Fuels and Chair of the European Commission's Science and Technology Committee, Euratom, how much extra waste this new plant will add to the radioactive stockpile.Eighteen years ago the first planet outside of our solar system was discovered, "51 Pegasi b". This week the tally of exoplanets passed one thousand, and as astronomer Dr Stuart Clark tells Adam, an earth twin isn't part of the planetary list.....yet.Show Us Your Instrument: Public Astronomer Dr Marek Kukula introduces the original Six Pip Masterclock at the Greenwich Observatory. This clock was used in the 1920s to send the time signals down a telephone line to the BBC, for transmission to the whole country over the radio. That's not t

The link between genetics and a child's academic performance hit the headlines this week when Education Secretary, Michael Gove's outgoing special advisor, Dominic Cummings, called for education policy to incorporate the science behind genes and cognitive development. Mr Cummings cited the Professor of Behavioural Genetics, Robert Plomin, as a major source, and Professor Plomin tells Dr Adam Rutherford what he thinks about the way his research has been interpreted. Steve Jones, Emeritus Professor of Genetics from University College London says why he believes genetics and education is such a controversial subject.Fifty years ago, researchers tried, and failed, to teach chimpanzees English. They concluded that chimp noises were merely basic expressions of fear or pleasure. Dr Katie Slocombe from York University has shown that chimp language is far more tactical, machiavellian even, than that.The inventor of Golden Rice, the genetically modified crop, tells Adam Rutherford that he agrees with Environment Secret

The US has shut down government science with potentially devastating results for American and international science projects. Many individual scientists are banned from talking but Matt Hourihan from the American Association for the Advancement of Science tells Dr Adam Rutherford about the serious consequences of the political squabble.Roland Pease gives the low down on this week's Nobel Prizes including the much anticipated Physics gong for Peter Higgs' for his eponymous boson.Marnie Chesterton reports on the new iCollections at the Natural History Museum where butterflies collected 150 years ago are shedding new light on the changing British climate. And after studies this week linked cardiovascular disease to aircraft noise, Kevin McConway, Professor of Applied Statistics at the Open University quantifies the risks of complex science being distorted by simple headlines.Producer: Fiona Hill.