Even with the best efforts, it will be decades before we see any change in global temperatures through our mitigation efforts. Given the pace of global heating and the time lag before our emissions reductions have any impact, scientists are exp

Bodies, brains and computers

1 Jul 17th, 2023 27m 36s

We've been building computers to think like us for years, but our ability to replicate human senses has been impossible. Until now. Evolutionary biologist and broadcaster Professor Ben Garrod, is off to meet some of the sensory innovators and t

Remote touch

Jul 10th, 2023 29m 10s

We've been building computers to think like us for years, but our ability to replicate human senses has been impossible. Until now. This technological revolution is starting to profoundly change not only how we interact with the world around us

Smelly people

Jul 3rd, 2023 27m 36s

Sound solutions

1 Jun 27th, 2023 29m 31s

Seeing more

1 Jun 22nd, 2023 26m 29s

Fungal pandemic threat

1 May 29th, 2023 29m 10s

We are familiar with fungal infections like Thrush and Athlete’s Foot, but fungal diseases that can kill are on the increase. The World Health Organisation is so concerned that it has published its first ever list of life threatening fungi. Jam

Tooth and claw: Spotted hyena

Feb 21st, 2022 27m 25s

Cursed as a worthless scavenger and cast as villainous cowardly sidekicks in Disney’s The Lion King, the spotted hyena is one of the world’s most misunderstood of all predators. It may scavenge at night on a giant rubbish tip on the outskirts

A new space age?

1 Feb 7th, 2022 42m 19s

In 2021, Captain James Kirk, aka William Shatner, popped into space for real for a couple of minutes, transported by space company Blue Origin's tourist rocket New Shepard. Elon Musk's Space X ferried more astronauts and supplies between Earth

The venomous vendetta

1 Jan 24th, 2022 27m 20s

Whilst watching a documentary about some poisonous frogs, Curio Janni in Amsterdam, started to wonder what would happen if a frog licked itself or another frog of the same species. She asks Dr Adam Rutherford and Professor Hannah Fry to investi

The painless heart

1 Jan 10th, 2022 27m 18s

Dr Mitch Lomax is a sports scientist at the University of Portsmouth. She helps actual Olympic swimmers get faster. She explains how most of the muscles attached to our skeletons work: Tiny fibres use small-scale cellular energy, which, when al

The Evidence: When will the pandemic end?

Dec 25th, 2021 50m 9s

Everybody hopes that the new super-charged Omicron variant of coronavirus will be less severe, but even if it is, it’s spreading so fast and infecting so many people, health services around the world could still buckle under the strain.Two year

Genetic Dreams, Genetic Nightmares

1 Dec 6th, 2021 27m 32s

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. Howev

Genetic dreams, genetic nightmares

Nov 29th, 2021 27m 29s

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 commercialis

Genetic dreams, genetic nightmares

1 Nov 22nd, 2021 27m 13s

Biologist Matthew Cobb presents the first episode in a series which looks at the 50-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

Listening to coral reefs

1 Nov 15th, 2021 27m 11s

Coral reefs are some of the most diverse ecosystems in the world, and also some of the noisiest. Up close, a healthy reef teems with trills, whoops, buzzes, hums and snaps made by the diverse lifeforms that inhabit it. But as many reefs are now

The Martian Mission

1 1 Apr 19th, 2021 27m 30s

What would it take for humans to live permanently on Mars? asks Martin in Weston-super-Mare, UK. The doctors dig into requirements and possibilities of a long-term Martian outpost.We know that many missions to Mars have failed, for a range of

The equal rights stuff

1 2 Apr 12th, 2021 26m 58s

In 1976, Nasa launched a campaign to help recruit the next generation of Astronauts. It was fronted by African-American actress Nichelle Nichols, Star Trek’s Lt. Uhura, as part of an effort to ensure the astronaut corps represented the diversit

Maggots in medicine

1 May 15th, 2023 28m 15s

After centuries of use in wound-healing, the maggot is back. The rise of the drug-resistant superbug means fresh eyes are focused on the superpowers of the larvae of the greenbottle fly species, Lucilia Sericata. James Gallagher reports on the

The Evidence: War trauma and mental health

Apr 2nd, 2022 50m 54s

War and conflict turns lives upside down and millions of adults and children witness atrocities, lose loved ones and often lose their homes and even their countries. The psychological and emotional suffering can continue long after the immediat

The Evidence: Drug-resistant superbugs

Feb 26th, 2022 49m 56s

Today, Claudia Hammond and her panel of experts focus on what’s been called “the silent pandemic”, the threat to modern medicine of anti-microbial resistance or AMR.Infections are increasingly resistant to live-saving drugs like antibiotics and

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The weirdness of water, Part 2 of 2

1 Jan 3rd, 2022 27m 23s

“I don’t really understand why water has so many properties on different scales ranging from very large and cosmic to very small quantum and quarky - Could you help by zooming in and out on water to explain what is known about it? Asks Neil Mor

The weirdness of water, Part 1 of 2

1 Dec 27th, 2021 27m 24s

Geoengineering The Planet

Nov 8th, 2021 27m 29s

Geoengineering is already underway from Australia to the Arctic as scientists try to save places threatened by global heating. It’s time for a global conversation about how we research these powerful techniques, with agreements on how and where

Chilean mummies

1 Oct 25th, 2021 26m 28s

Think of ancient mummies, and you might imagine Egyptian pharaohs in their highly decorated cases. But in actual fact, Chile has the oldest mummies in the world. Unesco recently addded the archaeological sites and the artificial mummification o