BBC Inside Science

UK science and the EU, Sex of organs, Artificial colon, Gorillas call when eating

25 Feb 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Britain faces a referendum on whether to leave Europe. Science, and scientists, often cross borders in collaborations, so what would the implications ...

Gravitational Waves, UK Spaceport, Big Brains and Extinction Risk, Conservation in Papua New Guinea

18 Feb 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Gravitational waves were announced last week, in what may be the science discovery of the decade. The Ligo detector, the most sensitive instrument on ...

Gravitational Waves Special

11 Feb 2016

Contributed by Lukas

The universe is silent no longer - physicists at the LIGO observatory have detected gravitational waves.LIGO, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-w...

UK pollinators' food, Brain implant, Holograms, Lunar 9

04 Feb 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Some much-needed good news for our troubled bees and other pollinators: between 1998 and 2007, the amount of nectar produced from Britain's flowering ...

Zika, Penguins, Erratum, Fossil fish

28 Jan 2016

Contributed by Lukas

The Zika virus is dominating the news this week. The latest data says it's been found in 21 countries so far. The symptoms are generally mild, but the...

Ancient Britons' DNA, Concorde's 40th Anniversary, Giant dinosaur, New planet?

21 Jan 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Our ability to extract DNA from old bones is improving, giving us a much clearer picture of who our ancestors were, and what they did. Two new papers ...

The 100,000 Genome Project, Stem cell doping, Nuclear waste, Dinosaur sex

14 Jan 2016

Contributed by Lukas

The 100,000 Genome Project aims to sequence the DNA of 100,000 patients. One of those patients is four-year-old Georgia Walburn-Green. Her symptoms di...

El Nino Special

07 Jan 2016

Contributed by Lukas

El Niño is releasing vast quantities of heat normally stored in the Pacific, causing floods, droughts and fires. Adam Rutherford discusses the latest...

31/12/2015

31 Dec 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Adam Rutherford and guests oceanographer Dr Helen Czerski, astrophysicist Chris Lintott and zoologist Dr Tim Cockerill share their highlights of the s...

New Horizons Pluto update; friendly predatory bacteria; Christmas in the lab; human ancestry

24 Dec 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Since the epic flyby of Pluto in July, NASA has been regularly downloading staggering images from the New Horizons mission. Pluto is not a dead rock, ...

Tim Peake's mission to the ISS, Spaceman Chris Hadfield, AGU round-up, Air pollution, Human Evolution at the NHM

17 Dec 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Two times shuttle captain, and with 6 months on the ISS, Commander Chris Hadfield is best qualified to pass on his advice to Major Tim Peake about the...

Flooding, Scientific modelling, Magnetoreception, Escalators

10 Dec 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Flood modelling As parts of Cumbria and Somerset remain on flood alert, Adam looks at the science that predicts floods. Are our flood defences good en...

Science funding, Carbon capture storage, Graphene

03 Dec 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Science Funding Review In the Comprehensive Spending Review last week, the Government announced its commitment to protect the science budget in 'real ...

Ancient farmers' genomes, Alice at Cern, Astrophysics questions

26 Nov 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Ancient farmers' genomes New research looking at the DNA of people who lived in Europe as early as 8500 years ago shows signs of evolution, of natural...

Antarctic ice sheet instability, Groundwater, Accents, Fluorescent coral

19 Nov 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Antarctic ice-sheet instability A new study models how the ice sheets in Antarctica will react if greenhouse gases rise at a medium to high rate. They...

Sex-change tree, Pluto's cryovolcanoes, Sellafield's plutonium, Ant super-organisms

12 Nov 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Britain's oldest tree changes sex - The science behind the headlines - this week it was reported that the Fortingall Yew in Perthshire (known to be a ...

Grid cells and time, Boole, How your brain shapes your life

05 Nov 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Grid cells and time Animals navigate by calculating their current position based on how long and how far they have travelled and a new study on treadm...

Oxygen on comet 67P; Bees and antimicrobial drugs; Reproducibility of science experiments; Reintroduction of beavers

29 Oct 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Oxygen on comet 67P Molecular oxygen (O2) detected on comet Churymov-Gerasimenko 67P, has scientists baffled. Current models of the formation of our ...

Animal experiments, Bees and diesel, Sense Ocean, Readability of IPCC report

22 Oct 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Animal experiments Scientists are changing the way they measure animals used in research. The most recent Home Office report not only shows the numbe...

Time Travel in Science and Cinema

15 Oct 2015

Contributed by Lukas

In a special programme to mark, amongst other things, the centenary of Albert Einstein's General Theory of Relativity, Adam Rutherford is joined by Th...

Ethiopian genome, Coral nutrients, The hunt for gravitational waves, Seven Brief Lessons on Physics

08 Oct 2015

Contributed by Lukas

As evidence grows about the vulnerability of our ocean corals to climate change, what's often overlooked are the more subtle changes in the ocean wate...

Write on Kew festival at Kew Gardens, Preserving global biodiversity

01 Oct 2015

Contributed by Lukas

A special edition recorded in front of an audience at Write on Kew, the Royal Botanical Garden's new literary festival. Adam Rutherford examines the s...

Listeners' Science Questions

24 Sep 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Adam Rutherford and panellists Helen Czerski, Andrew Pontzen and Nick Crumpton answer listeners' science questions: What's the best way to become foss...

Pluto images, Space elevator, Insect migration, Imagination app

17 Sep 2015

Contributed by Lukas

This summer, the spaceship New Horizons sped past Pluto at 30,000mph, snapping photographs as it went. The pictures sent back this week have transform...

Homo Naledi, New spacesuit, Quantum biology, A possible cure for motion sickness

10 Sep 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Tracey Logan talks to Professor Chris Stringer about the discovery a new human ancestor, Homo Naledi. With ape and human like features its age isn't k...

El Nino, Sphagnum moss and peatlands, Inside Cern, Measuring air pollution with iPhones

03 Sep 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Tracey Logan investigates the latest science news. Roland Pease reports on recent warnings that we're heading for one of the most severe El Ninos on r...

20/08/2015

20 Aug 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Why the expansion of the paleolithic brain was powered by cooked carbohydrates. Gareth Mitchell talks to Professor of Evolutionary Genetics, Mark Thom...

Scottish GM ban, Earth's magnetic field, OCD, Birth of a new galaxy

13 Aug 2015

Contributed by Lukas

As Scotland announces it ban on GM crops and with the current post of chief scientific adviser for Scotland vacant, Adam talks to the previous post ho...

Pluto's surface, Increased Arctic ice in 2013, Linking brains together, Signals of fertility

23 Jul 2015

Contributed by Lukas

The New Horizons probe is now millions of miles past Pluto, journeying throgh the Kuiper Belt, but still sending back gigabytes of data coming in via ...

Pluto: New Horizons

16 Jul 2015

Contributed by Lukas

It's billed as the last great encounter in planetary exploration. For the past nine years the New Horizons spacecraft has travelled 5bn km (3bn miles)...

Intrusive memories, Silent aircraft, Nuclear fusion, Pluto

09 Jul 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Adam Rutherford talks to Emily Holmes from the Medical Research Council’s Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit in Cambridge, about two new studies on p...

Aphid-repelling wheat, National Institute for Bioscience, Global map of smell, Parrot mimics

02 Jul 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Rothamsted Research in Hertfordshire has just finished trials of a new way to repel aphids from wheat. It's a clever system, that takes a gene for a p...

Malaria drug, Listener feedback, Imaging the singing voice, Classifying human species

25 Jun 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Malaria is the single greatest cause of death that humankind has ever experienced, and continues to be a colossal burden on the health of people all o...

Stars, Fracking, Ice Cores, Drunken Chimps

11 Jun 2015

Contributed by Lukas

The ALMA telescope array in the Atacama Desert is one of the most sensitive earth based telescopes. It has now captured images of the very first galax...

Origins of life, Earthquakes in London, Frog plague, Ancient pollen

04 Jun 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Think of earthquake cities and places like San Francisco or Los Angeles spring to mind. But London is also seismically active. 200 years ago, there wa...

Self-adapting robots, Artificial intelligence in medicine, Ageing healthily

28 May 2015

Contributed by Lukas

We're becoming more reliant on robots to assist in hostile zones from extinguishing forest fires to bomb disposal to decontaminating nuclear facilitie...

El Nino, Echolocation, Seasons, Snakes

21 May 2015

Contributed by Lukas

El Nino is a weather event that happens every 5 years. It leaves Europe largely unscathed but causes havoc around the southern hemisphere. El Nino cau...

Seasonal Variation in Immunity, Chemosynthesis, Role of the ISS, Storing Digital Data in DNA

14 May 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Many diseases strike harder and more often in the winter, including major inflammatory conditions such as Type 1 diabetes, multiple sclerosis and rheu...

Listeners' Science Questions

07 May 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Adam Rutherford investigates the news in science and science in the news.

Nepalese Earthquake, Monkey Hands, Maritime Light Pollution, Light in Bacteria

30 Apr 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Nepalese Earthquake The earthquake that struck central Nepal last weekend measured 7.8 in magnitude and has affected up to 1.4 million people. Inside ...

Healthy Guts; Future High Speed Trading; Body Clocks and Colour; William Smith's Geology Map

23 Apr 2015

Contributed by Lukas

The Yanomami people are Amerindians thought to have been completely isolated since their ancestors arrived in South America after the last ice-age. No...

Hubble Space Telescope at 25

16 Apr 2015

Contributed by Lukas

On 25th April 1990, the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) was released into space from the Discovery space shuttle. Though off to a famously bumpy start - ...

Legacy of Messenger, Computer Touch, AI and Traumatic Forgetting, Stained Glass Restoration

09 Apr 2015

Contributed by Lukas

This month sees the end of NASA's MESSENGER mission to Mercury. It's been the first mission to the sun's closest planet since Mariner 10 flew by in th...

Invasive Species, Coral Seaview Survey, Evolution of the Brain, A New Virtual Reality

26 Mar 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Invasive alien species from the cursed Signal Crayfish to the scourge of gardeners, the Japanese Knotweed, are considered some of the biggest threats ...

Genetic Map of the British Isles, Drones for Conservation, Lab Photosynthesis, Solar Eclipse

19 Mar 2015

Contributed by Lukas

The Romans, Vikings and Normans ruled Britain for many years, but few left their genetic calling cards behind in the DNA of today's mainland Caucasian...

Large Hadron Collider Run Two, Flooding, Nasa's Biggest Rocket, Violin Evolution

12 Mar 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Today CERN announced that on 23rd March the largest single machine the world has ever seen gets plugged in, switched on, and rebooted after a 2 year r...

Encoding memories; 350 years of the science journal; Women in science; Ceres

05 Mar 2015

Contributed by Lukas

How does the brain lay down memory? For decades the limits of microscopes have meant that a detailed look at the way brain cells encode particular lea...

Artificial Intelligence, Desalination, History of Forensics, Music from Cells

26 Feb 2015

Contributed by Lukas

A computer system has taught itself how to play dozens of video games. AI researchers claim this is a significant step toward machine intelligence, be...

Alzheimer's Disease, False Memory, Diamond Light Source, Twins in Space

19 Feb 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Alzheimer's disease is becoming increasingly common as the global population ages. It is estimated that currently 44 million victims of Alzheimer's de...

Earth's Core; What Can Chemistry Do for Us?; Ocean Acidification; Darwin Day

12 Feb 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Adam Rutherford explores new insights into what lies at the very centre of the Earth. New research from China and the US suggests that the innermost c...

Goshawk, Cosmic Renaissance, Carl Djerassi and Charles Townes

05 Feb 2015

Contributed by Lukas

As Helen MacDonald's "H is for Hawk" secures 2014's Book of the Year at the Costa Awards, a paper appears describing the hunting tactics of the Northe...

Climate change belief; Anthropocene era; Eyes on the sea; Origins of multicellular life

29 Jan 2015

Contributed by Lukas

We all remember the floods across much of central and southern England this time last year, and the devastating effect they had on people's lives and ...

GMOs; International Year of Light; Coral health

22 Jan 2015

Contributed by Lukas

It is likely that scientists will soon engineer strains of "friendly" bacteria which are genetically recoded to be better than the ones we currently u...

International Year of Soils

15 Jan 2015

Contributed by Lukas

This year is the Food and Agriculture Organisation's International Year of Soils.Adam Rutherford, ably assisted by Manchester University's Richard Bar...

Venus mission, Science highlights for 2015, Sonotweezers, Tsunami 10 years on

08 Jan 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Adam Rutherford investigates the news in science and science in the news.This week's announcement of the discovery of 8 planets lying within the habit...

Listeners' Science Questions

01 Jan 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Adam Rutherford and guests oceanographer Dr Helen Czerski, cosmologist Dr Andrew Pontzen and zoologist Dr Tim Cockerill answer the listeners' science ...

Microplastics; Holey Ice; Vesalius; Overeating

18 Dec 2014

Contributed by Lukas

Microplastics For the first time, scientists have studied the abundance of microplastics in deep sea sediments They have found that tiny fibres of pla...

Water on Comets; DNA in Space; Sounds of the Ocean; Science in Fashion

11 Dec 2014

Contributed by Lukas

Where does the Earth's water come from? It's thought that it arrived from space, carried by comets. But recent research suggests otherwise. Professor ...

Orion Launch; Fake Mars trip; XDNA; Richard the Third's skeleton

04 Dec 2014

Contributed by Lukas

A NASA space capsule, Orion, that could transport humans to Mars is due to make its maiden flight. Given that this is a first outing, there will be no...

Campylobacter in Chicken; Artificial Intelligence Guru Demis Hassabis; Sexology; Lucy

27 Nov 2014

Contributed by Lukas

Food Standards Agency report reveals 70% of supermarket chicken contaminated. Chicken: It's the nation's favourite meat. But today, a report released...

Comet landing detects organics molecules; Lunar Mission One; Biological warfare

20 Nov 2014

Contributed by Lukas

Philae lander detects organic molecules on Comet 67P Rosetta scientist, Professor Monica Grady from the Open University discusses the latest news from...

Rosetta; Thought-controlled genes; Biophonic Life; Arecibo message 40 years on

13 Nov 2014

Contributed by Lukas

Rosetta After a nail-biting, bumpy, bouncy landing, European Space Agency's Rosetta probe - 'Philae' -lands on the comet 67P. It's already collecting ...

Science of ageing; Microneedles; Firelab; Rosetta; Scientific authorship

06 Nov 2014

Contributed by Lukas

What is ageing? In 1900, the global average life expectancy was 31, today it's 70, and the number of people over 85 in the UK is predicted to double i...

The Making of the Moon

30 Oct 2014

Contributed by Lukas

It's the nearest and most dominant object in our night sky, and has inspired artists, astronauts and astronomers. But fundamental questions remain abo...

Hobbit; Genetics of height; Solar science; Snails

23 Oct 2014

Contributed by Lukas

It's 10 Years since an unusual skeleton was unearthed on the island of Flores. This species, Homo floresiensis, dubbed 'the Hobbit' because of its sho...

Ebola; Ada Lovelace Day; Space Weather

16 Oct 2014

Contributed by Lukas

Ebola Outbreak As the World Health Organisation announces that the situation in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone is deteriorating, with widespread and...

Nobel Prizes 2014; Gauge; Genetics and Diabetes; UK Fungus Day

09 Oct 2014

Contributed by Lukas

Nobel Prizes 2014 The annual Nobel Prizes for Physiology or Medicine, Physics and Chemistry were announced this week.The Nobel Prize for Physiology or...

Women, Science and the Royal Society; Open Access Research

02 Oct 2014

Contributed by Lukas

Royal Society investigates the decline in their awards to female scientists Last week, the UK's national science academy, the Royal Society, announced...

Cosmic inflation latest; Indian space success; Science and language; Wax Venus

25 Sep 2014

Contributed by Lukas

BICEP - gravitational waves and dust One of the biggest scientific claims of 2014 has received another set-back. In March this year, the BICEP2 resear...

European ancestry; Cern is 60; Graphene plasters; Penguins

18 Sep 2014

Contributed by Lukas

European Ancestry New genetic investigation of ancient human remains, combined with archaeological evidence, is shedding new light on the origins of t...

Jack the Ripper; Future of Scottish science

11 Sep 2014

Contributed by Lukas

Jack the Ripper "identified" Some of us are morbidly fascinated by the legend of Jack the Ripper - not the world's first serial killer, but the one th...

Bardarbunga volcano; Geology in Minecraft; Synthesising opioids; Ammonia

04 Sep 2014

Contributed by Lukas

Bardarbunga A group of earth scientists was in Iceland performing annual maintenance of its equipment, when the volcano Bardarbunga erupted. Professor...

Manipulating mouse memory; London pollution; Nature of knowing; Snail fur

28 Aug 2014

Contributed by Lukas

Manipulating mouse memory Optogenetics allows researchers to use light to turn the genes involved in memory, in the brain, off and on. It's a powerful...

TB in the New World; Trusting Wikipedia; Shipwreck of the London; @LegoAcademics

21 Aug 2014

Contributed by Lukas

TB in the New World Brand new work in comparative genetics is shedding light on the spread of TB. Scientists have shown that the initial spread of the...

Anaesthesia; Chilean earthquakes; Strange weather; Jellyfish

14 Aug 2014

Contributed by Lukas

Anaesthetics. General anaesthetic is an essential part of modern medicine. Millions of surgical procedures, many life-saving, simply could not be perf...

New dinosaur; GM chickens; Lightning; Rosetta; Diatoms

07 Aug 2014

Contributed by Lukas

Dinosaur A jumble of bones found in Venezuela belong to a group of very early dinosaurs, that could have been herd animals. Paul Barrett from the Natu...

ExpeRimental; Rosetta; MOOCs

31 Jul 2014

Contributed by Lukas

ExpeRimental There's an online wealth of science demonstrations you can try at home with your kids. But what's sometimes lacking is the encouragement ...

Science's fascination with the face

24 Jul 2014

Contributed by Lukas

Face recognition The software that analyses images of your face, captured online or when you're out and about, has rapidly improved. Adam visits Amscr...

A special programme on plants and their pollinators, poisons and pests

17 Jul 2014

Contributed by Lukas

Plants and bees The relationship between flowering plants and bees is a long-evolved, complex one. Plant scientists at the Royal Botanic Gardens at Ke...

Behavioural profiling at airports; Light and colour in art; Hadrian's Wall; Cassini

10 Jul 2014

Contributed by Lukas

Airport security has been tightened recently. Passengers must be able to switch on their electronic devices to prove they don't contain explosives. In...

Informed consent, El Nino, Gravitational Waves, Cloud cover

03 Jul 2014

Contributed by Lukas

Informed consent Facebook has been under fire for running a controversial 'emotion manipulation' study on 689,003 Facebook users. The experiment, to f...

Longitude Prize Winner; Solar cells; New species; Fiji fisherwomen; Physics questions

26 Jun 2014

Contributed by Lukas

Longitude Prize 2014 Winning Challenge Antibiotics resistance has been selected as the focus for the £10m prize. The World Health Organization (WHO) ...

Antarctic Invaders; Patents; Longitude Challenges for Water and Antibiotics

19 Jun 2014

Contributed by Lukas

Antarctic Invasion Antarctica is the most pristine place on Earth, having only been visited by humans in the last 200 years, and being tens of thousan...

Turing test; World Cup exo-skeleton; Plant cyborgs; Music hooks

12 Jun 2014

Contributed by Lukas

The first ball kick of the opening ceremony of the 2014 World Cup is taken by a young paraplegic Brazilian, wearing a robotic exo-skeleton, controlled...

Moving Mountains; Invasive Species; Football Stickers

05 Jun 2014

Contributed by Lukas

Moving Mountains Removing the tops off mountains was common practice in the eastern United States to strip mine for coal. Critics have previously call...

Women scientists; Mapping the ocean floor; Amplituhedron

29 May 2014

Contributed by Lukas

Women of science London's Royal Society was buzzing last week as historians and scientists chewed over the lives of iconic women scientists. But at a ...

Longitude Prize 2014; Dementia; Matter from light; Coastal deposition

22 May 2014

Contributed by Lukas

Longitude Prize 2014 The Longitude Prize offers a £10 million prize pot to help find the solution to one of the greatest issues of our age. Votes fro...

Antarctic melt; brain enhancing devices, atomic clocks and anti-bat moth sounds

15 May 2014

Contributed by Lukas

Melting Antarctic Ice Shelf Nothing can stop the collapse of the Antarctic Western Ice shelf. That’s according to NASA this week. Key glaciers in An...

Colin Pillinger; Fire? Artificial DNA

08 May 2014

Contributed by Lukas

Artificial DNA DNA is the molecule of life, conserved across all living species for 4 billion years. But now scientists have made a new, artificial ve...

Mice & Men; Fuel from CO2; fRMI; Insect calls

01 May 2014

Contributed by Lukas

A recent paper demonstrated that mice show elevated stress levels in the presence of male hormones. What implications does this have for future mouse ...

Y chromosome; Everest avalanche; Aphid survey; Longitude

24 Apr 2014

Contributed by Lukas

Y Chromosome We learn from a young age that if a fertilised egg carries XX chromosomes it will be a girl, but with XY it will be a boy. This male Y se...

Sperm and egg; Dogs; Automatic Facebook; Invasive species

17 Apr 2014

Contributed by Lukas

How sperm recognises the egg The discovery of a protein on mammalian sperm almost a decade ago, sparked the search for the corresponding receptor on t...

Whales; Dark Matter; Falling; Arty brains

10 Apr 2014

Contributed by Lukas

Whaling The International Court of Justice in the Hague recently ruled that Japan should stop whaling in the Antarctic “for scientific purposes.” ...

Calorie Restriction; Moon Age; Mars Yard; IPCC.

03 Apr 2014

Contributed by Lukas

Calorie restriction Careful restriction of the number of calories eaten, without causing malnutrition, extends the lifespan of numerous organisms – ...

Fracking; Purple GM tomatoes; Bionic humans; Shark attacks

27 Mar 2014

Contributed by Lukas

School Report on Fracking This week, Inside Science is taken over by BBC School Reporters and Melissa Hogenboom eavesdrops on a school in Lancashire, ...

Cosmic inflation; LISA; Photonic radar; Bird stress camera; Water research; Taxidermy

20 Mar 2014

Contributed by Lukas

Cosmic Inflation and Gravity waves Scientists in the BICEP 2 Group say they've found the earliest rumbles of the Big Bang. Theory predicts how the uni...

Tracking planes; Peer review; Mega-virus; Astronaut

13 Mar 2014

Contributed by Lukas

Are black boxes outdated technology? With GPS widely available in everyday gadgets like mobile phones, how could Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 just d...

LG - Chemical weapons, Turtles, Tech for wildlife, Climate

06 Mar 2014

Contributed by Lukas

Chemical weapons Disposing of Syria's chemical weapons is a difficult task, both politically and technically. The Organisation for the Prohibition of ...

Brain Machine Interfaces; Question on Gay Genes; Studying Drinking Behaviour

27 Feb 2014

Contributed by Lukas

Neuroscientist Miguel Nicolelis is one of the world's leading researchers into using the mind to control machines. He is involved in the "Walk Again P...

Bees; Whales; Pain; Gay genes

20 Feb 2014

Contributed by Lukas

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. ...