Discovery
Episodes
Elspeth Garman
01 Dec 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Jim al-Khalili talks to professor Elspeth Garman about a technique that has led to 28 Nobel Prizes in the last century.X- ray crystallography, now cel...
Painful Medicine
24 Nov 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Addictions researcher, Dr Sally Marlow, investigates fears that easy access to powerful painkillers could be creating a large, but hidden problem of a...
Chris Toumazou
17 Nov 2014
Contributed by Lukas
European Inventor of the Year, Chris Toumazou, reveals how his personal life and early research lie at the heart of his inventions. As chief scientist...
The Making of the Moon
10 Nov 2014
Contributed by Lukas
It is the nearest and most dominant object in our night sky, and has inspired artists, astronauts and astronomers. But fundamental questions remain ab...
Trauma at War
03 Nov 2014
Contributed by Lukas
They call them 'The Unexpected Survivors'. The casualties from the war in Afghanistan whose injuries were so severe that they were not expected to sur...
Trauma: The Fight for Life
27 Oct 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Dr Kevin Fong explores the development of modern trauma medicine and discovers how the lessons from conflict and catastrophe have equipped us to deal ...
Brian Cox
20 Oct 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Professor Brian Cox of Manchester University describes how he gave up appearing on Top of the Pops to study quarks, quasars and quantum mechanics. Alt...
Urine Trouble: What’s in our Water
13 Oct 2014
Contributed by Lukas
You have a headache and take a pill. The headache is gone, but what about the pill? What we flush away makes its way through sewers, treatment works, ...
Patients Doing It for Themselves
06 Oct 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Patient power is on the rise. But is it rising too far? Frustrated by the time it takes to develop new drugs, the ethical barriers to obtaining clinic...
Preventing Disease in Animals
29 Sep 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Diseases devastate livestock around the world. In chickens for example the deadly strain of bird flu and the lesser known bacterial infection Campylob...
Beyond the Abyss
22 Sep 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Rebecca Morelle talks to explorers of deep ocean trenches, from film-maker James Cameron to biologists discovering dark realms of weird pink gelatinou...
Power Transmission
15 Sep 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Gaia Vince looks at the future of power transmission. As power generation becomes increasingly mixed and demand increases, what does the grid of the f...
Biosafety
08 Sep 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Accidents happen in science labs all over the world, but when you’re working with deadly pathogens the consequences can be disastrous. The reputatio...
Mum and Dad and Mum
01 Sep 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Alana Saarinen is a 13-year-old girl who lives with her mum and dad in Michigan, USA. She loves playing golf and the piano, listening to music and han...
Antibiotic Resistance Crisis - Part Two
25 Aug 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Infectious bacteria are becoming resistant to the drugs that used to kill them. The last new class of antibiotics was discovered in the 1980s. There...
Antibiotic Resistance Crisis - Part One
18 Aug 2014
Contributed by Lukas
The discovery and harnessing of antibiotic drugs in the mid-20th Century led some medics to predict the end of infectious diseases. But the bacteria ...
Cosmology
11 Aug 2014
Contributed by Lukas
In March astronomers in the BICEP2 collaboration announced they had found gravitational waves from the Big Bang. But now the evidence is being questio...
Rosetta Mission Arriving At Comet
04 Aug 2014
Contributed by Lukas
On 6th August, the space probe Rosetta ends its 10 year journey and arrives at Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. If all goes well, Rosetta will be the...
Professor Sir Michael Rutter
28 Jul 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Professor Sir Michael Rutter has been described as the most illustrious and influential psychiatric scientist of his generation. His international rep...
What has Happened to El Nino?
21 Jul 2014
Contributed by Lukas
At the start of 2014 meteorologists warned of a possible El Nino event this year. The portents were persuasive – a warming of the central Pacific mu...
Swarming Robots
14 Jul 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Adam Hart looks at how new developments in understanding insect behaviour, plant cell growth and sub cellular organisation are influencing research in...
Anaesthesia
07 Jul 2014
Contributed by Lukas
General anaesthetics which act to cause reversible loss of consciousness have been used clinically for over 150 years. Yet scientists are only now rea...
Janet Hemingway
30 Jun 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Janet Hemingway, the youngest woman to ever to become a full professor in the UK, talks about her career at the frontline of the war on malaria. Whils...
Ageing and the Brain
23 Jun 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Geoff Watts investigates the latest thinking about our brain power in old age. He meets researchers who argue that society has overly negative views o...
Driverless Cars
16 Jun 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Jack Stewart meets the engineers who are building vehicles that drive themselves. He has a ride in Google's driverless car, which has no steering whee...
Driverless Cars
09 Jun 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Most traffic accidents are caused by human error. Engineers are designing vehicles with built in sensors that send messages to other cars, trucks, bik...
Taming the Sun
02 Jun 2014
Contributed by Lukas
ITER is the most complex experiment ever attempted on this planet. Its aim, to demonstrate that nuclear fusion, the power of the Sun, can give us poll...
Beauty and the Brain
26 May 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Dr Tiffany Jenkins asks what our brains can tell us about art. Can there ever be a recipe for beauty? Or are the great works beyond the powers of neur...
Alf Adams
19 May 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Alf Adams FRS, physicist at the University of Surrey, had an idea on a beach in the mid-eighties that made the modern internet, CD and DVD players, an...
Mark Miodownik
12 May 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Mark Miodownik's chronic interest in materials began in rather unhappy circumstances. He was stabbed in the back, with a razor, on his way to school. ...
Sue Black
05 May 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Forensic anthropologist professor Sue Black began her career with a Saturday job working in a butcher's shop. At the time she didn't realise that this...
Whatever Happened to Biofuels - Part Two
28 Apr 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Whatever happened to biofuels? They were seen as the replacement for fossil fuels until it was realised they were being grown on land that should have...
Whatever Happened to Biofuels?
21 Apr 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Biofuels were hailed as the environmental solution to fossil fuels not that long ago. Made from living crops they take up carbon dioxide as they grow....
Peter Higgs
14 Apr 2014
Contributed by Lukas
An extended interview with the Nobel prize laureate. Peter Higgs tells Jim Al-Khalili that he failed to realise the full significance of the Higgs bos...
Vikram Patel
07 Apr 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Jim al-Khalili talks to psychiatrist Vikram Patel about the global campaign he is leading to tackle mental health. He reflects on his early career wor...
Inside the Shark's Mind
31 Mar 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Fatal shark attacks on humans have been on the increase in Australia. For Discovery, marine biologist Dr Helen Scales finds out how scientists are exp...
The Biology of Freedom
24 Mar 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Is free will unique to humans or a biological trait that evolved over time and across species? Whilst the existence and nature of free will has been h...
Fructose: the Bittersweet Sugar
17 Mar 2014
Contributed by Lukas
If you believe the headlines fructose is 'addictive as cocaine', a 'toxic additive' or a 'metabolic danger'. So how has a simple sugar in fruit and ho...
Hack my Hearing
10 Mar 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Audiologists are concerned there may be a rising tide of 'hidden hearing loss' among young people. As electronic prices have fallen, sound systems hav...
Show me the Way to Go Home
03 Mar 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Gardening grandmother Ruth Brooks, also known as 'the snail lady', was chosen as the BBC's Amateur Scientist of the Year in 2010. She noticed that des...
Saving the Oceans - Part Four
24 Feb 2014
Contributed by Lukas
In part four of Saving the Oceans, Joel finds out how knowledge of the seas from Australia’s Aboriginal communities can feed into modern ocean scien...
Saving the Oceans - Part Three
17 Feb 2014
Contributed by Lukas
We look at the impact of climate change, overfishing and pollution on marine eco-systems and examine the scientific solutions to some of those issues....
Saving the Oceans - Part Two
10 Feb 2014
Contributed by Lukas
The second episode in our four-part series Saving the Ocean in which we look at the impact of climate change, overfishing and pollution on ocean envi...
Saving the Oceans - Part One
03 Feb 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Saving the Ocean looks at the impact of climate change, overfishing and pollution - and examines the scientific solutions to some of those issues. In ...
Fixing Nitrogen
27 Jan 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Today, 3.5 billion people are alive because of a single chemical process. The Haber-Bosch process takes nitrogen from the air and makes ammonia, from ...
Chronotypes
20 Jan 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Are you a lark or an owl? Are you at your best in the morning or the evening? Linda Geddes meets the scientists who are exploring the differences betw...
Geoengineering
13 Jan 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Geoengineering is a controversial approach to dealing with climate change. Gaia Vince explores the process of putting chemicals in the stratosphere to...
The Return To Mawson's Antarctica - Part Four
06 Jan 2014
Contributed by Lukas
The Australasian Antarctic Expedition has been retracing the steps of the first expedition to East Antarctica, a century ago. Its leader was Douglas M...
The Return to Mawson's Antarctica - Part Three
30 Dec 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Alok Jha and Andrew Luck-Baker continue to follow the scientists on the ongoing Australasian Antarctic Expedition 2013. They go out on fieldwork trip...
The Return to Mawson's Antarctica - Part Two
23 Dec 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Alok Jha and Andrew Luck-Baker continue to follow the scientists on the ongoing Australasian Antarctic Expedition 2013. Ice, the oceans and climate ch...
The Return to Mawson's Antarctica - Part One
16 Dec 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Join the scientists of the Australasian Antarctic Expedition 2013, as they go about their experiments and seek adventure at the windiest place on eart...
Self-Healing Materials
09 Dec 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Quentin Cooper takes a look at the new materials that can mend themselves. Researchers are currently developing bacteria in concrete which, once awake...
The Power of the Unconscious
02 Dec 2013
Contributed by Lukas
We like to think that we are in control of our lives, of what we do, think and feel. But, as Geoff Watts discovers, scientists are now revealing that ...
Gut Microbiota
25 Nov 2013
Contributed by Lukas
The human gut has around 100 trillion bacterial cells from up to 1,000 different species. Every person's microbiota (the body's bacterial make-up) is ...
Nirvana by Numbers
18 Nov 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Journalist and numbers obsessive Alex Bellos travels around India to explore the fundamental numerical gifts which early Indian mathematicians gave to...
Jenny Graves
11 Nov 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Australian geneticist Jenny Graves discusses her life pursuing sex genes in her country's weird but wonderful fauna, the end of men and singing to her...
Mike Benton
04 Nov 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Life on earth has gone through a series of mass extinctions. Mike Benton talks about his fascination with ancient life on the planet and his work on t...
Joanna Haigh
28 Oct 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Joanna Haigh, Professor of Atmospheric Physics at Imperial College, London, studies the influence of the sun on the Earth's climate using data collect...
Russell Foster
21 Oct 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Russell Foster, professor of circadian neuroscience at Oxford University, is obsessed with biological clocks. He talks to Jim al-Khalili about how lig...
Ashes to Ashes
14 Oct 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Adam Hart investigates yet another threat to the ash trees of Europe. In the last programme he found out about the latest research developments to sav...
Ashes to Ashes
07 Oct 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Professor Adam Hart looks at the disease that has devastated ash trees in Europe – ash dieback. Over the last 20 years the fungus that causes ash di...
Fracking for Shale Gas
30 Sep 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Fracking for gas is highly controversial in the US and the UK as it has been accused of contaminating water courses and causing earthquakes. Yet it pr...
The Future of Navigation
23 Sep 2013
Contributed by Lukas
We all rely on GPS – the Global Positioning System network of satellites – whether we want to or not. From shipping to taxis to mobile phones, the...
Deep Down Inside
16 Sep 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Deep brain stimulation (DBS) is a brain surgery technique involving electrodes being inserted to reach targets deep inside the brain. Those targets ar...
E-cigarettes
09 Sep 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Lorna Stewart reports on the new and growing phenomenon of electronic cigarettes and asks if they really help smokers to stop smoking and if they are ...
Raising Allosaurus
02 Sep 2013
Contributed by Lukas
In the 20 years since the release of the film Jurassic Park, DNA cloning technologies have advanced dramatically. Professor Adam Hart asks whether we ...
CERN and Science in Africa
26 Aug 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Earlier this year the BBC organised a ‘science festival’ in Uganda. One of the practical outcomes of this was to put physics teachers in East Afri...
The Story of SARS, Part Two
19 Aug 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Dr Kevin Fong concludes a two-part special looking back at the extraordinary events which unfolded a decade ago when the disease known as SARS first e...
The Story of SARS, Part One
12 Aug 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Dr Kevin Fong begins a two-part special looking back at the extraordinary events which unfolded a decade ago when the disease known as SARS (Severe Ac...
Crossrail: Tunnelling under London
05 Aug 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Tracey Logan goes underground to find out how Crossrail is using the latest engineering techniques to create 26 miles of tunnels below London's tube n...
Oxytocin
29 Jul 2013
Contributed by Lukas
The hormone oxytocin is involved in mother and baby bonding and in creating trust. Linda Geddes finds out if taking oxytocin can help people with auti...
Forecasting Earthquakes
22 Jul 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Earthquakes can't be predicted. But millions of dollars are spent trying to forecast them - warning the public which regions are dangerous, what the c...
Plate Tectonics and Life
15 Jul 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Earthquakes are feared for their destructive, deadly force. But they are part of a geological process - plate tectonics - that some scientists say is ...
Quorum Sensing
08 Jul 2013
Contributed by Lukas
A radically different approach to dealing with bacteria would be to stop them from communicating and coordinating attacks, rather than trying to kill ...
Build Me a Brain
01 Jul 2013
Contributed by Lukas
When President Obama recently complained, that although "we can identify galaxies light years away, study particles smaller than an atom ... we still ...
Solar Max
24 Jun 2013
Contributed by Lukas
As we approach 'solar max', when the sun is at its most active and ferocious, astronomer Lucie Green investigates the hidden dangers our nearest star ...
Amoret Whitaker
17 Jun 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Jim Al-Khalili talks to Amoret Whitaker, an entomologist at the Natural History Museum in London. Her intricate understanding of the life cycles of fl...
Alan Watson
10 Jun 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Professor Alan Watson from the University of Leeds, has spent 40 years trying to unravel a mystery at the frontier of physics. Where do cosmic rays - ...
On The Trail of the American Honeybee
03 Jun 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Dr Adam Hart continues his exploration of migratory beekeeping in the United States. Each year the beekeepers of America travel to the annual Almond b...
On the Trail of the American Honeybee 1/2
27 May 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Dr Adam Hart meets the migratory bee keepers of America as they travel to the annual Almond bloom in California, the largest single pollination event ...
Deep Sea Vents
20 May 2013
Contributed by Lukas
The deep sea bed is the last great unexplored realm on our planet. Scientists have begun to find extraordinary ecosystems of creatures down there whi...
After Sandy
13 May 2013
Contributed by Lukas
More than six months after Super Storm Sandy hit America’s East coast, Angela Saini reports from New York where scientists, engineers and State offi...
The Crying Game
06 May 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Although many animal species cry vocally, the production of tears in response to emotion, both happy or sad, is a trait unique to humans. So why do we...
A Trip Around Mars - Part Two
29 Apr 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Kevin Fong concludes his grand tour of the planet Mars, in search of water. Some of the most spectacular Martian landscapes were carved by vast and vi...
A Trip Around Mars with Kevin Fong - Part One
22 Apr 2013
Contributed by Lukas
The planet Mars boasts the most dramatic landscapes in our solar system. Kevin Fong embarks on a grand tour around the planet with scientists, artists...
Noel Sharkey
15 Apr 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Robots probably won't take over the world, but they probably will be given ever greater responsibility. Already, robots care for the elderly in Japan,...
Annette Karmiloff-Smith on toddlers and TV
08 Apr 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Annette Karmiloff-Smith, from the Birkbeck Centre for Brain & Cognitive Development in London talks to Jim Al-Khalili about her Life Scientific. S...
Premiership Science
01 Apr 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Like football, science is an international endeavour complete with its own stars and prima donnas. Alok Jha investigates what it takes to make a winni...
What If... We could stay young forever? 3/3
18 Mar 2013
Contributed by Lukas
What if we could feel more alive and more alert by just eating smaller meals? Extreme calorie restriction may hold the secret to the a longer live. Ac...
What If... We could stay young forever? 2/3
11 Mar 2013
Contributed by Lukas
What if we could stay young forever? Peter Bowes continues his quest to find out what science and lifestyle can do to help keep mind and body young. I...
What If... We could stay young forever? 1/3
04 Mar 2013
Contributed by Lukas
What if we could stay young forever? It may be a fantasy, but age management is big business and some people will stop at nothing to roll back the ye...
What If... We could all become cyborgs?
25 Feb 2013
Contributed by Lukas
As part of the BBC World Service’s “What if…?” season, biologist Dr Andrew Holding meets some of the people straddling the line between man an...
Sexual Nature 3/3
18 Feb 2013
Contributed by Lukas
When a couple are expecting a baby, the big question is: girl or boy? Adam Rutherford explores the many ways Nature decides that question. If you’...
Sexual Nature 2/3
11 Feb 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Sex is one of Nature’s great forces of change. Yet it is one of life’s great mysteries. Adam Rutherford investigates how and why living things f...
Sexual Nature 1/3
04 Feb 2013
Contributed by Lukas
The oldest known sexual beings, a 400 million year old fish sex movie and the prehistoric turtles which were fossilised in the act of copulation. Dis...
Quantum Biology
28 Jan 2013
Contributed by Lukas
From smell to navigation, it seems that some of the hardest problems in biology could be solved with the insights from theoretical physics.The physici...
The ENCODE Project
21 Jan 2013
Contributed by Lukas
A decade ago, the Human Genome Project revealed that only 1% of our DNA codes for the proteins that make our bodies. The rest of the genome, it was sa...
John Gurdon
14 Jan 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Sir John Gurdon talks to Jim al-Khalili about how coming bottom of the class in science was no barrier to winning this year's Nobel Prize for Physiolo...
Jared Diamond
07 Jan 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Science polymath and celebrated author, Jared Diamond has tackled some of the big questions about humanity: what is it that makes us uniquely human no...
The Life Scientific: Andrea Sella - Chemist
31 Dec 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Andrea Sella is a science showman, whose theatrical demonstrations of chemistry are filling theatres up and down the country. He talks to Jim al-Khal...