Discovery

Does Money Make you Mean?

23 Mar 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Can money really make a person mean? In this second and final programme, Jack heads to Hong Kong to explore whether our preoccupation with money is af...

Does Money Make you Mean?

16 Mar 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Jack Stewart heads to Los Angeles, home to many of America's rich and famous, to explore what impact wealth has on our moral behaviour. Hollywood ofte...

Finding Your Voice

09 Mar 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Comedy performer and broadcaster Helen Keen, explores a rare condition that she herself once suffered from - selective mutism or SM. It is an anxiety...

Placebo Problem

02 Mar 2015

Contributed by Lukas

In recent years the term 'placebo effect' - the beneficial effects on health of positive expectations about a drug or some other treatment - has becom...

Throwaway Society 2/2

23 Feb 2015

Contributed by Lukas

How can manufacturers of the world supply the growing demand for consumer products without breaking the planet’s bank of natural resources? By the ...

Throwaway Society

16 Feb 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Hundreds of millions of computers, mobile phones and televisions are thrown away every year around the world. In this week’s Discovery Gaia Vince w...

The Science of Smell

09 Feb 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Pamela Rutherford explores our neglected sense of smell. How is the brain able to detect and tell apart the countless number of smells it comes acros...

The Life Scientific: Richard Fortey

02 Feb 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Richard Fortey found his first trilobite fossil when he was 14 years old and he spent the rest of his career discovering hundreds more, previously unk...

The Life Scientific: Margaret Boden on Artificial Intelligence

26 Jan 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Maggie Boden is a world authority in the field of artificial intelligence – she even has a robot named in her honour. As research professor of Cogni...

Hot Gossip - Part Two

19 Jan 2015

Contributed by Lukas

In the second of two programmes, Geoff Watts continues to explore the science, history and cultural implications of gossip. Gossip has a bad reputatio...

Hot Gossip - Part One

12 Jan 2015

Contributed by Lukas

If language elevates us above other animals, why does human society seem to spend so much time gossiping? Perhaps it's because without gossip there wo...

Virtual Therapy

05 Jan 2015

Contributed by Lukas

E-Therapy has come a long way since the (slightly tongue in cheek) days of Eliza, a very early attempt at computer based psychotherapy. Eliza was litt...

Animal Personality

29 Dec 2014

Contributed by Lukas

Professor Adam Hart explores the newest area in the science of animal behaviour – the study of personality within species as diverse as chimpanzees,...

Can Maths Combat Terrorism?

22 Dec 2014

Contributed by Lukas

Dr Hannah Fry investigates the hidden patterns behind terrorism and asks whether mathematics could be used to predict the next 9/11. When computer sci...

New Space to Fly

15 Dec 2014

Contributed by Lukas

As our skies become more crowded Jack Stewart examines the long awaited modernisation of air traffic control. With traffic predicted to reach 17 milli...

Vagus Nerve

08 Dec 2014

Contributed by Lukas

Many people are living with chronic diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis and inflammatory bowel conditions in which the body attacks itself. Although...

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...