Unexpected Elements
Episodes
How ‘magic mushroom’ chemical treats depression
17 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Brain scanning experiments reveal how psilocybin works to relieve severe depression. Psilocybin is the psychedelic substance in 'magic mushrooms'. ...
Tsunami detective in Tonga
10 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Just over two months ago, the undersea volcano of Hunga Tonga erupted catastrophically, generating huge tsunamis and covering the islands of Tonga in ...
Radioactive Red Forest
03 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Russian forces in the forested exclusion zone around the Chernobyl nuclear site may be receiving potentially dangerous levels of radiation. After the ...
Covid in the sewers
20 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Analysis of wastewater from sewage systems has provided an early warning system for the presence of Covid19 in communities – showing up in the water...
Why are Covid19 cases rising in Hong Kong?
13 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Hong Kong had been very successful at preventing the spread of Coivd19. Testing and isolation measures were very effective. However, vaccine uptake wa...
Covid -19 origins
06 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Wuhan's Huanan Seafood Market is associated with many of the first cases or Covid- 19, but data on precisely how and from where the virus might have f...
Reforming the 'China Initiative'
27 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
A scheme in the US designed to prevent industrial espionage and the theft of intellectual property, is to be refocused after it was accused of unfairl...
Bone repair from Covid-19 vaccine technology
20 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Messenger RNA-based vaccines have been used successfully to kick start the antibody production needed to fight Covid-19. Now the technology has been s...
Inside Wuhan's coronavirus lab
13 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The Wuhan Institute of Virology has been at the centre of a controversy surrounding the origins of the virus which caused the Covid-19 pandemic. The w...
Identifying a more infectious HIV variant
06 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
We’re 40 years into the AIDS pandemic, and even with massive public health campaigns, still, 1 ½ million become infected with HIV each year; about...
The roots of Long Covid
30 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
There are now a number of biological indicators for the potential development of long covid. Immunologist Onur Boyman of Zurich University Hospital an...
Tonga eruption – how it happened
23 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The effects of the Tonga eruption could be felt around the world, many heard the boom of a sonic shock, and tsunami waves travelled far and wide. Volc...
Have we got it wrong on Omicron?
16 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Studies using swabs from coronavirus patients seem to contradict earlier findings from cell cultures which showed Omicon replicated faster than earlie...
CORBEVAX – A vaccine for the world?
09 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Now being produced in India CORBEVAX is grown in yeast in a similar way to several other widely available vaccines. The technology used to make it is ...
Omicron – mild or monster?
26 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Studies from South Africa and the UK suggest Omicron may be a mild infection for the majority of people. Hospital admissions are down when compared wi...
Omicron’s rapid replication rate
19 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
A study from Hong Kong university shows Omicron replicates 70 times faster than two earlier variants of the SARS-Cov-2 virus. Virologist Malik Peiris,...
Can the weather trigger a volcano?
12 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Which came first the volcano or the rain? Volcanic eruptions are known to influence global climate systems, even leading to the cooling of the planet....
Omicron, racism and trust
05 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
South Africa announced their discovery of the Omicron variant to the world as quickly as they could. The response from many nations was panic and the ...
Deliberately doomed dart
28 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
d dart Science in ActionDART is a space mission designed to hit a distant asteroid and knock it slightly out of orbit. It’s a test mission, a pilot ...
The end for coal power?
21 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The political message from the COP meeting was a fudge over coal, but what does the science say? Surprisingly India seems to be on track to switch awa...
Bambi got Covid
14 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Up to 8 percent of deer sampled in studies in the US were found to be infected with the SARS-Cov-2 Virus. Suresh Kuchipudi from the Department of Vete...
Jet fuel from thin air
07 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Scientists in Switzerland have developed a system which uses solar energy to extract gases such as hydrogen and carbon dioxide from the air and turns ...
Can we still avoid climate catastrophe?
31 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Just a few days before COP26 opens in Glasgow, the World Meteorological Organisation reported record greenhouse gas levels, despite a fall in CO2 due ...
Red blood cells’ surprising immune function
24 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
We’ve talked a huge amount the past 18 months, for obvious reasons, about the way that white blood cells protect us from infection. But red blood ce...
Wetlands under attack
15 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Since its introduction four decades ago, Spartina alterniflora, a salt-water cordgrass from the USA, has been spreading along China’s coasts. Today,...
Youngest rock samples from the moon
10 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
n December 2020, China's Chang'e-5 mission returned to earth carrying rock samples collected from the moon – the first lunar samples to be collected...
Drug resistant malaria found in East Africa
03 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Since their discovery in the 1970s, artemisinin-based drugs have become the mainstay of treatment for malaria caused by the Plasmodium falciparum para...
New evidence for SARS-CoV-2’s origin in bats
26 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Researchers studying bats in Northern Laos have found evidence that brings us closer than ever to understanding the origin of Covid-19. Since the begi...
Ebola can remain dormant for five years
19 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
An international team of researchers has discovered that an outbreak of Ebola in Guinea in February this year was the result of re-activated Ebola vir...
Keep most fossil fuel in ground to meet 1.5 degree goal
12 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
For the world to have a decent chance of limiting global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees, 90 per cent of remaining coal reserves and 60% of unexploite...
Methane - a climate solution?
15 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The latest IPCC assessment raised alarm about the rate at which manmade emissions are contributing to climate change. Much of the focus for action is ...
Record-shattering weather
08 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
July 2021 saw temperatures in the western US and Canada smash previous records by 5 degrees. And that’s what we should expect, according to a study ...
Insects in incredible detail
04 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The Natural History Museum in London holds a massive collection of insects. It asked researchers at the Diamond light source, a facility near Oxford, ...
Nyiragongo Eruption
29 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The latest Nyiragongo eruption was not entirely unexpected, the volcano’s lava lake inside the crater had been building up for years. Local volcano...
Robot revolution
23 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
A brain-computer interface allows a severely paralysed patient not only to move and use a robotic arm, but also to feel the sensations as the mechanic...
Covid and clean air
16 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
We wouldn’t drink dirty water so why do we put up with polluted air? Researchers are calling for a major rethink on our attitude to air quality. Pro...
Africa’s oldest burial
09 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Analysis of the 78,0000-year-old fossil of a Kenyan boy reveals he was likely buried with care and attention, the body wrapped and laid to rest suppor...
Uncovering history with Little Foot's skull
07 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
One of our most complete ancient ancestor’s fossils has been transported to the UK from South Africa in order to be scanned at the Diamond Light Sou...
Waste not, want not
28 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Although vaccines will go a long way to reducing the number of cases of Covid, there’s still a need for other approaches. One of these could be an e...
Weird weather
21 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
A paper in the BMJ shows that deaths from Covid 9 are being massively overlooked in Zambia. The new data come from post-mortem tests at the University...
Perseverance approaches Mars
14 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
On 18th February the Perseverance rover should land on Mars. Katie Stack-Morgan of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab tells Roland Pease about the technologi...
Mixing Covid vaccines
07 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
A new trial is about to start in the UK, seeing if different vaccines can be mixed and matched in a two-dose schedule, and whether the timing matters....
Saving the Northern White Rhino
24 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Northern white rhinos are extinct in the wild and there are just two females in captivity in Kenya. Conservationists are working on an artificial bree...
Gravitational waves and black holes
17 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
After collecting data for more than twelve years the North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves (NANOGrav) announced it may have det...
New variants of SARS-Cov2
10 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Mutant strains of SARS-Cov2 have been identified not only in the UK, where it was first identified, but also in at least 30 other countries. And to co...
Coping with Covid
03 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
This has been an incredible year for scientific advance and collaboration, epitomised by the roll out of vaccines that didn’t exist a year ago, agai...
2021 the year of variants
02 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In our first programme of the year, we gathered a group of scientific experts directly involved in analysing the structure and impact of the SARS- Cov...
A year with Covid -19
27 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
It was the end of December 2019 when reports of a new flu like infection first came out of China. Within weeks millions of people were in lockdown as ...
Covid -19 – Mutations are normal
20 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
This week the UK Health secretary raised concerns over a new variant of SARS- CoV-2 currently spreading across Europe. Viruses mutate all the time so ...
The unchecked spread of Covid-19 in Manaus
13 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Pictures of coffins and mass graves seen by satellites showed that Manaus has been badly affected by Covid- 19. Now analysis of blood samples shows th...
Freak weather getting even freakier
08 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
This year’s Atlantic hurricane season has seen a new record for severe storms says Climatologist Michael Mann. He says warming oceans are one of the...
Vaccines – the Covid confusion
29 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
While developing new treatments drug companies usually release little useful information on how the clinical trials are progressing. However with the ...
Covid- 19 – Good news on immunity
22 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Tests on patients for up to 8 months following their infection with SARS- CoV-2 suggests an immune response can persist. Alessandro Sette and Daniela ...
Covid-19 defeats US Marines
15 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The WHO is working with China to try and pinpoint the source of SARS- COV-2. Sian Griffiths, Emeritus Professor of Public Health at the Chinese Univer...
Coronavirus spreads from mink to humans
08 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
All the farmed mink in Denmark are to be killed. Around 17 million. This is because they have SARS COV-2 coronavirus circulating among them and some h...
Osiris Rex stows asteroid material
01 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Last week NASA’s Osiris-Rex mission successfully touched down on asteroid Bennu’s crumbly surface. But the spacecraft collected so much material t...
Nasa probe Osiris Rex lands on asteroid
25 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Science in Action talks to Nasa researcher Hannah Kaplan who is part of the team for the space agency’s sampling mission to the asteroid Bennu. Miss...
Covid -19 mortality
18 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Why is there such a range in the number of deaths from Covid -19 between countries? A study of the data across 21 industrialised countries reveals a w...
Do Covid–19 mutations matter?
11 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Data from clinical investigations has suggested that a specific mutation in the SARS-Cov -2 virus has made it more transmissible. This finding is now ...
Are children the biggest Covid-19 spreaders?
04 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
An analysis of Covid-19 data from South India shows children more than any other group are transmitting the virus both to other children and adults, E...
Why Covid -19 vaccines may not stop transmission
27 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
While vaccines against Covid -19 are being developed at unprecedented speed, none of them have been tested to see if they can actually stop transmissi...
Malaria resistance breakthrough
20 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Some East Africans have a genetic mutation which gives them resistance to Malaria. Investigations into how it works have produced a surprising finding...
Covid -19 science versus politics
13 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
With the announcement in the UK of investment in rapid testing for people who may not have Covid -19 we ask why is this only happening now? For months...
Nyiragongo - is Goma under threat?
06 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
A new survey of the volcano's activity suggests there may be an eruption in the next 4 to 7 years. It's a particular concern for the populations of Go...
Covid-19 Therapy Controversy
29 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
This week Science in Action examines the evidence around the Trump Administration’s emergency use authorisation of convalescent plasma therapy for t...
Trouble in Greenland
23 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Has the loss from Greenland’s vast ice sheet reached a tipping point? According to glaciologist Michalea King, the rate at which its ice flows into ...
Putin’s Covid-19 vaccine
16 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Russia’s President Putin announced the registration of a vaccine for coronavirus. This was reported with widespread alarm amid concerns over safety,...
Counting the heat health threat from climate change
09 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
If the world does not curb its greenhouse gas emissions, by the end of this century, the number of people dying annually because of extreme heat will ...
NASA rover heads for Mars ancient lake
02 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
NASA launches its new robotic mission to Mars. The rover, Perseverance, will land in a 50 kilometre wide crater which looks like it was filled by a l...
Making a Covid-19 vaccine for two billion people
26 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
There's been encouraging news about the Oxford Covid-19 vaccine this week from a trial involving about 1,000 people. But how great is the challenge in...
How long do Covid-19 antibodies last?
18 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Science in Action looks at some of the latest research on how response of our immune system to infection by the coronavirus. Researchers at Kings Co...
Rwanda’s game changing coronavirus test
11 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
African scientists have developed a reliable, quick and cheap testing method which could be used by worldwide as the basis for mass testing programmes...
Covid-19 and children
05 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Studies in children who have been severely affected by Covid-19 in Italy, Britain and the US are showing the same thing – a range of symptoms linked...
Record high temperatures – in the Arctic
28 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
A record summer temperature in Siberia is an indication of major changes in the Arctic climate. Changing weather patterns there have a knock on effect...
Covid -19 hope for severe cases
21 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
A multi arm trial testing a range of drugs has shown that readily available steroids can be lifesaving for people severely ill with Covid-19. Max Parm...
Food security, locusts and Covid -19
14 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Despite the Covid-19 pandemic efforts to counter massive swarms of locusts across East Africa have continued. In many places this has been very effect...
The medical complexity of Covid -19
07 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Autopsies show Covid 19 can affect the brain and other organs. Pathologist Mary Fowkes from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai found the sign...
Brazil’s Covid chaos
31 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The number of cases of Covid -19 infections in Brazil and deaths related to the pandemic may be much higher than official figures show. Testing of the...
Loosening lockdown
17 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
How is Covid -19 spread? Who is most at risk and what are the circumstances under which it is most likely to be transmitted? These questions need answ...
Covid -19 new hope from blood tests
10 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Research from New York examining the blood of people who have recovered from Covid – 19 shows the majority have produced antibodies against the dise...
Ebola drug offers hope for Covid-19
03 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Remdesivir a drug eventually rejected as a treatment for Ebola seems to have aided recovery in a trial with more than a thousand Covid -19 patients. R...
Presidents and pandemics
26 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
President Trump has repeated unfounded claims that scientists created Covid-19 in a lab. Rigorous scrutiny of the genetics of the virus reveals no evi...
Italy, getting Covid 19 under control
19 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Italy is beginning its first tentative steps towards ending its lockdown. These are small steps, opening a few shops in areas where virus transmission...
The impossibility of social distancing and even handwashing in crowded refugee camps
12 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Massively over crowded Moria refugee camp on the Greek island of Lesbos has seen numbers grow from 5 to 20 thousand in a matter of months. Hundreds of...
Covid 19 – The fightback in Africa begins
05 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Nigeria has seen a small number of Covid -19 cases, largely spread amongst the most affluent, people who travel abroad, However there is concern about...
The science of social distancing
29 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The strong social distancing policies introduced by China seem to have been successful in stopping the spread of Covid 19. Without any effective drug ...
Covid -19, are you carrying the virus?
22 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In Italy the entire population of a small town was tested for Covid 19. Of those infected, one in three people with no symptoms had the virus. And fro...
Covid -19 how infectious is it really?
15 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Covid- 19 cases seem to be multiplying daily and there is now a growing body of scientific evidence both on its spread and the effectiveness of measur...
Australia’s fires - fuelled by climate change
08 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Attributing Australia's bush fires, a major study says man-made climate change was a big driver – making the fires at least 30% worse than they woul...
Tracking coronavirus spread
01 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The appearance of Covid -19 in Italy and Iran surprised many this week. As the virus continues to spread we look at ways to contain it.Australia’s f...
Monitoring Covid-19, harvests and space junk
23 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Roland Pease reports from the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s annual meeting in Seattle. At the UK Research and Innovation’s...
CoVid-19: Mapping the outbreak
16 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Researchers at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical medicine have developed an online map which presents the latest information on the spread of ...
Coronavirus, prospects for treatment?
09 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Doctors in the US have treated a coronavirus patient with a drug developed for Ebola. That drug had never been tested on people so its use here seems ...
Understanding the Wuhan coronavirus
02 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Parts of China are on lockdown, a small number of cases have been reported in other countries and the past week has brought widely conflicting views o...
Wuhan Coronavirus
26 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The way in which a new virus has emerged in China is reminiscent of SARS, a highly infectious virus that spread rapidly. It’s so similar that Health...
Mount Taal volcano
19 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
An experimental satellite called Aeolus, named after a Greek god of wind, which takes daily global measurements of the wind patterns throughout the de...
Australia’s extreme fire season
12 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
2019 was Australia’s hottest year on record, a major factor behind the bush fires which have been far worse than usual. We look at the patterns of e...
Adapting California
05 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Roland Pease is joined by California based science Journalist Molly Bentley as we examine the impact of earthquakes and fires. California has experien...
Gaming climate change
29 Dec 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The latest round of climate negotiations, COP25 have ended without agreement on many fundamental issues. We join researchers from Perdue University in...
Understanding the Anak Krakatau eruption
22 Dec 2019
Contributed by Lukas
We have the latest from a year long investigation into the causes of the December 2018 Indonesian Tsunami. And we get a look at the first pictures fro...