Unexpected Elements
Episodes
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...
White Island volcano eruption
15 Dec 2019
Contributed by Lukas
From the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco, Roland Pease talks with Diana Roman of the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington DC abo...
CRISPR babies scandal – more details
08 Dec 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Extracts from unpublished papers on the methods used by a Chinese scientist to genetically modify the embryos of two girls reveal a series of potentia...
New Malaria target
02 Dec 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Molecular scale investigations have identified the mechanism which confers resistance to antimalarial drugs. Researchers hope work to turn off this me...
Politics and Amazonia’s fires
24 Nov 2019
Contributed by Lukas
This year’s Amazon fires have been worse than since 2010, scientists blame a government attitude which they say has encouraged deforestation. Govern...
Australia burning
17 Nov 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Australia’s annual wild fires have started early this year, drought is a factor but to what extent is ‘Bush fire weather’ influenced by climate ...
Climate in crisis
10 Nov 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Pledges to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are largely unachievable says a major audit of commitments to the Paris Climate Accord. Air pollution in De...
Wildfires and winds in California
03 Nov 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The Santa Ana in the south, and the Diablo in the north, are winds that are fuelling the terrible fires raging in California this week. They’re also...
Is quantum supremacy ‘garbage’?
27 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
A quantum computer has performed a calculation considered impossible for conventional computers, but how meaningful is the result? As our guest reveal...
Malaria, origins and a potential new treatment
20 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
A variety of malarial parasites have existed amongst the great apes for millennia, we look at how one of them jumped species and why humans became its...
From batteries to distant worlds
13 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Nobel prizes this week went to a range of discoveries that you might be familiar with, in fact you might be using one of them right now – the lithiu...
Global climate inaction
29 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
This week’s IPCC report on the state of the world’s climate looks very much like their earlier reports on the subject. The document cautiously exp...
South East Asia choking - again
25 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Staying indoors might seem a good way to avoid air pollution, but scientists studying the fires in Indonesia have found there is little difference bet...
Embryoids from stem cells
15 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Scientists know very little about the first few days of the life of a human embryo, once it's been implanted in the womb. Yet this is when the majorit...
New evidence of nuclear reactor explosion
07 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
An isotopic fingerprint is reported of a nuclear explosion in Russia last month. Researchers ask people living in the area or nearby to send them samp...
Nanotube computer says hello
31 Aug 2019
Contributed by Lukas
A computer processor made of carbon nanotubes is unveiled to the world. Also, the continuing quest for nuclear fusion energy, and the stats on crocodi...
Amazonian fires likely to worsen
24 Aug 2019
Contributed by Lukas
As fires across the amazon basin continue to burn, we speak to the researchers watching from space and from the ground. Also, new pictures back from t...
Cracking the case of the Krakatoa volcano collapse
18 Aug 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Scientists this week are on expedition around the volcano Anak Krakatoa, which erupted and collapsed in 2018 leading to the loss of some 400 lives on ...
The birth of a new volcano
26 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
A new undersea volcano has appeared off the coast of East Africa. The sea floor between Madagascar and Mozambique has become increasingly seismically ...