Science In Action

The highly pathogenic strain of bird flu, H5N1, has arrived on the continent. Australian bird specialist Megan Dewar, from the Federation University of Australia, has led a mission aboard the research ship the Australis.

Science in Action remembers physicist Peter Higgs 60 years after his Nobel prize winning theory of the Higgs particle.

The unfolding scandal of manipulated data behind claims of incredible room-temperature superconductivity. Science writer Dan Garisto has seen the details in a Rochester University internal investigation.

And the alga – single-celled seaweed – with superpowers. As well as capturing carbon from CO2 in the atmosphere, like other plants, this one can directly capture nitrogen too, essential for life, but which few organisms can do for themselves. We hear from the marine scientist who has revealed this evolutionary trick.

Presenter: Roland Pease Producer: Jonathan Blackwell Production Coordinator: Jana Bennett-Holesworth

(Image: KAPPA-FLU team selecting skua carcasses for post-mortem examination. Credit: Ben Wallis)

A powerful earthquake hit Taiwan on Wednesday morning, but thanks to the country’s early warning system and engineering-preparedness, there was little destruction and few deaths. Seismologist Ross Stein, CEO of earthquake consultancy Temblor, Inc., shares his analysis. The highly pathogenic bird flu H5N1 has been detected in cattle in the US and in a cattle handler in Texas. To learn more about this special animal-to-human transmission, Roland speaks to virologist Richard Webby of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Tennessee and Director of the World Health Organization Collaborating Center for Studies on the Ecology of Influenza in Animals. French Space Institute Supaero in Toulouse is collaborating with Japan’s space agency JAXA to send and land a rover on Phobos, one of Mars’ tiny moons. Roland travels to the University of Toulouse to learn more about building this wheeled Rover from Supaero’s Naomi Murdoch.

Transitioning to a clean energy future requires mining materials like rare earth minerals, but how will this impact our environment? Jessi Junker of the ecology charity ReWild explains her research and concerns for great apes as mining for these materials expands in Africa.

Presenter: Roland Pease Producers: Roland Pease, Ella Hubber, Jonathan Blackwell Researcher: Imaan Moin Production Coordinator: Jana Bennett-Holesworth

(Photo: Damaged building caused by the earthquake in Hualien on April 4, 2024. Credit: SAM YEH/AFP via Getty Images)

3000 light years from Earth, a white dwarf star called T Coronae Borealis is on the brink of a “once-in-a-lifetime” explosion. Astrophysicist Bradley Schaefer is enthusiastic about the bright star set to appear in the night sky in the coming months.

Professor Irving Weissman has been researching ways to restore youth using mouse models for decades. He has sewn old and young mice together to join their circulatory systems and has found that giving old mice blood from younger mice reverses some signs of ageing. In his group’s paper, the use of an antibody-based therapy has been shown to restore a declining immune system in ageing mice. Not quite the fountain of youth but potentially a key step in halting many age-related diseases. Roland gets the details from Irving and first-author Dr Jason Ross.

And, in the small town of Cabrières in Southern France, producer Ella Hubber goes on the hunt for some 480-million-year-old fossils with part-time fossil prospectors Eric and Sylvie Monceret. Their latest excavation site is a gold mine of rare, soft-bodied fossils from the period during a time when this part of France was underwater. And at the South Pole.

Presenter: Roland Pease Producer: Ella Hubber

(Photo: Illustration of the northern springtime constellations of Lyra, Hercules, Corona Borealis, and Bootes. Credit: Alan Dyer/Stocktrek Images)

The last great "out of Arica" movement of our ancestors swept out of the northeast of the continent 74,000 years ago. Archaeologist John Kappelman of the University of Texas brings us an update to this complex tale in the form of animal carcasses.

We take a trip to Oxford to meet some of postgraduate researcher Ally Morton-Hayward's archive of preserved brains. Not only is Ally shining a light on these underappreciated brains, she is also using them to unlock a rich treasure-trove of information about our ancestors and how they were preserved.

How do you develop and promote a vaccine against a widespread but neglected parasite? Maria Elena Bottazzi from Baylor College of Medicine is in India promoting their latest development in creating a hookworm vaccine that works against these life-limiting childhood parasites.

And, is the Chandra X-Ray Observatory at risk? In a decision that has shocked astronomers, the functioning telescope is on the chopping block because of NASA budget cuts. We hear from Belinda Wilkes of Bristol University about Chandra’s impressive history and why it should keep going.

Presenter/producer: Roland Pease Researcher: Katie Tomsett Production co-ordinator: Jana Bennett-Holesworth

(Image: Sunset in savannah of Africa. Credit: Anton Petrus via Getty Images)

After a twelve-month set of climate records driven by global warming it is time to take stock of how we’re impacting the planet as a species.

Coral biologist Kate Quigley, of the Minderoo Foundation and James Cook University, dives into the 8th mass bleaching event at the Great Barrier Reef. We explore how deadly heat stress continues to threaten this underwater paradise and induce mass sickness in the corals that call it home. Heading onto land we reunite with Mike Flannigan, Professor of Fire Science at Thompson Rivers University, after a record-breaking Canadian forest fire season in 2023 we ask if conditions are set for a repeat.

And what about the human cost of these climbing temperatures? In the future 800 million outdoor workers in the tropics may be exposed to intolerable heat stress. However, Yuta Masuda, director of science at the Paul G Allen Family Foundation, advises that options for individual action may be limited for workers to protect themselves.

One of the driving forces behind a record year of global warming is the now waning El Niño system. With its counterpart, La Niña, due to pick up in 2024, we ask NOAA oceanographer Mike McPhaden what to expect from this transition and if we are headed for a turbulent hurricane season. Presenter/producer: Roland Pease Researcher: Katie Tomsett Production co-ordinator: Jana Bennett-Holesworth

(Photo: The McDougall Creek wildfire burns in the hills West Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada, on 17 August, 2023. Credit: Darren Hull/ AFP)

Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope think they have seen the glow from the first generation of stars after the Big Bang. Newton Kavli Fellow Hannah Übler discusses.

The Anthropocene is meant to mean the latest geological era in which humanity is shaping the rocks and environment of our planet. But an unexpected vote by a commission has declined the idea of making this an official definition. Roland hears from one of its leading proponents, geologist Jan Zalasiewicz, about what happened and why it matters.

And, new research indicates that bumblebees can show each other how to solve puzzles too complex for them to learn on their own. Professor Lars Chittka put these clever insects to the test and found that they could learn through social interaction. How exactly did the experiment work, and what does this mean for our understanding of social insects? Reporter Hannah Fisher visits the bee lab at Queen Mary University in London.

Plus, the subterranean South American snake, or rather snake-like amphibian, that feeds its hatchlings milk from specially evolved glands. Brazilian biologist Carlos Jared explains more about this species’ nurturing behaviour.

Presenter: Roland Pease Producer: Roland Pease Production Coordinator: Jana Bennett-Holesworth

(Photo: A portion of the GOODS-North field of galaxies, highlighting the galaxy GN-z11, which is seen at a time just 430 million years after the Big Bang. Credit: Nasa/ESA/CSA/B. Robertson (UC Santa Cruz), B. Johnson (CfA), S. Tacchella (Cambridge), M. Rieke (University of Arizona), D. Eisenstein (CfA))

The All of Us Research Program is undergoing the herculean task of gathering genomic data from over one million people living in the United States, from widely different backgrounds, in the hopes of accelerating health care research. However, within the scientific community many, including Ewan Birney, deputy director general of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory, are concerned that the way some of this data has been framed in a recent paper could reinforce racist beliefs. We also learn about the program and hear a response to the criticism from Josh Denny, the CEO of the All of Us Research Program.

Over the past two years, a deadly version of bird flu, H5N1, has been spreading around the globe, killing hundreds of thousands of birds and mammals in the process. Isolated from the rest of the world, animals in Antarctica have been safe from the virus so far. But, virologist Antonio Alcamí, who is located on the continents Spanish base, confirms that bird flu has reached them, infecting Antarctic skua seabirds.

And, on a less serious note, can the smell of a female cause premature death? Maybe in mice. Researcher Mike Garratt goes over the intriguing results in his new mouse study.

Presenter: Roland Pease Producer: Ella Hubber Production co-ordinator: Jana Bennett-Holesworth

(Image: Colorful diverse crowd in modern collage. Credit: Dedraw Studio via Getty Images)

A monumental Covid vaccine safety study of 99 million vaccinated people confirms just how rare adverse effects are and combats growing vaccine misinformation. Co-director of the Global Vaccine Data Helen Network goes through the results of this massive study.

This week, Science in Action is bringing you not one, but two extraordinary astronomical discoveries. First, Webb Fellow Olivia Jones on the star hidden in the heart of only supernova visible from Earth. Second, astrophysicist Samuel Lai on what is possibly the brightest object in our universe – a whopping 500tn times brighter than our sun – a star eating quasar.

And Roland chats with biologist Charlotte Houldcroft who was one of the first to blow the whistle on an absurd, AI generated image which somehow made it through the peer review process.

Presenter: Roland Pease Producer: Ella Hubber Production Coordinator: Jana Bennett-Holesworth

(Image: A health worker injects a man with a shot of the Inavac vaccine for Covid-19. Credit: BAY ISMOYO/AFP via Getty Images)

High-profile climate scientist Michael Mann has been embroiled in a 12-year battle against conservative commentators who claimed his data was fraudulent. Last week, he was awarded $1m in a defamation lawsuit. Michael joins Science in Action to discuss the case and the impact it may have.

Also, this week, Karyn Rode from the US Geological Survey has been using cameras on collars to track polar bear movement and diet. She tells Roland how the data reveals the devastating effect of sea ice loss on the bears.

Widescale blackouts in Africa, known as loadshedding, are getting worse. Chemist and winner of The Royal Society Rising Star Africa Prize 2023, Wade Peterson, has an innovative chemical solution to the problem.

And using a forest to detect the most violent astrophysical sources in our universe? Physicist Steven Prohira thinks it’s possible.

Presenter: Roland Pease Producer: Ella Hubber Production Coordinator: Jana Bennett-Holesworth

(Image: Dr. Michael E. Mann is seen outside of the H. Carl Moultrie Courthouse on February 5, 2024 in Washington, DC. Credit: Pete Kiehart for The Washington Post via Getty Images)

Should CERN be spending $17 billion on a new atom smasher whilst we face, climate change, the most pressing crisis of our time? Materials-turned environmental scientist Mark Miodownik and CERN physicist Kate Shaw debate the issue.

One of the issues Mark argues more people should be tackling are the climate change driven forest fires which recently ravaged Chile and killed more than 100 people. Chilean climate scientist Raul Cordero discusses the factors which led to the devastating fires.

And Nasa physicist and oceanographer Susanne Craig explains their freshly launched satellite PACE, which hopes to get a better picture of our changing oceans and use this information to tackle climate change. A quest Nasa manages to achieve whilst also trying to answer the big questions about our universe.

Presenter: Roland Pease Producer: Ella Hubber Production co-ordinator: Jana Bennett-Holesworth

(Photo: Firefighters work at the Botanical Garden after a forest fire in Viña del Mar, Chile, 4 February, 2024. Credit: Javier Torres/AFP)

Starting upbeat this week, engineer Teddy Tzanetos, team lead of NASA’s Ingenuity mission, talks on the Mars-based helicopter which defied all expectations. Our big story this week is on the scientific papers and research databases which contain the DNA profile of thousands of people from persecuted ethnic minorities in China. This data is often collected in association with security forces. Computational biologist and campaigner Yves Moreau now leads the call for scrutiny and the retraction of these papers and databases, which lack evidence of free and informed consent. We often cover the ever-growing threat of bird flu to mammalian populations on Science in Action. But how does the virus make the successful leap from bird to mammal cells? Virologist Wendy Barclay discusses the potential tricks the virus uses to adapt and grow.

And, finally, zoologist Sam Fabian has been trying to answer the question everyone thinks they already know: why are moths attracted to artificial light?

Presenter: Roland Pease Producer: Ella Hubber Production Coordinator: Jana Bennett-Holesworth

(Image: Protest in Urumqi in China's far west Xinjiang province on July 7, 2009. Credit: PETER PARKS/AFP via Getty Images)

Molecular biologist Prof Jason Chin tells us about his research into accelerated evolution and how it could help create new substances to be used in medicine, chemistry and more.

In South America, palaeogeneticist Dr Verena Schuenemann has been extracting genetic material from human remains to find out more about treponemal diseases, which include syphilis, yaws and bejel.

And moving across the Atlantic to the Mediterranean, volcanologist Professor Timothy Druitt has discovered new evidence of a massive volcano that erupted beneath the sea near Santorini around 500,000 years ago.

Staying in the Mediterranean, we speak to Professor Rachel Flecker, co-chief scientist on Expedition 401 of the International Ocean Discovery Program. She and her team are drilling down into the seabed to establish how the Gibraltar Strait has altered over time. As well as influencing the Mediterranean's salinity, this changing movement of water has impacted the entire planet's oceans and climate.

Presenter: Roland Pease Producer: Alice Lipscombe-Southwell Production co-ordinator: Jana Bennett-Holesworth

(Image Credit: Thomas Ronge)

African swine fever has now reached Southeast Asia.This part of the world has high diversity in wild pigs, some of which are endemic to their native islands. In Borneo, pigs are a hugely important food source for indigenous populations, and are a vital prey species for many big cats. In some regions, the pig populations have now dropped by 90 to 100 per cent due to swine fever. Conservationist Dr Erik Meijaard explains what this could mean for Borneo.

Sticking with diseases, the World Mosquito Program breeds mosquitoes infected with Wolbachia. Why? Because mosquitoes infected with this bacteria are unable to become carriers of dengue, Zika and other mosquito-borne diseases. Dr Scott O'Neill of the World Mosquito Program talks about their latest research and the massive mosquito factory they're building in Brazil this year.

Finally this week, Dr Nitzan Gonen discusses her new study, where mouse testes organoids have been grown in the lab. She tells us about the potential applications for this research.

Presenter: Roland Pease Producer: Alice Lipscombe-Southwell Production co-ordinator: Jana Bennett-Holesworth

(Photo: Bornean bearded pig. Credit: Sylvain Cordier/Getty Images)

The James Webb Space Telescope has revealed the clearest ever view of the stunning Cassiopeia A supernova, complete with a weird feature called 'the green monster'. Professor Dan Milisavljevic, an astronomer at Purdue University, tells us all about his research into this space-based beauty.

Professor Tamara Davis from the University of Queensland has been turning her eye to far more distant supernovas, and explains how they have given us new insight into the Universe's expansion.

Moving on to human history, William Barrie from the University of Cambridge tells us about a new study that explores the reason for high levels of multiple sclerosis in northern Europe.

And going further back in time, researcher Ethan Mooney has studied a sample of fossilised skin, which may be the oldest ever discovered.

Presenter: Roland Pease Producer: Alice Lipscombe-Southwell Editor: Martin Smith Production co-ordinator: Jana Bennett-Holesworth

(Photo: Cassiopeia A Supernova. Credit: Nasa, ESA, CSA, STScI, Danny Milisavljevic, Purdue University, Ilse De Looze, UGent, Tea Temim, Princeton University)

In this episode of Science in Action, we find out that tuberculosis (TB) is the leading cause of death in South Africa.

After visiting a clinic dedicated to the diagnosis and treatment of TB, Roland Pease meets researcher Professor Grant Theron at Stellenbosch University, who explains why the disease is still so prevalent.

Next we hear from Professor Novel Chegou and his student Candice Snyders, also based at Stellenbosch University. They are researching biomarkers to diagnose tuberculosis and have already successfully developed a rapid finger-prick test to identify TB.

Roland then chats to vaccine researcher Professor Thomas Scriba at the University of Cape Town, who reveals more about the current landscape of TB vaccination.

Presenter: Roland Pease Producer: Ella Hubber Editor: Martin Smith Production co-ordinator: Jana Bennett-Holesworth

(Photo: Frontline healthcare workers wear a protective mask and tb mask to prevent the spread of airborne disease. Credit: stockstudioX/Getty Images)

In this special episode of Science in Action, Roland Pease travels to South Africa to gain a deeper understanding of human origins.

Along the way, he speaks to ichnologist Charles Helm and national parks ecologist Mike Fabricius, who take him to a special – and extremely windy – location, where early human footprints are permanently preserved in the rock. At the University of Cape Town, Roland speaks to Rieneke Weij and Georgina Luti. They are studying the geochemistry of rocks that existed in caves alongside our ancient relatives.

Across the city, in the Iziko South African Museum, Wendy Black and Amy Sephton discuss the ways in which we think about our deep past and how we can decolonise the human story.

Presenter: Roland Pease Producer: Ella Hubber Editor: Martin Smith Production co-ordinator: Jana Bennett-Holesworth (Image: Human fossilized footprint in hardened mud or clay. Credit: Waltkopp/Getty Images)

This week, the Reykjanes volcano in Iceland has erupted, following weeks of seismic activity. Edward Wayne Marshall, from the University of Iceland, brings us the latest science about the volcano.

Also this week, the UK's 40-year-old JET fusion facility has been switched off. Roland Pease went along to watch.

Fusion facilities are trying to create clean energy by replicating the processes in the Sun. And the Sun itself is currently approaching solar maximum, which means we may get to enjoy more spectacular auroras but could also experience widespread radio blackouts. Solar physicist Dibyendu Nandi, from the Centre of Excellence in Space Sciences in Kolkata, tells us more.

And in the outer reaches of our Solar System, the iconic Voyager 1 craft has started sending back nonsense data. William Kurth, who has worked on Voyager since its launch in 1977, reveals his personal and scientific connection to the mission.

Presenter: Roland Pease Producer: Alice Lipscombe-Southwell Editor: Martin Smith Production Co-ordinator: Jana Bennett-Holesworth

(Image: Volcano Erupts On Iceland's Reykjanes Peninsula. Credit: Micah Garen/Getty Images)

An international team of researchers led by the University of Cambridge’s Prof Stephen O’Rahilly have discovered that sensitivity to the hormone GDF15 may cause severe morning sickness during pregnancy. Dr Marlena Fejzo, who took part in the study, tells us more.

Back in September, the OSIRIS-REx craft dropped a sample from the asteroid Bennu into the Utah desert. Now, scientists around the world have started studying the dust fragments in earnest. We join Dr Ashley King from the Natural History Museum in London and beamline scientist Dr Sharif Ahmed as they embark on their research.

Professor Scott Fendorf, from the University of Stanford, reveals that wildfire smoke contains heavy metals, which may be why it’s so damaging to our health.

Dr Junjie Yao from Duke University has worked on a new 'sono-ink'. This ink can be used to 3D print structures within the body, which can be used to mend tissues, bones and organs.

Presenter: Roland Pease Producer: Alice Lipscombe-Southwell Editor: Martin Smith Production Co-ordinator: Jana Bennett-Holesworth

(Photo: Young pregnant woman, 35 years old, feeling sick on a toilet. Credit: Getty Images)

The burning of fossil fuels releases the greenhouse gas CO2. Many countries at COP28 have expressed an interest in using carbon capture technology to permanently capture and store this CO2. Climate and energy expert Dr Richard Black tells us more about this technology and how helpful it is in the fight against climate change.

Sticking with COP28, Dr Manjana Milkoreit, from the University of Oslo, contributed to this week’s Global Tipping Points report, which revealed the Earth could be racing toward a set of critical thresholds that will put the Earth into a new state.

Dr Joyce Kimutai is also at COP28. Originally from Kenya, she’s the lead author of a new paper from World Weather Attribution. The paper found that climate change has made deadly rainfall in East Africa up to two times more intense.

And finally, this week Professor Dany Azar published a paper in Current Biology that not only identified the oldest fossilised mosquito, but also found that it was a male with blood-sucking mouthparts – a trait only seen in female mosquitoes today.

Presenter: Roland Pease Producer: Alice Lipscombe-Southwell Editor: Martin Smith Production Co-ordinator: Jana Bennett-Holesworth

(Image: TBC. Credit: TBC / Getty Images)

This week, the RRS Sir David Attenborough arrived in Antarctica to start its first full season of science in the polar region. Dr Nadine Johnston reveals more about the mission and the research they’ll be carrying out.

Next up, medical geneticist Professor Shahida Moosa and her student Jessica Jane Cormick are working to help diagnose and treat rare diseases. They explain why better genetic databases for Africans are urgently needed.

We also hear from Simon Evans of the Carbon Brief, who has just completed an analysis that found the responsibility for climate change dramatically shifts once historical rule and colonialism are taken into account.

Finally, a new study has revealed that emissions from coal-fired power plants have led to the deaths of nearly half a million Americans in the last 20 years. Professor Cory Zigler, from the University of Texas at Austin, tells us more.

Presenter: Roland Pease Producer: Alice Lipscombe-Southwell Editor: Martin Smith Production Co-ordinator: Jana Bennett-Holesworth Sounds provided by: Nadine Johnston and Katherine Turner from BAS and the University of Southampton

(Image: A general view of the RRS David Attenborough vessel on October 28, 2021 in Greenwich, England. Credit: Photo by Leon Neal/Getty Images)

This month, Brazil has seen some of its highest recorded temperatures. The country’s Pantanal wetlands, the largest tropical wetlands in the world, have been scorched by wildfires. The region is home to vibrant wildlife, including jaguars, anacondas and various birds.

Professor Letícia Couto Garcia, leader of the Intervention Ecology Lab at Mato Grosso Federal University in the South, Brazil, talks about some of the challenges she’s experienced.

Staying with extreme temperatures, Dr Robert Rohde of the independent non-profit, Berkeley Earth, reveals what the recently recorded excess of 2°C means.

This week, we learned that an extremely energetic particle had been detected. Dr Toshihiro Fujii of Osaka Municipal University tells us how he first made the discovery after trawling through some data. We then hear from Dr Yvette Cendes, an astronomer who specialises in high-energy physics, to find out more about the origins of this particle.

Finally, Science in Action visits the South African Astronomical Observatory, to learn about the projects that could bring more diverse voices to our understanding of the night sky.

Presenter: Roland Pease Producer: Alice Lipscombe-Southwell Editor: Martin Smith Production Co-ordinator: Jana Bennett-Holesworth (Image: Firefighters tackle forest fires in the Pantanal wetland near Porto Jofre, Mato Grosso State, Brazil, on November 13, 2023. Credit: ROGERIO FLORENTINO/AFP via Getty Images)

Increased tremors have been felt in Iceland, and concerns about an impending eruption have led to the evacuation of the town of Grindavik. Geophysicist Dr Freysteinn Sigmundsson reveals more about the events and whether this area of Iceland may be entering a new period of volcanic activity that could span centuries.

Also, Google DeepMind’s new GraphCast system could revolutionise weather forecasting. Rémi Lam from Google DeepMind and Dr Matthew Chantry from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts explain how it works.

Beyond warming our planet, climate change can have wide-ranging, unexpected impacts on people and the environment. Dr Christopher Trisos from the University of Cape Town has the lowdown.

Finally, recreating ancient seawater in the laboratory has given Dr Rosalie Tostevin, a geochemist from the University of Cape Town, additional information about the metals used by early microbes.

Presenter: Roland Pease Producer: Alice Lipscombe-Southwell Editor: Martin Smith Production Co-ordinator: Jana Bennett-Holesworth

(Image: Emergency services worker walking near a crack cutting across the main road in Grindavik, southwestern Iceland following earthquakes. Credit: KJARTAN TORBJOERNSSON/AFP via Getty Images)

This week we're out in the wild and noisy spaces in and around Cape Town, South Africa.

Ichnologist Charles Helm takes Roland on a bumpy ride in Walker Bay Nature Reserve to hunt for fossilised animal tracks, with a few brilliant surprises.

Producer Ella Hubber visits the SANCCOB seabird rehabilitation centre to speak to researcher Katta Ludynia about what challenges the African penguin faces. We also hear about the ever-present threat of bird flu from SANCCOB vet David Roberts.

And, in the beauty of Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens, Tess Gridley and her team from the African Bioacoustics Community are collecting the sounds of South Africa's diverse bird populations for the public and future conservation efforts.

Presenter: Roland Pease Producer: Ella Hubber Content Producer: Rema Mukena Editor: Martin Smith Production Co-ordinator: Jana Bennett-Holesworth (Image: Roland records Ichnologist Charles Helm at Walker Bay Nature Reserve. Credit: Ella Hubber)

Category 5 hurricane Otis, which devastated Acapulco, was supercharged by global warming; hurricane expert Kerry Emanual tells Science in Action.

Also, Brazilian ecologist Erika Berenguer has witnessed the destruction caused by the prolonged drought in Amazonia, where the rivers are drying up and the forest is burning.

And, climate scientists now say there is less time than previously thought to avoid further dangerous warming. Two climate scientists, Chris Smith and Norman Loeb, break the bad news - that the climate is more sensitive to greenhouse gases than forecasts have used.

Presenter: Roland Pease Producer: Ella Hubber Editor: Martin Smith Production co-ordinator: Jana Bennett-Holesworth

(Photo: A woman sits amongst the damage after Hurricane Otis. Credit: Silvana Flores/Getty Images)

Fear that the highly infectious variant of avian influenza, H5N1, would reach the Antarctic region and put isolated bird populations at risk has finally come to fruition as the first birds on Bird Island in the Atlantic Ocean have come down with the devastating illness. Science manager of the island, Ashley Bennison, explains the situation. Then, from one extreme climate to another - mummified mice have been found on the summit of volcanoes across the Andes, raising questions as to the capacity for vertebrates to survive in extreme conditions.

Kevin Langergraber has been studying the Ngogo chimpanzee community in Uganda for over 20 years. Now, Kevin and colleague Brian Wood tell us how this group are experiencing something thought to be unique amongst humans (and some whales): menopause.

And, how geophysicist Amir Kahn used seismic activity on Mars to understand what the core of our neighbouring planet is made of.

Presenter: Roland Pease Producer: Ella Hubber Editor: Martin Smith Production Co-ordinator: Jana Bennett-Holesworth

(Image: Wandering Albatross, Diomeda exulans, displaying at Cape Alexandra above Bird Sound and Bird Island in background South Georgia. Credit: Education Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

Accelerating seismic tremors are raising concerns for the thousands of people living atop a volcanic hot spot close to Naples, Italy. Volcanologist Alessandro Pino has been keeping a watchful eye on the developing situation.

We stay in Naples where, almost 2000 years ago, the eruption of Mount Vesuvius buried Pompeii, including thousands of scrolls turned to charcoal by the immense heat. This hasn’t stopped people from trying to read the scrolls, destroying hundreds in the process. Now, computer scientist Brent Seales has deployed AI and papyrologists worldwide to decipher the burnt text.

And from ancient scrolls to rainforest soundscapes, ecologist Zuzana Buřivalová has also been using AI to untangle the vast array of life heard in forests, old and new, as a tool to measure biodiversity.

Presenter: Roland Pease Producer: Ella Hubber Editor: Martin Smith Production Co-ordinator: Jana Bennett-Holesworth

(Image: A view of the fumaroles Pisciarelli in Agnano quarter of the Campi Flegrei, a volcano near Naples. Credit: Salvatore Laporta/KONTROLAB/LightRocket/Getty Images)

Lying atop a network of fault lines, where the Indian and Eurasian tectonic plates meet, Afghanistan is prone to earthquakes. However, the Herat area has not seen an event for almost 1000 years. As such, it was the least likely area to experience the series of devastating earthquakes and aftershocks which are reported to have killed thousands this week. Afghani seismologist Zekaria Shnizai discusses the factors which led to the disaster.

After a couple of delays, NASA’s Psyche mission is due to launch this Friday. It will map Psyche, a metal-rich asteroid orbiting the Sun between Mars and Jupiter. Project leader Lindy Elkins-Tanton's excitement for the project is infectious.

And can deep learning help us predict the next pandemic? Computational Biologist Debora Marks’ new tool, Evescape, can predict the most likely mutations a virus will gain under pressure. This could be a game changer.

Presenter: Roland Pease Producer: Ella Hubber Editor: Martin Smith Production Co-ordinator: Jana Bennett-Holesworth

(Image: An Afghan man sits amid the rubble after a massive 6.3 magnitude earthquake strikes the city of Herat. Credit: Esmatullah Habibian / Getty Images)

The 2023 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to Katalin Karikó and Drew Weismann for their contributions to developing the fundamentals that led to life saving mRNA vaccines. Although funding and support were not always assured on their road to the Nobel, Katalin Karikó tells Roland she used these setbacks to drive her towards success.

On the other side of the coin, allegations of scientific misconduct over bold room temperature superconductivity claims. Earlier this year, eleven authors submitted a paper to Nature. Now, eight of them are calling for a retraction. Science journalist Dan Garisto covers the story.

Also this week, NASA Ames researcher Jacob Kegerreis details how Saturn got its rings. Hint: It’s a smashing story.

And, what is the most fear inducing sound in the world? Lions roaring? Gunshots? According to mammals in South Africa it is the human voice. Fear-ecologist Liana Zanette explains.

Presenter: Roland Pease Producer: Ella Hubber Editor: Martin Smith Production Co-ordinator: Jana Bennett-Holesworth

(Image: Katalin Karikó. Credit: Mark Makela / Getty Images)

What did a 465-million-year-old trilobite eat for dinner? And how can we possibly know? Archaeologist Per Ahlberg has used x-ray to peer into the guts of one ancient scuttling creature and worked out what it what was munching on in its final moments.

From life in ancient earth rocks to potential life in space rocks, mineralogist and astrobiologist Bob Hazen has been training AI to spot signatures of life on Earth. He now hopes to use this tool on space samples.

We also ask experimental particle physicist Jeffrey Hangst how antimatter, the last mystery of the universe, responds to gravity - was Einstein's theory of general relativity right?

And the antiviral Covid medication, Molnupiravir, may be causing the virus to mutate. Theo Sanderson discusses how he figured this out and how concerned we should be.

Presenter: Roland Pease Producer: Ella Hubber Editor: Martin Smith Production co-ordinator: Jana Bennett-Holesworth

(Image: Fig. 1: Bohemolichas incola (Barrande, 1872). Credit: Kraft et al)

Storm Daniel devastated the city of Derna in Libya after heavy rainfall broke a dam, causing extreme flooding downstream. The World Weather Attribution (WWA) reports that severe flooding in Libya and across the Mediterranean has been made more likely and more intense due to human induced climate change. WWA scientist Friederike Otto gets into the report.

Back in 2020, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx scooped up rock and dust samples from asteroid Bennu and on Sunday September 24th, 2023 the sample capsule will finally be released 100,000 kilometres above Earth, delivering it to the Great Salk Lake Desert. OSIRIS REx engineer Anjani Polit tells us about the nail-biting return.

Also this week, Dr Peter Hotez warns us about the dangerous and rapid rise of anti-science sentiment in the United States. It’s all in his new book "The Deadly Rise of Anti-Science".

And the remnants of what is thought to be the oldest wooden structure have been found in Zambia. Professor of Archaeology Lawrence Barham talks about the simple structure made by our ancestors almost 500,000 years ago.

Presenter: Roland Pease Producer: Ella Hubber Editor: Martin Smith Production Co-ordinator: Jana Bennett-Holesworth

(Image: Building collapsed and surrounded by rubble following floods in Derna. Credit: RICARDO GARCIA VILANOVA / Getty Images)

Earlier this week the deadly Mediterranean cyclone, Storm Daniel, swept through the small city of Derna in Libya, collapsing a 50-year-old dam in its wake, and triggering devastating floods which have killed over 5000 people. We speak to atmospheric scientist, Stavros Dafis, about the cyclone’s characteristics and to civil and structural engineer, Lis Bowman, about the dam collapse. Unsurprisingly, it all comes back to climate change.

Far, far from Earth, the James Webb Space Telescope has set its site on the atmosphere of exoplanet K2-18b where the presence of methane and carbon dioxide offer the tantalising possibility of an extraterrestrial Ocean. Astrophysicist Nikku Madhusudhan discusses his exciting results.

And an even less expected presence in space: the ancient remains of our ancestors. Archaeologist Lee Berger has come under fire after sending precious bone samples on a Virgin Galactic space flight. South African archaeologist, Robyn Pickering, expresses the frustration that is on everyone’s mind.

Also expressing their anger, two young climate protesters recently stormed the stage during an orchestral performance at a Swiss music festival. But, to everyone’s surprise, conductor Vladimir Jurowski allowed them to speak to his audience. We hear from the Renovate Switzerland protestors, Anthony and Selina, on their unlikely experience.

Presenter: Roland Pease Producer: Ella Hubber Editor: Martin Smith Production Co-ordinator: Jana Bennett-Holesworth

(Image: Collapsing buildings and flooded land in the aftermath of the Derna floods. Credit: Anadolu Agency / Getty Images)

In September 2012 Arctic sea ice melted to its minimum ever recorded and the German research ice breaker, Polarstern, ventured deep into the region North of Russia to record findings. It’s now retracing its steps, over a decade later, to observe how things have progressed. Autun Purser and Antje Boethius describe the journey and the importance of documenting developments in the face of climate change.

Some 75 million individuals are believed to live with Long Covid and, in order to treat the plethora of symptoms presented by patients, researchers continue to search for the root source of the condition in the hope of better prescribing broad therapeutics. Akiko Iwasaki, Professor of Immunobiology at Yale University, updates Roland on the working hypotheses.

And one year on from the Hunga Tonga eruption, where a shockwave circled the globe four times, researchers have been able to calculate the speed of the currents in the southern Pacific Ocean. BBC correspondent Jon Amos caught up with Michael Clare to hear how other South Pacific Islands can learn from the most explosive volcanic eruption in 100 years.

Presenter: Roland Pease Producer: Harrison Lewis

Global sea levels are rising more than 3mm per year under current climate conditions. At this rate we are due to hit an alarming 7mm rise per year by the end of the century. If this is not slowed, it could lead to the drowning of essential coastal ecosystems like mangroves and lagoons, professor of environmental science Neil Saintilan tells Science in Action.

The seas are also heating up. We’ve covered the devastating effect of marine heatwaves on vibrant sea life like coral reefs before. But what about the less glamourous bottom-dwelling fish? Ecologist Alexa Fredston has found that they may be more robust than we think.

Also this week, bird virus expert Michelle Wille tells us about the imminent threat of bird flu spreading from South America to Antarctica where hundreds of thousands of sea birds are at risk.

And from one south pole to another, we have an update on how India’s mission on the lunar south pole is going with Lunar and Planetary Institute scientist David Kring.

Image Credit: Marie Hickman

Presenter: Roland Pease Producer: Ella Hubber Editor: Richard Collings

Advances in brain-computer interfaces have allowed patients with paralysis to communicate faster, more accurately and more expressively with direct brain to speech translation. Co-author of an exciting new paper in the field, bioengineer Alex Silva, tells Science in Action about his team’s work with patient Ann.

The world has been following the Indian and Russian race to land on the lunar south pole. Producer Ella Hubber gives a timeline of the events leading up to that historic landing.

Also this week, a new prediction model allows us to better prepare for future extreme weather events. But is this worst-case scenario model scaremongering? Roland talks to author Erich Fischer about the projections. And virologist Connor Bamford talks detecting bird flu in wastewater for betting monitoring.

Image Credit: Noah Berger

Presenter: Roland Pease Producer: Ella Hubber Editor: Richard Collings

Hawaii is still reeling from the devastating fires that consumed Lahaina on the island of Maui last week. Professor of Meteorology from the University of Hawaii, Kevin Hamiliton, joins Science in Action to discuss the factors that make these events more likely across the Hawaiian Islands. Amongst these is climate change.

Also this week we discuss the concerning reports of a sudden spike in methane levels in the Arctic with Xin Lan of the US National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration.

A few weeks ago, we devoted a whole programme to the exciting research on human embryo models made from stem cells. Whilst representing an incredible step for medical research, these raise serious ethical questions. A team of biologists and embryologists have put together a proposal on how to move forward with this ethical quandary, Embryologist Nicolas Rivron tells us more.

And we address the incredible claim of the room temperature super conductor, LK-99, with sceptical materials scientist Michael Fuhrer.

Photo: The Maui town of Lahaina after being destroyed by wildfires Credit: Getty Images

Presenter: Roland Pease Producer: Ella Hubber Editor: Richard Collings

ProMED is one of the most useful scientific tools you’ve never heard of. It’s a global surveillance system of infectious disease outbreaks which is available, for free, to researchers and the public alike. But ISID, the society which runs the platform, claim they have run out of money to support ProMED and will be switching to a subscription service, against the wishes of both users and staff. ProMED editor Marjorie Pollak tells Science in Action about the vital service ProMED has played in pandemic monitoring – including the very first COVID outbreaks - and ISID boss Linda MacKinnon considers what’s next for the platform.

From wildfires in Europe to droughts in Africa, we have covered every kind of environmental disaster across most of the globe in the space of the past few weeks. To complete the distressing bucket list of climate extremes, we’re talking to sea ice expert Caroline Holmes on the concerning forecast for Antarctica.

Despite these terrestrial challenges, NASA is still trying to defend Earth against nearby objects which might hit us from space. The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) was launched at the asteroid Dimorphos back in in November 2021 and, a few weeks ago, the Hubble space telescope observed a swarm of boulders shed by Dimorphos post-impact. Some UK newspapers are concerned about their trajectory, but astronomer Dave Jewitt is here to calm us all down.

Photo: Disinfection Work At Wuhan Huanan Wholesale Seafood Market Credit: China News Service

Presenter: Roland Pease Producer: Ella Hubber Editor: Richard Collings

Science in Action returns to H5N1, the fast spreading strain of bird flu which has caused devastation in the sky, sea, and land over the last few months, with no end in sight.

Roland visits Skomer Island and the coast of Wales where sea bird colonies are threatened and hundreds of guillemots have washed ashore dead, struck down by bird flu.

We also hear of outbreaks on Finnish fur farms where controversial plans are in progress for culls of wild birds, of mysterious infections of domestic cats in Poland, and bird flu causing brain swelling in grey seals.

Plus, we get an update on efforts to vaccinate condors in California against the disease.

Photo: Dead Guillemot Credit: BBC

Presenter: Roland Pease Producer: Ella Hubber

A large system of ocean currents known as the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) has been making headlines this week as a new paper predicts its imminent collapse. This could have devastating consequences for the climate. But not all climate scientist and oceanographers are convinced by the results. Stefan Rahmstorf and Eleanor Frajka-Williams debate the contentious paper.

In more positive news, huge steps have been made in the field of gene therapy. Stefano Rivella and Hamideh Parhiz tell us about their incredible mRNA delivery technology which could take much of the cost and risk out of treating debilitating disorders

And as wildfires continue to blaze around the world, reporter Melanie Brown discovers how experts study the physics of these blazes from the Missoula Fire Sciences Laboratory.

Presenter: Roland Pease Producer: Ella Hubber Editor: Richard Collings

For the third year running, Iceland’s Reykjanes peninsula is experiencing another spectacular volcanic eruption. Volcanologist Evgenia Ilyinskaya has been out in Iceland witnessing the sight and getting samples of the noxious fumes.

Across the rest of the Northern Hemisphere heat domes persist, bringing extreme weather ranging from wildfires to tornadoes. We keep on seeing that this year “is the warmest in 120,000 years”. But what does that mean? Two paleoclimatologists, Bette Otto-Bliesner and Jessica Tierney tell us more.

And we’re going deep. Deep into the brain that is, with a newly-developed probe which is finer than a baby’s hair. Dr Anqi Zhang of Stanford University explains her delicate technology.

Finally, new research suggests that SARS-CoV-2 could have arisen in the wild no more than four years ago, a mishmash of other viral genomes. Bioinformatician Jonathan Pekar discusses his new paper.

Presenter: Roland Pease Producer: Ella Hubber Editor: Richard Collings

(Photo: Dr. Evgenia Ilyinskaya Credit: @EIlyinskaya)

As extreme heat returns to much of the world we hear the impact of last year’s heatwaves in Europe, where 62,000 people are estimated to have died. Joan Ballester, Associate Research Professor at Barcelona Institute for Global Health, discusses the figures from his latest paper and his concerns for the future.

This week the European Court of Human Rights ruled in favour of middle-distance runner and Olympic champion Caster Semenya in a case related to testosterone levels in female athletes. Marnie Chesterton speaks to developmental biologist Dr Emma Hilton about what causes differences in sexual development and the impact they can have.

Also, Kew Gardens is going digital. Millions of specimens are being made available to the world for the first time in an enormous digitisation project. Ella Hubber goes behind the scenes at Kew to see some of the precious specimens.

Finally, the Indonesian government has banned a group of foreign scientists from conducting conservation research. Bill Laurance, Research Professor at James Cook University, talks to Science in Action about keeping politics out of conservation science.

Image credit: Getty Images

Presenter: Roland Pease Producer: Ella Hubber

Record-breaking global temperatures are accelerating Greenland ice melt at an alarming rate. Professor of glaciology Alun Hubbard has witnessed the melt first hand. He tells us how the ice sheet is being destabilised and what this could mean on a human level.

Also, how safe are Japanese plans to dispose of nuclear waste from the Fukushima accident? We get reassurance from molecular pathology expert, Professor Gerry Thomas.

And last week was a big one for cosmology news. We catch up on science behind the gravitational hum that permeates the Universe with astrophysicist with Dr Chiara Mingarelli. And we hear about the traces of ghostly neutrinos within our Galaxy from the principal investigator of the world’s largest neutrino detector, Professor Francis Halzen.

Presenter: Roland Pease Producer: Ella Hubber

(Photo: Meltwater forming on top of the Russell Glacier, Greenland)

We have entered a “permacrisis”, an extended period of instability and insecurity, fuelled not only by natural disasters but pandemics, climate change and war.

This week, Science in Action is at the Royal Society as they host the All European Academies assembly on the importance of research in crises. Roland speaks to international experts on how research contributes to responding to and preparing for the multiple and entangled crises of our time.

Presenter: Roland Pease Producer: Ella Hubber Editor: Richard Collings Production co-ordinator: Jonathan Harris

(Photo: A man wearing a protective face mask walks past an illustration of a virus in Oldham, 3 August 2020 Credits: Phil Noble/Reuters)

Over the last week, news of “synthetic human embryos” has made headlines around the world. Science in Action is getting to the bottom of the sensational story.

We talk to two of the researchers who have made the embryo models from stem cells in their labs; Professor Magdalena Zernicka-Goetz from the University of Cambridge and California Institute of Technology, and Professor Jacob Hanna from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel. They tell us how they made the embryo models, what their aims are, and their own ethical considerations.

The scientific community is excited, but not surprised, by the breaking research. We hear how Dr Andreia Bernardo, group leader at Imperial College London, could use these structures in her future research.

Finally, Director of the Reproductive Sociology Research Group at Cambridge University, Professor Sarah Franklin, and Professor of Law at Stanford University, Hank Greely, tackle the legal and ethical constraints on this kind of work, and why it is important for understanding the health of mothers and babies.

Photo Credit: Magdalena Zernicka-Goetz Lab

Presenter: Roland Pease Producer: Ella Hubber

As Pacific Ocean temperatures rise, a major El Niño is looming. Experts from the European Centre for Medium range Weather Forecasting, Magdalena Balmaseda and Tim Stockdale, join us to discuss how it is heating up the world and if it could herald in a new period of climate uncertainty.

Last month, Roland stayed up all night to watch the spectacular explosion of supernova 2023ixf. Now, Dr Charlie Kilpatrick, a postdoctoral fellow at Northwestern University, has identified the star that blew up 21 million lightyears away. A similar star in our galaxy, the exceptionally bright Betelgeuse, has been acting strangely. Dr Andrea Dupree, a senior astrophysicist at the Center for Astrophysics, Harvard and Smithsonian, has been trying to figure out what is going on. Is this iconic star about to pop?

And from ageing stars to ageing flies, researchers have published a cell-by-cell map of fruit flies throughout the life of the short lived creatures, showing how they change. Steve Quake, professor of bioengineering and professor of applied physics at Stanford University, tells us what this means for us.

Presenter: Roland Pease Producer: Ella Hubber

(Image: Illustration of the world map showing areas of rising temperatures. Credit: ClimateReanalyzer.org)

The origin of all complex life has been traced back 1.6 billion years as new molecular fossil records have discovered the fatty stains that our ancient single celled ancestors have left behind. Jochen Brocks, Professor of Geobiology at Australian National University, discusses the significance of these unique biological signatures.

One billion years later, to a mere 462 million years ago, life on Earth was experiencing a boom of new species but we have very few fossil records to understand this era. Now, palaeontologists Dr Joe Botting and Dr Lucy Muir have found the most abundant deposit of soft bodied fossils from this time in a tiny Welsh quarry.

Next, to the relatively recent past, 350,000 years ago, where remains found in a South African cave suggest that an extinct species of human, Homo Naledi, buried their dead. But Mike Petraglia, Professor of Human Evolution and Prehistory at the Max Planck Institute, doubts these claims.

And in the modern day, the fungi which have colonised our soil for millions of years are still helping us clean up the atmosphere. Professor of Plant-Soil Processes at the University of Sheffield, Katie Field, tells us about the astounding amount of carbon captured by the fungus beneath our feet.

Presenter: Roland Pease Producer: Ella Hubber

(Image: Artist’s imagination of an assemblage of primordial eukaryotic organisms of the ‘Protosterol Biota’ inhabiting a bacterial mat on the ocean floor. Credit: Orchestrated in MidJourney by TA 2023)

The California Condor has been brought back from the brink of extinction by dedicated conservation efforts over the past 30 years. Now, this critically endangered species is the latest victim of the H5N1 bird flu which is racing round the world. California Condor co-ordinator Ashleigh Blackford and wildlife veterinarian Dr Samantha Gibbs from the US Fish and Wildlife Service discuss their last-ditch efforts to vaccinate the birds against H5N1.

Huge 40,000 km plumes of water ice have been imaged erupting from Saturn’s moon Enceladus. Dr Sara Faggi, a postdoctoral Researcher in the Solar System Division at Nasa Goddard Space Flight Center, dives into this incredible new observation from the James Webb Space Telescope.

Dr Pierre Galand from France’s Observatoire Océanologique de Banyuls has been part of a two-and-a-half-year expedition to sample the microorganisms in coral reefs across the world. His new research shows that this tiny life is much more diverse than previously understood and may be essential to life of the coral reefs. And, much deeper in the Ocean, researchers estimate that there are over 5000 unnamed species in the world’s largest mineral exploration region, the Clarion-Clipperton Zone. Muriel Rabone, data and sample co-ordinator, and Dr Adrian Glover, merit researcher, both from the Natural History Museum in London, talk to Roland about this region of stunning biodiversity and the hope to protect it.

Presenter: Roland Pease Producer: Ella Hubber Editor: Richard Collings

(Photo: An adult and juvenile California condor. Credit: Loi Nguyen)

A star in the nearby Pinwheel Galaxy has exploded spectacularly into a supernova, dubbed SN 2023ixf. It is the brightest in a decade and it has got astronomers around the world into a frenzy. Science in Action hears from both amateur and professional astronomers alike as they scramble to collect exciting new images and data.

Back on the ground, we hear from the Professor of Climate Change and Earth System Science at the University of Exeter, Tim Lenton about his new paper highlighting how rising global temperatures could push human populations from their homes.

Contributors: Dan Milisavljevic, Assistant Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, Purdue University. Dr Jane Clark, Trustee of the Cardiff Astronomical Society Bronco Oostermeyer, amateur astronomer Raffaella Margutti, Associate Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Berkeley Erez Zimmerman, Astrophysics PhD student, Weizmann institute of science Professor Avishay Gal-Yam, Head of Experimental Astrophisics Group, Weizmann institute of science Professor Tim Lenton, Director of the Global Systems Institute and Chair in Climate Change and Earth System Science at the University of Exeter

Presenter: Roland Pease Producer: Ella Hubber

(Image: Supernova SN 2023ixf. Credit: Dr Jane Clark and The Cardiff Astronomical Society)

Over the past few weeks, wildfires have scorched over 1,800 square miles of land across North West America and are still going strong. Dr Mike Flannigan, professor at the Department of Renewable Resources at the University of Alberta, talks to Roland about the weather patterns and record-breaking heat causing the devastating flames.

On the other side of the world, in Zambia, Dr Edgar Simulundu has been finding out why some humans attract mosquitoes more than others, and how we can use this to tackle the malaria epidemic.

Also this week, Professor Novel Chegou, lead investigator at Stellenbosch University Immunology Research Group, has been awarded the 2022 Africa Prize for his innovative method for quickly diagnosing tuberculosis. And we visit the Royal Society for a very different reason. Roland checks in on the “Ukraine's Recovery: Rebuilding with Research” conference, and the discussion to use evidence based approaches for rebuilding after war.

Contributors:

Dr Mike Flannigan, Department of Renewable Resources at the University of Alberta Professor Novel Chegou Novel Chegou, lead investigator at Stellenbosch University Immunology Research Group Dr Edgar Simulundu, Senior Lecturer at the University of Zambia Uliana Avtonomova, Secretary General, Fund of the President of Ukraine for Education, Science, and Sports Olena Sotnyk, lawyer and former member of the Ukrainian parliament Dr Vesna Najdanovic, Energy and Bioproduct Research Institute

Presenter: Roland Pease Producer: Ella Hubber

In 2003, an incredible scientific milestone was achieved as the first human genome completed sequencing. For 20 years, this genome has been used as a reference by researchers for comparison to all other DNA sequences. Now, the Human Pangenome Reference Consortium is addressing the lack of genetic diversity starting with 47 new reference genomes. Members of the consortium, Dr Karen Miga, assistant professor, UC Santa Cruz Genomics Institute and Dr Benedict Paten, associate professor, UC Santa Cruz Genomics Institute, join Roland to discuss the first stages of the project. For the first time the public will have access to thousands of documents from the Royal Society’s historical collections following their digitisation. Science correspondent Vic Gill visits the vaults to see some of these pieces of history first hand. We are also taking a trip 30km above the Earth, to the stratosphere, where Daniel Bowman, principal scientist from Sandia National Laboratories, is using solar powered balloons to listen to the mysterious sounds of our planet. Presenter: Roland Pease Producer: Ella Hubber

(Image Illustration of the globe. Credit: Darryl Leja, NHGRI)

India is at the centre of much of the discussion on this week’s episode of Science In Action.

We hear about how a proposal to scrap Darwinian evolution from Indian secondary schools has led to signatures from thousands of scientists. Dr Vineeta Bal, Researcher at the National University of Immunology, is one of the signatories on a petition against the proposed changes. We spoke to her about why she is against them.

Also in India, a new Sars-Cov-2 variant, named XBBX.16 is being studied by epidemiologists in the country. Dr Rajesh Karyakarte, professor of microbiology at BJ Government Medical College, Pune, India, is behind the study.

Further study of the variant has been looked into by Kei Sato, professor of Systems Virology at the University of Tokyo. Kei has been mapping how new variants could cause us problems, ahead of them doing so.

This kind of forward planning is something praised by Paul Bienaisz, Professor of Virology at The Rockefeller university. We talk to him about how vital this kind of work still is, even if many of us have confined the about the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic to memory.

Lastly, we hear from Dr Usama Kadri, Senior Lecturer in Applied Mathematics at Cardiff University who has looked at how we might be able to use a novel bit of technology of underwater technology (called hydrophones), often used for animal conservation, to be able to detect earthquakes in the deep sea.

Presenter/producer: Roland Pease Producer: Ella Hubber

Khartoum’s National Public Health Laboratory has been caught up in the ongoing conflict in Sudan. Dr Maysoon Dahab and Dr Ayman Ahmed explain the situation and why health labs are often targeted in conflicts.

Virus hunters have used artificial intelligence to discover more than 180,000 new viruses. Professor Eddie Holmes and Dr Mang Shi tell Roland how AI is completely transforming the field of viral discovery.

Experts have forecasted a return to El Niño conditions later this year, which could bring with it extreme weather events. Dr Emily Becker explains how the predictions are made and the global impact of a strong El Niño.

And from future to historical weather – Roland talks to Professor Ed Hawkins about the powerful Storm Ulysses of 1903, and how it can help us better understand storms today.

Presenter: Roland Pease Producer: Roland Pease Assistant Producer: Sophie Ormiston

The pandemic showed Africa at the back of the global queue when it came to vaccines. That should never happen again if plans being debated in Cape Town this week go ahead. Roland talks to Seanette Wilson of South Africa's Biovac.

Also in the programme: life finds a way on plastic floating in the ocean; Greenland rock dust as a global fertiliser; and designing proteins from scratch.

Image Credit: Robert Bonet/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Presenter: Roland Pease Producer: Roland Pease Assistant Producer: Sophie Ormiston

H5N1, a highly pathogenic avian flu is racing across the world, and has infected multiple species, including wild and farmed birds, and mammals from cats to sea lions. What can be done to control it? Roland Pease talks to global experts about the dangers to animal and human health, and about the measures to bring the outbreak under control.

Producer: Roland Pease Assistant producer: Sophie Ormiston

(Photo: A government worker examines chicks for signs of bird flu infection at a poultry farm in Darul Imarah in Indonesia's Aceh province. Credit: Chaideer Mahyuddin)

Chasing tornados in the American mid-West – scientists are trying to learn the maximum from the tornado outbreaks currently in America. Professor Karen Kosiba calls us from a radar truck studying the storms, and Professor John Allen explains the energy powering them. From the weather of today to the skies of 800 years ago... Dr Sébastien Guillet reveals how lunar observations by medieval monks are helping untangle the connection between historic eruptions and climate. Finally, we go back even further in time to the Bronze Age with Professor Elisa Guerra-Doce – to find out what drugs our ancestors were into.

Image credit: Getty Images / Michael B. Thomas Producer: Roland Pease Assistant Producer: Sophie Ormiston

We look at a gene editing breakthrough, a new technique to correct genetic errors in sick patients. Roland speaks to Professor David Liu to learn about the base editing technology.

Also, we look into the complex causes of last year's post-pandemic spike in child hepatitis. Professor Judy Breuer and her colleagues may have found an explanation behind the unexpected outbreak.

And the James Webb Space Telescope continues to seek out the secrets of our universe. Professor Beth Biller and Dr Elsa Ducrot have the details on the atmospheres of two very distant, and very different, exoplanets.

Plus, how to get sober – for mice. Professor Steven Kliewer explains how certain mammals have evolved to deal with the intoxicating effects of ethanol.

Producer: Roland Pease Assistant Producer: Sophie Ormiston

(Image: Genetic engineering 3D rendered conceptual image. Credit: Getty Images)

DNA has revealed potential animal COVID carriers at the Wuhan market, but what does that tell us about the start of the pandemic? Roland talks to two of the experts behind the new analysis: Dr Florence Débarre and Professor Eddie Holmes.

Also, we look into Europe’s grand new space ambitions. ESA director general Josef Aschbacher gives Roland the details of the space agency’s out-of-this-world plans.

And Beethoven's last DNA: a hairy story of his family and genetic afflictions. Dr Tristan Begg shares how the composer’s tresses unlocked new information about his life and death.

Image credit: Eddie Holmes

Producer: Roland Pease Assistant producer: Sophie Ormiston

34 days after it first formed at the far end of the Indian Ocean, record-breaking Cyclone Freddy made a repeat landfall on Mozambique as well as passing over Malawi, causing extensive damage and loss of life. Climate scientists Liz Stephens and Izidine Pinto join Roland to give an update on the destruction and explain how Cyclone Freddy kept going for an exceptionally long time.

At the Third International Human Genome Summit in London last week, Professor Katsuhiko Hayashi announced he had created baby mice from eggs formed by male mouse cells. Dr Nitzan Gonen explains the underlying science, whilst Professor Hank Greely discusses the ethics and future prospects.

And from one rodent story to another, SARS-CoV-2 has been detected in brown rats scurrying around New York sewers. Dr Thomas DeLiberto from the US Department of Agriculture gives Roland the details.

Image credit: Jack McBrams/Getty Images

Producer: Roland Pease Assistant Producer: Sophie Ormiston

Human Genome Editing: The team meet experts at the Human Genome Editing Summit in London, seeking to cure genetic disease and ensure that it's safe and available to all. Roland Pease hears from Victoria Gray, the first person to be cured of the debilitating and life-shortening disease sickle cell anaemia by gene editing, and from the scientists making it possible. Also, the prospect of work to attempt gene rescue in fetuses before they are born. But the technology is expensive and complex – the question troubling the participants is to ensure people across the world can benefit from it, not just the rich and privileged. And what are the limitations of gene editing? Can it be made more effective, safer? And what of gene edits that will be inherited by future generations?

The long rains of East Africa are forecast to fail again, for the third year running, precipitating a food crisis affecting millions. Science In Action explores the science of the drought, hears about new methods improving forecasts, and what is unusual about the region that makes it so vulnerable.

When we think of helium, for many of us balloons and squeaky voices come to mind. But the noble gas is critical for many aspects of modern life – and we’re facing a global shortage. Dr Annie Cheng and her colleagues at the University of Oxford are attempting to solve this by creating a model that has the potential to locate previously untapped reservoirs.

Image by Gerald Anderson/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

Producer: Roland Pease Assistant Producer: Sophie Ormiston

Cyclone Freddy has made landfall on Madagascar, leaving destruction in its wake. At the time this edition of Science In Action is going to air, Freddy is on course to reach Mozambique and South Africa. Freddy, which has been gaining strength since it originally formed on the 30th of January, is the most powerful southern hemisphere cyclone on record. Professor Francois Engelbrecht provides the science behind the storm system.

In the centre of our galaxy, an enormous cloud is heading towards the Milky Way’s supermassive black hole. Dr Anna Ciurlo tells us that this is a unique opportunity to study the influence of the black hole on the cloud’s shape and properties.

We’ve heard a lot about balloons floating above Earth recently… but what about sending balloons to Venus? That’s exactly what Dr Siddharth Krishnamoorthy is proposing in order to study Venus’s seismic activity. Recorders on a “floatilla” above the planet’s surface could listen into Venus-quakes and reveal Venus’s mysterious past.

And closer to home, scientists have discovered a new layer in the Earth’s core. We journey into the very centre of the Earth with Professor Hrvoje Tkalčić, who tells Roland what the innermost inner core can teach us about our planet’s past.

Image: NASA Earth Observatory image by Lauren Dauphin, using VIIRS data from NASA EOSDIS LANCE, GIBS/Worldview, and the Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS).

Producer: Roland Pease Assistant Producer: Sophie Ormiston

In the decade since the genome editing capabilities of CRISPR-Cas9 emerged, research into novel medicines has boomed – but alongside progress comes new ethical considerations. Controversy erupted in 2018, when Chinese scientist He Jiankui created the first babies with edited genomes. After leaving prison last year, he’s now back in the lab trying to raise support for new research but refuses to discuss the ethical implications of his work. Dr Joy Zhang recently arranged a bioethics seminar and invited He Jiankui, it was the first time he’d agreed to engage with a global cohort of CRISPR scientists since returning to his research.

Going back in time from cutting-edge to ancient technology, some of the oldest stone tools ever used by human ancestors have been unearthed at a fossil site in Kenya. Professor Tom Plummer talks us through the findings and how important the tools were in our evolution.

And we immerse ourselves in the mysterious sounds of the Arctic and Antarctic, from singing ice to the man-made noises of oil and gas drilling. These dramatic soundscapes, created for the Polar Soundscapes project, showcase just how busy our oceans are. Dr Geraint Rhys Whittaker, composer and project lead, believes a novel approach may be required to prompt climate action.

Image Credit: Anthony Wallace

Presenter: Roland Pease Producer: Harrison Lewis Assistant Producer: Sophie Ormiston

In the early hours of Monday, a powerful earthquake hit Kahramanmaras in Turkey. Nine hours later another struck. When this edition of Science in Action first aired, 19,000 people were reported to have died, but that number was expected to rise.

Back in 2016, Professor Asli Garagon and her colleagues accurately predicted that an earthquake of this size was coming. Using GPS, they were monitoring the East Anatolian fault to calculate energy building between the plates. With such accurate insight could Turkey have been better prepared?

Ross Stein, seismologist and founder of Temblor, a Californian consultancy that specialises in assessing hazard risk, estimates the plates moved at 5,000 mph. The movement of the plates may have built up pressure in other parts of the country.

And finally, Tiziana Rossetto, a civil engineer at University College London, knows better than most that earthquakes do not kill, buildings do. She tells Roland how the combination of earthquakes and subsequent aftershocks appear to have even destroyed buildings that were purposely built to withstand them.

Presenter: Roland Pease Producer: Harrison Lewis Assistant producer: Sophie Ormiston

Image: Aftermath of the deadly earthquake in Gaziantep Credit: REUTERS/Dilara Senkaya

Pull on an extra layer and stay toasty whilst Science in Action braces for a deep freeze. Whilst we know plenty about the ice on the Earth’s poles, Roland is on a chilling journey to see what can be found in deep space. Professor Christoph Salzmann and Professor Andrea Sella at University College London have produced a new phase of ice. Roland heads to the laboratory to see how the usual crystalline ice, found in ice cubes and icebergs, can be broken down and arranged into a new structure. The James Webb Space Telescope has detected the coldest ices to date, deep within a molecular cloud in outer space. Professor Melissa McClure describes how these clouds harbour a variety of different molecules potentially capable of forming the basic building blocks for life. From the edges of the universe to something a little closer to home, Professor Geoff Collins and colleagues have discovered odd tectonic plate activity on icy Europa, one of Jupiter’s moons. And a theory for the origin of life that may surprise you. Professor Philipp Holliger is trying to uncover whether ice played a role in our creation, acting as a medium capable of concentrating molecules and promoting the chemical reactions required for the generation of RNA, essential for cell protein production. Presenter: Roland Pease Producer: Harrison Lewis Assistant Producer: Sophie Ormiston

(Photo: Chunk of ice. Credit: Getty Images)

An outbreak of pathogenic bird flu, H5N1, in a Spanish mink farm could be a cause for concern. Some experts fear the virus may now spill over to other mammals without strict surveillance. Marion Koopmans, professor of virology at Erasmus Medical Centre, talks Roland through the potential risks. India’s caste system affects all aspects of society, but how does the hierarchy influence representation of marginalised groups in academia? Science journalist Ankur Paliwal believes that, despite efforts to combat discrimination, not enough is being done, and he has the data to prove it. Imagine a robot... Is it hard, metallic and humanoid? Professor Carmel Majidi from Carnegie Mellon University and his colleagues are thinking outside the robotics box. Their new material, magnetic in nature, can shift between solid and liquid states. It’s even capable of breaking out of robotic jail... And how do echidnas – spiny, long-nosed, egg-laying mammals – manage to stay cool during the hot Australian summers? Image credit: Ole Jensen/Getty Presenter: Roland Pease Producer: Harrison Lewis Assistant Producer: Sophie Ormiston

Climate researcher, Rose Abramoff took to the stage at the American Geophysical Union (AGU) fall meetings, not as a guest speaker but in protest. Whilst her demonstration only lasted 15 seconds, she found her employment terminated from Oak Ridge National Laboratory and research stripped from the AGU programme. She was attempting to persuade other climate scientists to ‘get out of the lab and into the street’. Whilst Rose’s protest hit the headlines in the media, potentially less attention was paid to the session that was taking place at the conference, hosted by Mika Tosca, climate scientist-turn-artist, Associate Professor of Liberal Arts at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Roland brings the two together to discuss the event and how climate scientists should approach activism.

Although there is no one solution to the climate crisis, Roland loves a brainstorm on Science in Action. Climate activist Stuart Capstick, a Cardiff University psychologist specialising in public attitudes to environmental issues and environmental scientist Robert Young from Western Carolina University take the conversation one step further. Questioning how public perceptions of scientists change when they take evasive action and protest.

And finally, we usually hear of seismology reports coming from dense, urban areas prone to earthquakes, delicately perched atop of tectonic plates. But this week, Roland speaks to Professor of Geophysics Zhongwen Zhan from the California Institute of Technology, who’s collecting data from a very unusual place...

Image credit: SOPA Images

Presenter: Roland Pease Producer: Harrison Lewis

Flood warnings in parts of California have seen some of the state’s best known celebrities flee their homes. The current weather conditions are in part the result of ‘Atmospheric rivers’ – literally fast flowing rivers of water vapor in the atmosphere. Marty Ralph from the Scripps Institute has been studying this phenomenon for years, he explains what atmospheric rivers are, and tells us how a greater understanding of the phenomenon is now informing weather forecasting and evacuation plans.

Over the past year several million people have fled Ukraine, amongst them many scientists. Nataliya Shulga from the Ukraine Science Club is working on a wide ranging initiative to attract them back. She tells us of plans not just to reconstruct Ukrainian science facilities after the war, but to offer a philosophical change which breaks with the Soviet past - a more global, collaborative environment for scientists returning to the Ukraine.

Last December the Afghan Taliban banned women from attending university, its just one of the many moves denying education to women since the Taliban returned to power. Particle physicist Kate Shaw had been working with Afghan physicists in the years before the Taliban’s comeback, she is now developing an initiative with scientists and institutions around the world to offer places to Afghan women keen to study physics. She says institutions and individuals who may be able to help should contact Physics without Frontiers at the International Centre for Theoretical Physics.

And Gibbons sing with synchronicity, a new study led by Teresa Raimondi, from the University of Turin shows the ability of couples to chorus together to be rather human like.

Image Credit: Josh Edelson

Presenter: Roland Pease Producer: Julian Siddle

We’re taking a look back at the January 2022 eruption of Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai, which literally sent shockwaves around the world. One year on, and we’re still uncovering what made the volcano so powerful, as well as unpacking its long lasting impacts.

Roland is joined by Professor Shane Cronin from the University of Auckland and Dr Marta Ribó from the Auckland University of Technology to share their findings from their latest trip to survey the volcano.

The impacts of the eruption weren’t just felt on Earth – they also reached all the way to space. Physicist Claire Gasque from the University of California, Berkeley, has been analysing how the eruption affected space weather.

Amongst all the material ejected by Hunga Tonga was a huge amount of water. The massive water vapour cloud is still present in our atmosphere, as Professor Simon Carn from the Michigan Technological University tells us.

The volcano also triggered tsunamis worldwide. Disaster sociologist Dr Sara McBride from the US Geological Survey has been using video footage of the event to analyse how people responded and how we can better prepare for future eruptions.

Image Credit: Tonga Geological Services

Presenter: Roland Pease Producer: Sophie Ormiston

Nasa's James Webb Space Telescope has produced amazing images, and amazing science, in its first five months. Roland Pease hears from one of the leading astronomers on the JWST programme, Dr Heidi Hammel, as well as other experts on what they are already learning about the first galaxies in the Universe, the birthplaces of stars, the strange behaviour of some other stars, and the first view of Neptune's rings in over 30 years.

Producer: Roland Pease Assistant producer: Sophie Ormiston

Image: An image from the James Webb Space Telescope (Credit: Nasa via PA)

Mosquito pesticide failing - prevention of dengue fever and other diseases at risk. Dangerous bird flu evolving fast - researchers are learning why bird flu is persisting and spreading fast round the world, and assess the threat to humans. Drilling for ancient ice in the Antarctic - Roland talks to one of the team drilling kilometres into an ancient, frozen record of past climate, Martian rock store opens - NASA's Mars Perseverance rover is stashing rock samples future missions could bring back to Earth.

Image credit: Shinji Kasai

Producer: Roland Pease Assistant Producer: Sophie Ormiston

Fusion milestone - the science behind the headlines. Laser fusion expert Kate Lancaster walks us through the technology that produced energy gain at the US's National Ignition Facility NIF

Whirlwinds on Mars What the sounds of a dust devil passing over NASA's Mars Perseverance Rover tells us about the Martian atmosphere

75 years of the transistor electronics revolution - where next for Moore's Law? December 16th 1947 was the day the first ever transistor device passed an electrical current. Trillions are made every day these days, powering our interconnected world. Roland recalls meeting some of the pioneers for the 50th anniversary, including Gordon Moore, and hears from Berkeley Dean of engineering Tsu-Jae King Liu how the revolution will continue for another 25 years.

Two-million-year-old molecular fossils reveal flourishing woodlands and widespread animals in Greenland's pre-Ice-Age past, and give hints to the Arctic’s future under global warming. We hear from a molecular palaeontologist and a climate modeller.

DNA also reveals the enduring genetic influence of our extinct Denisovan cousins on disease immunity in modern island South East Asians.

And the art and science of 3D-printing violins

Producer: Roland Pease Assistant producer: Sophie Ormiston

(Image: Landscape illustration with three elephants. Credit: Beth Zaiken/bethzaiken.com)

Hong Kong health expert Professor Malik Peiris relates the lessons from the devastation there earlier this year. UK virologist Dr Tom Peacock reveals the unusual origins and evolution of omicron, and explains the risks of dangerous new variants. New studies from China are revealing further SARS-like viruses in the wild; Professor Eddie Holmes says they underline the risk of further pandemics.

(Photo: Kevin Frayer/Getty Images)

Nasa's JWST space telescope has unpicked the chemical contents and state of the atmosphere of planet WASP-39b 700 light years away. Astronomer Hannah Wakeford explains.

Meteorologist Laura Wilcox warns that atmospheric haze over China and South Asia is masking some of the effects of global warming.

Loss of memory and other mental changes during pregnancy have been traced to structural changes in the brain, possibly due to hormone effects. Neuroscientist Elseline Hoekszema speculates.

Improving lab coats - every scientist has a lab coat, but how many have one actually fits? Founder of Genius Lab Gear Derek Miller explains the problem and how he's trying to fix it.

Producer: Roland Pease Assistant producer: Sophie Ormiston

(Photo: View of Earth from space. Credit: Melissa Weiss/Center for Astrophysics/Harvard and Smithsonian)

Since the Covid-19 pandemic began, scientists studying the virus have become targets of online harassment, and more recently, death threats. Roland speaks to Dr Angela Rasmussen, virologist at the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization at the University of Saskatchewan, about her experiences.

Spyros Lytras, PhD candidate at the University of Glasgow, talks Roland through the evolutionary history of the virus that causes Covid-19 and how there isn’t just one ancestor, but several.

Anti-Asian sentiment has seen a big increase since the pandemic. Dr Qian He, Postdoctoral Research Associate at Princeton University, looked into how US-China relations have influenced how Americans view Chinese today.

And we hear from scientists on board the RRS Discovery, which is currently located near St Helena and Ascension Island, surveying the health of the surrounding ocean. On board, documentary film-maker Lawrence Eagling, talks to Shona Murray, pelagic ecologist from the University of Western Australia, and Gareth Flint, mechanical engineer at British Antarctic Survey, about their work and findings.

(Photo: A scientist stands behind testing kits and checks his phone. Credit: Getty Images)

Producer: Roland Pease Assistant producer: Sophie Ormiston

Researchers have identified which neurons, when electrically stimulated, can restore the ability to walk in paralysed patients. Professor Jocelyne Bloch, Associate Professor at the Université de Lausanne, tells Roland how the technology works.

Astronomers have discovered the closest black hole to Earth. Researchers led by Kareem El-Badry, astrophysicist at Harvard University, identified the celestial body when they spotted a Sun-like star orbiting a dark, dense object.

The origins of eels have been mystifying scientists for centuries. Though the Sargasso Sea has been their presumed breeding place for 100 years, there has been no direct evidence of their migration – until now. Ros Wright, Senior Fisheries Technical Specialist at the Environment Agency, shares how researchers finally pinned down these slippery creatures.

This week, a new report from the UN Environment Programme reveals that carbon dioxide emissions from building operations have reached an all-time high. Insaf Ben Othmane, architect and co-author of the report, talks through the risks and opportunities this poses for Africa and why there is still hope for the future.

Producer: Roland Pease Assistant Producer: Sophie Ormiston

(Photo: Patient with complete spinal cord injury (left) and incomplete spinal cord injury (right) walking in Lausanne. Credit: Jimmy Ravier/NeuroRestore)

The Congo Basin is home to the world’s largest peatland. Simon Lewis, Professor of Global Change Science at UCL and the University of Leeds, tells Roland how this peatland acts as a huge carbon sink and how climate change could result in these carbon stores being released. He is joined by Dr Ifo Averti, Associate Professor in Forest Ecology at Universite Marien Ngouabi in the Congo who helps us understand what this landscape is like.

We explore how peatlands all around the world are showing early alarm bells of change. From the boreal Arctic forests to the Amazon, prof Simon Lewis helps us understand how they could action huge change in the climate.

Hurricane Ian, which recently caused devastating damage to Cuba and the United States, may signify a growing trend of increasingly powerful storms. Karthik Balaguru, climate and data scientist at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, explains how climate change is causing hurricanes to rapidly intensify, making them faster and wetter.

On Sunday 6 November, COP27 will begin in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt. Dr Debbie Rosen, Science and Policy Manager at CONSTRAIN, breaks down some of the jargon we might hear throughout the conference.

Presenter: Roland Pease Assistant Producer: Sophie Ormiston Producer: Robbie Wojciechowski

(Image credit: Getty Images)

The latest observations from Nasa’s InSight Mars Lander and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) have revealed new information on Mars’ interior structure. Dr Anna Horleston, Senior Research Associate in Planetary Seismology at the University of Bristol, talks us through the mars-quakes that provided this data.

On the 30th of October, Brazilians will head to the polls to elect their next president. Jeff Tollefson, Senior Reporter at Nature, tells Roland what approach the two candidates – Jair Bolsonaro and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva – might take towards science and the potential local and global impacts this could have.

Humans aren’t the only animals to pick their noses… it turns out primates engage in this habit too. Anne-Claire Fabre, Curator of Mammals at the Duke Lemur Center, tells reporter Vic Gill about the long-fingered aye-ayes having a dig around their noses, and how more research is needed to unpick the reasons behind this behaviour.

And producer Robbie Wojciechowski heads to the National Oceanography Centre in Southampton to capture the launch of the RRS Discovery mission to Ascension Island and St Helena. Science In Action will be following the mission over the next 6 weeks as it uncovers new specimens from the deep ocean, as well as surveying the overall health and wellbeing of the ocean around the British Overseas Territory.

Contributors Dr Anna Horleston, Senior Research Associate in Planetary Seismology, University of Bristol Jeff Tollefson, Senior Reporter, Nature Anne-Claire Fabre, Curator of Mammals, Duke Lemur Center

(Image: Impression of a rover on the surface of Mars. Credit: Getty Images)

Presenter: Roland Pease Assistant Producer: Sophie Ormiston Producer: Robbie Wojciechowski

It’s been an unusual week for astronomers, with telescopes swivelled off course to observe GRB221009A, the brightest gamma ray burst ever recorded. Gamma ray bursts aren’t unusual, the by-product of some supernovae are recorded weekly. Whilst the afterglow of these bursts usually lasts hours or days, the aftermath of, what has been dubbed ‘BOAT’, brightest of all time, is expected to linger for years to come. Harvard University’s Edo Berger and Yvette Cendas believe there’s lots to be learnt in the coming months.

Back in the primordial oceans, tiny, wriggling worms and shimmering jellyfish invented ever better ways to strip resources from their environment deep in the murky depths. The ability to efficiently take up oxygen from a marine environment acted as a gateway for a dramatic explosion in species diversity. But according to Michael Sackville, Postdoctoral Fellow University of Cambridge and Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory, when the gills first appeared they may have carried out a rather different function.

Plastics litter our oceans, and after time return to the shores. In order to predict and better understand where these plastic hotspots are, Professor Bhavani Narayanaswamy, Benthic Ecologist for Scottish Association for Marine Science, travels all over the globe to gather data and model these plastic hotspots.

In the future, this plastic waste could be broken down by a biological organisms. Chemical biologist Dr Federica Bertocchini at the University of Cantabria has identified enzymes responsible for munching through resilient polymers in waxworms.

(Image: Gamma Rays in Galactic Nuclei. Credit: Getty Images)

Presenter: Roland Pease Producer: Harrison Lewis, Robbie Wojciechowski

Sergiu Pasca, Professor of Psychiatry at Stanford University has left the petri dish in the drawer and grown human neurons inside the brains of juvenile rats. Successful connectivity and brain function may allow for more rigorous testing and understanding of neurological conditions, that have until now remained difficult to localise and treat.

It’s been a few weeks since NASA’s DART mission smashed into an asteroid in an attempt to budge it off course, kickstarting Earth’s first planetary defence system. Scientists are starting to pour through the data to determine whether or not it worked. Dr Toney Minter, Head of Operations at Green Bank Observatory has been using Green Bank’s radio telescope to keep us updated and track the celestial system.

John Ryan, a Senior Research Specialist at Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute has spent the last three years studying the distinct vocal calls of blue whales. It’s part of a body of work that is unlocking the secretive existence of this endangered species, understanding how they react to the wind and search for food by navigating upwelling currents in the ocean.

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to live at the poles? Well, now you don’t have to imagine. Celas Marie-Sainte and Moreno Baricevic share their winterover experience, gathering data at the IceCube Neutrino Observatory in Antarctica. Hear what their work entails and ruminate on reflections of 6 months immersed in darkness.

(Image: Axial view of rat brain connectivity. Getty Images) Credit:

Presenter: Roland Pease Producer: Harry Lewis, Robbie Wojciechowski

For the scientific community, the Nobel Prize announcements are an important part of the yearly science calendar. The award is one of the most widely celebrated and gives us a moment to reflect on some of the leading scientific work taking place around the world.

This year’s winners include Alain Aspect, John F. Clauser, and Anton Zeilinger for their work on quantum entanglement. Carolyn R. Bertozzi, Morten Meldal, and K. Barry Sharpless for their work on click chemistry. And Svante Pääbo for his work on sequencing Neanderthal DNA.

To understand the science behind the award winners better, we’ve invited a variety of speakers to help us understand their work better. Award winner, Carolyn R. Bertozzi, Professor of Chemistry at Stanford, explains the basics behind click chemistry, a practice that has helped us to study molecules and their interactions in living things without interfering with natural biological processes.

Mateja Hajdinjak, Postdoctoral Training Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology, celebrated alongside her former PhD. tutor, Svante Paabo in Germany this week. We talk to her about his significance in the development of DNA sequencing in ancient humans.

And Professor Shohini Ghose of the Institute of Quantum Computing at Waterloo University in Canada joins us to explain the complicated world of quantum entanglement.

Also this week, we meet Jessica Thompson, Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Yale University, who’s been considering how new parents manage the tricky job of childcare while out on fieldwork. She’s behind a new survey encouraging fellow scientists to consider how to approach the challenge of parental duties differently in the future.

Presenter: Roland Pease Producer: Harry Lewis Assistant Producer: Robbie Wojciechowski

(Photo: A monument to Nobel Prize founder Alfred Nobel. Credit: Mario Tama/Getty Images)

NASA’s latest mission, DART hit the headlines this week after the space agency’s satellite successfully collided with a far off asteroid. The mission acts as a demonstration of Earth’s first planetary defence system. Jon Amos, one of BBC’s Science correspondents, talks Roland through the final moments of the DART satellite. Although the collision was a success, we may have to wait a little longer before we know if the asteroid’s trajectory has been altered…

Simone Pirrotta, project manager at the Italian Space Agency, has more to add. His nifty camera system broke away 10 days before DART’s collision, ensuring its own survival. This celestial drive by is guaranteed to provide scientific data to get excited about.

Also this week, we visit the China Kadoorie Biobank. Twenty years in the making, it houses a collection of over half a million genetic samples, which might help identify links between our own genetic compositions and illness. Roland Pease visited them in Oxford to find out more.

Finally, a new review describes the use of mercury by ancient Mayans. The metal is famous for its use across a plethora of civilizations throughout history. Andrea Sella from University College London, tells Roland how his favourite element underpins industrialisation across the ages and the globe.

Image: An illustration of the DART spacecraft headed toward its target Credit: NASA/John Hopkins APL

Presenter: Roland Pease Producer: Harrison Lewis, Robbie Wojciechowski

The first license of its kind has been granted for deep-sea mining. It will be used to run early tests to see whether the seabed could be good place to harvest rare earth materials in the future. These earth minerals are what powers much of our modern technology, and the demand is growing year on year.

The license raises ethical questions about whether anyone has ownership over the seabed, and whether we could be disrupting ecosystems under the sea in doing so. We have two experts joining us to discuss the scientific implications. They are marine biologist, Dr Helen Scales and Bramley Murton from the National Oceanographic Centre, Southampton University.

Also on the programme, we build on last week’s discussion about growing opportunities for researchers on the African continent. We look at how programmes of genomic sequencing are offering opportunities for Africa-based researchers, that haven’t been available before.

And lastly, we talk to Thilo Kreuger, a PhD student at Curtin University, Western Australia, who’s behind the discovery of a whole new species of carnivorous plants. We discuss what it’s like fulfilling a lifelong dream to discover more about these spectacular plant species.

(Image: The Metals Company plans to mine the seafloor for these nodules containing nickel, cobalt, and manganese in the Clarion Clipperton Zone of the Pacific Ocean. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)

Presenter: Roland Pease Producer: Harrison Lewis, Robbie Wojciechowski

A new report by the World Weather Attribution consortium demonstrates the impact of global warming on flooding in Pakistan. The consortium is helping to assess the link between humanitarian disasters and global change, faster than ever before.

The work, conducted by a team of statisticians, climate experts, and local weather experts, is part of an emerging field in science called Extreme Event Attribution, and can reliably provide assessments in the immediate aftermath of an extreme weather event

The report follows widescale flooding in Pakistan that has disrupted the lives of over 33 million people. Dr. Friederike Otto from the Grantham Institute for Climate Change explains some of the network’s conclusions as to the causes behind this devastating flood. Can it all be down to climate change?

Also this week, we speak to Prof Oyewale Tomori of the African Centre of Excellence for Genomics of Infectious Diseases, who writes in this week’s journal Science about what he believes African countries’ role should be in response to the Monkeypox pandemic, and how future academic work in the area should be more homegrown.

Finally, psychologist Lynda Boothroyd talks us through a new study about how the arrival of television in people’s lives can help shape unhealthy and negative perceptions of body image. The study, conducted in Nicaragua, amongst communities only recently connected to electricity supplies, is helping to show how the media could play a part in contributing to conditions like eating disorders.

(Image: Pakistani people move to a safer place due to flooding. Credit: Jan Ali Laghari/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

Presenter: Roland Pease Producer: Alex Mansfield, Robbie Wojciechowski

Early humans and Neanderthals had similar-sized brains but around 6 million years ago something happened that gave us the intellectual edge. The answer may lie in a tiny mutation in a single gene that meant more neurons could develop in a crucial part of the brain. Post-doctoral research scientist at the Max Plank Institute of Molecular Biology and Genetics, Anneline Pinson, did the heavy lifting on the research under the supervision of Wieland Huttner. They discuss with Roland how this finding offers a major development in our understanding of the evolutionary expansion of the all-important neocortex area of the brain.

A central aspect of what it is to be human and how we use our intelligence is to care for one another. A burial site in Borneo from tens of thousands of years ago gives us fresh insights into how advanced our capacity to care was, millennia before the establishment of stable communities and agricultural life. Remains uncovered by a team of archaeologists from Australia have found one of the first examples of complex medical surgery.

Finally, moving to a carbon-neutral society will involve developing huge battery potential, but that comes with its own environmental and social problems. Could a solution be found in the exoskeleton of crabs? (Image: Getty Images)

Presenter: Roland Pease Producer: Zak Brophy and Robbie Wojciechowski

Hot on the tail of China’s heatwave comes the other side of the extreme coin – tragic flooding. Also, a coming global shortage of sulfur, while scientists produce useful oxygen on Mars in the MOXIE experiment.

Prof Chunzai Wang is the Director of the State Key Laboratory of Tropical Oceanography in Guangzhou, China. He tells Roland about the surprising nature of the extreme temperatures and droughts much of China has been experiencing, and how they are connected to so many of the record-breaking weather events around the northern hemisphere this summer, including the tragic flooding in Pakistan.

Some people of course saw this coming. Richard Betts of the UK Met Office talks of a paper by one of his predecessors published 50 years ago exactly that pretty much predicted the greenhouse gas-induced climate change more or less exactly.

Clearly, the world needs to cut carbon emissions, and oil and coal would be sensible places to start. But as Prof Mark Maslin points out, this will come with its own consequences in terms of pressure on the industrial supply of sulfur and sulfuric acid, essential to so many other devices and processes. Can a shortage be averted?

And scientists working on Nasa’s Mars Perseverance team report more results this week. Alongside all the sensitive instrumentation aboard, an experiment known as MOXIE was somehow squeezed in to demonstrate the principle of electrolyzing Martian carbon dioxide to produce usable oxygen gas. As Michael Hecht explains, the tech is scalable and would be more or less essential to any viable human trip to Mars in the future.

(Image: The Jialing River bed at the confluence with the Yangtze River is exposed due to drought in August 2022 in Chongqing, China. The water level of the Jialing River, one of the tributaries of the Yangtze River, has dropped due to high temperature and drought. Credit: Zhong Guilin/VCG via Getty Images)

Presenter: Roland Pease Assistant Producer: Robbie Wojciechowski Producer: Alex Mansfield

The Jezero Crater on Mars was targeted by Nasa’s Perseverence rover because from orbit, there was strong evidence it had at some point contained a lake. When the Mars 2020 mission landed, it didn’t take long to spot rocks protruding from the bottom that looked for all the world like sedimentary rocks – implying they were laid down from the liquid water and maybe perhaps even contain signs of past life. This week, the science team have published some of their analysis from the first 9 months of the mission. And, as Principal Scientist Kenneth Farley of Caltech tells Science In Action, the geology is clearly more complex, as it turns out they are igneous, perhaps resulting from subsequent volcanic activity.

Back on earth, Shane Cronin of the University of Auckland has been digging into the legend of the Kuwea volcano in Vanuatu. Folk tales have long talked of an inhabited island that once disappeared beneath the sea. Over the years some have linked these and the submarine caldera with an eruption that occurred in 1452, yet the evidence has been debated. But the Hunga-Tonga eruption earlier this year has shifted Shane’s perception of the evidence. As he describes, he now suspects the 1452 eruption was as much as 5-7 times bigger in magnitude, and likely preceded by smaller eruptions that could fit with some of the legends surrounding the story.

This type of evidence, interpreted from the testimony of those who live there, is increasingly being employed in conservation studies. Heidi Ma of ZSL in London and colleagues this week declared in Royal Society Open Science, the Dugong – a relative of the manatee - is now functionally extinct in Chinese waters, but they reached this conclusion from interviewing hundreds of individuals in fishing communities along that coast. And very few of them had ever seen one.

(Image: Jezero Crater. Credit: Getty Images)

Presenter: Roland Pease Producer: Alex Mansfield

East Africa has endured more than two years on continuous drought. The latest predictions suggest the drought is not likely to end any time soon. We look at why climate change and weather patterns in the Pacific and Indian oceans are largely to blame. Andrea Taschetto, chief investigator at the Centre on Climate Extremes at the University of New South Wales discusses the latest predictions

Drought has also been an issue in Europe, comparable with events nearly 500 years ago. Chantal Camenisch at the Institute of History at Bern University in Switzerland has been delving into European drought history and says despite the vast differences in living conditions there are many parallels with today.

When a dinosaur killing asteroid hit the earth did it have company? A suspected impact crater discovered off the coast of West Africa may have been caused at around the same time . Heriot Watt University geostratigrapher Uisdean Nicholson and University of Texas geologist Sean Gulick have been investigating.

And we have some of the answers to why T Rex had such small eyes for the size of its skull, Stephan Lautenschlager at the University of Birmingham has the gruesome answer.

Image: Woman carrying water in drought, Kenya Credit: Getty Images

Presenter: Roland Pease Producer: Julian Siddle

We talk to volcano scientist Ed Marshall in Iceland about working at the volcano which has burst into life spectacularly again after a year of quiet.

Also in the programme, we'll be following migrating moths across Europe in light aircraft to discover the remarkable secrets of their powers of navigation, and hearing how synthetic biology promises to create smarter and more adaptable genetically engineered crops.

(Image: Lava spews from the volcano in Fagradalsfjall. Credit: Getty Images)

Presenter: Roland Pease Producer: Andrew Luck-Baker

This week two research groups announced that they have made synthetic mouse embryos that developed brains and beating hearts in the test tube, starting only with embryonic stem cells. No sperm and eggs were involved. Previously, embryos created this way have never got beyond the stage of being a tiny ball of cells. These embryos grew and developed organs through 8 days – more than a third of the way through the gestation period for a mouse. Roland Pease talks to the leader of one of the teams, developmental biologist Magdalena Zernicka-Goetz of Cambridge University and Caltech about how and why they did this, and the ethical issues around this research.

Also in the programme: the latest research on how we spread the SARS-CoV-2 virus when we breathe. Infectious disease researcher Kristen Coleman of the University of Maryland tells us about her experiments that have measured the amounts of virus in the tiny aerosol particles emanating from the airways of recently infected people. The results underscore the value of mask-wearing and effective ventilation in buildings.

We also hear about new approaches to vaccines against the virus – Kevin Ng of the Crick Institute in London talks about the possibility of a universal coronavirus vaccine based on his research, and immunologist Akiko Iwasaki of Yale University extolls the advantages of nasal vaccines against SARS-CoV-2.

(Image: Stem cell built mouse embryo at 8 days. Credit: Zernicka-Goetz Lab)

Presenter: Roland Pease Producer: Andrew Luck-Baker

In the last week, teams of astronomers have rushed to report ever deeper views of the universe thanks to the James Webb Space Telescope. These are galaxies of stars more than 13.5 billion light years from us and we see them as they were when the universe was in its infancy, less than 300 million years after the Big Bang. As University of Texas astronomer Steve Finkelstein tell us, there are some real surprises in these glimpses of the cosmic dawn. The super-distant galaxy that Steve's group has identified is named after his daughter Maisie.

Also in the programme: a 550 million year old fossil which is much the oldest representative of a large group of animals still with us today. The early jellyfish relative lived at a time known as the Ediacaran period when all other known complex organisms were weird, alien-looking lifeforms with no surviving descendants. Roland Pease talks palaeontologist Frankie Dunn at the University of Oxford who's led the study of Auroralumina attenboroughii.

Did the cultural invention of romantic kissing five thousand years ago lead to the spread of today's dominant strain of the cold sore virus (Herpes simplex 1) across Europe and Asia? That's the hypothesis of a team of virologists and ancient DNA experts who've been studying viral DNA remnants extracted from four very old teeth. Cambridge University's Charlotte Houldcroft explains the reasoning.

Image: Maisie's Galaxy aka CEERSJ141946.35-525632.8. Credit: CEERS Collaboration

Presenter: Roland Pease Producer: Andrew Luck-Baker

The extreme heat wave in western Europe over the last couple of weeks is just one of many in the Northern Hemisphere in 2022. How is global warming changing the atmosphere to make heat waves more frequent and more intense? We talk to climatologists Hannah Cloke, Friederike Otto and Efi Rousi.

If we want to stabilise global warming to two degrees by the end of the century, how are we going to do that? One novel idea is to harness the world's vast railway infrastructure and equip freight and passenger trains with an additional special wagon or two. These extra cars would be designed to suck carbon dioxide out of the air, liquify it and transport it to sequestration sites. Critically all the energy to capture the carbon dioxide comes free from regenerative braking on the trains. University of Toronto chemist Geoff Ozin and Eric Bachman, founder of the start-up CO2 Rail, explain the vision.

On the 40th anniversary of the International Whaling Commissions announcing an end to commercial whaling, we hear from Greenpeace co-founder Rex Weyler about the high seas campaign in the 1970s that helped prevent the extinction of the great whales. He talks about the contribution to the cause made by the discovery of whale song, and the release of humpback whale recordings as a commercial disc.

(Image: Firefighter trucks burning during a wildfire on the Mont d'Arrees, outside Brasparts, western France, 19 July 2022. Credit: LOIC VENANCE/ AFP via Getty Images)

Presenter: Andrew Luck-Baker Producer: Andrew Luck-Baker

Roland Pease talks to two astronomers who began working on the James Webb Space Telescope more than two decades ago and have now seen the first spectacular results of their labours. Marcia Rieke of the University of Arizona and JWST's senior project scientist John Mather discuss the highlights of the first four images.

Also in the programme, geologists discover precisely where on the Red Planet the most ancient Martian meteorite came from - we speak to Anthony Lagain whose detective work identified the crater from which the rock was ejected into space. And what causes vast areas of the Indian Ocean to glow with strange light - a rare and mysterious phenomenon known as 'milky seas'? The world is a step closer to understanding this centuries' old maritime enigma thanks to the crew of a yacht sailing south of Java, atmospheric scientist Steven Miller and marine microbiologist Kenneth Nealson.

Image: The Southern Ring Nebula Credit: NASA/STScI

Presenter: Roland Pease Producer: Andrew Luck-Baker

Following a bout of Covid-19, a significant number of people suffer with weeks or months of 'brain fog' - poor concentration, forgetfulness, and confusion. This is one of the manifestations of Long Covid. A team of scientists in the United States has now discovered that infection in the lung can trigger an inflammatory response which then causes patterns of abnormal brain cell activity. It’s the kind of brain cell dysregulation also seen in people who experience cognitive problems following chemotherapy for cancer.

Also in the programme, the latest discoveries about the asteroid Bennu from the Osiris Rex mission, how Malayasian farmers led US researchers to a botanical discovery, and a new explanation for why dinosaurs took over the world 200 million years ago.

(Image: System of neurons with glowing connections. Credit: Getty Images)

Presenter: Roland Pease Producer: Andrew Luck-Baker

A new analysis of deaths in cities across Latin America suggests rising global temperatures could lead to large numbers of deaths in the region and elsewhere in the world. Even a 1-degree rise in extreme heat can add 6% to the risk of dying. Lead researcher Josiah Kephart at Drexel University tells Roland Pease the lessons from Latin America should apply to cities across the global south.

Brazilian ecologist Andreas Meyer talks about the troubling prospects for the health of ecosystems, particularly in tropical regions, if the world does not cut its fossil fuel emissions hard and fast in the next few years.

In the USA, a team of engineers and neurosurgeons are developing a radical new approach for targeted pain relief – in the first instance, for patients recovering from surgery. It’s a flexible implant that wraps around a nerve and cools it to prevent it from transmitting pain signals. What’s more, says bioengineer John Rogers, the implant is made of a material designed to have dissolved safely into the body by the time its pain-killing work is done.

Geologist Bob Hazen has spent more than a decade producing a new classification system for the 5,700 minerals known to exist on the Earth. It improves on the pre-existing scheme by taking into account the myriad ways that many minerals have come into being. He tells Roland that this new way of categorising minerals lays bare a 4.5 billion-year history of remarkable chemical and biological creativity.

(Image: Rio de Janeiro City. Credit: Pintai Suchachaisri/Getty Images)

Presenter: Roland Pease Producer: Andrew Luck-Baker

Researchers have discovered a species of bacteria which dwarfs all others by thousands of times. Normally you need a microscope to see single-celled bacteria, but Thiomargarita magnifica is the length and width of an eyelash. It's been found growing in mangrove swamps in the Caribbean. Roland Pease talks to Jean Marie Volland about what makes this Godzilla of the microbial world extra-special.

Also in the programme, a new study published in the journal Nature has discovered that women scientists are less likely than their male peers to be credited for their contributions to research projects. Roland discusses the findings with the study leader Julia Lane of New York University and nanoscientist Shobhana Narasimhan in Bangalore. We also find out about the oldest evidence for wildfires on the planet which raged across the land 430 million years ago, with palaeobotanist Ian Glasspool. And Edinburgh University vertebrate palaeontologist Steve Brusatte talks about some of the evolutionary wonders in his new book The Rise and Reign of the Mammals.

(Image: Thiomargarita magnifica. © The Regents of the University of California, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory)

Presenter: Roland Pease Producer: Andrew Luck-Baker

Thirty years ago, world leaders met at the United Nations Earth Summit in Rio and appeared to commit to action to tackle two of the world's greatest environmental threats. The Earth Summit launched the UN Climate Change Convention and the Convention on Biological Diversity. Science in Action assesses their success by talking to atmospheric scientist Sir Bob Watson, a former chair of the International Panel of Climate Change, and to Tom Oliver, professor of applied ecology at the University of Reading, decades on.

Also, Arctic zoologist Kristin Laidre tells us about the identification of an unique population of polar bears in south-east Greenland. The bears’ unusual habitat and means of survival may make them more resilient to the loss of sea ice as the Arctic region continues to warm. Finally, archaeo-geneticist Maria Spyrou talks about her team’s detective work which points to an area of Kyrgyzstan in Central Asia as the likely source of the 14th Century Black Death pandemic.

Presenter: Roland Pease Producer: Andrew Luck-Baker

(Photo: Earth Summit In Rio De Janeiro, Brazil, 2 June, 1992. Credit: Antonio Ribeiro/Gamma-Rapho/Getty Images)

Researchers have developed a medical imaging technique which reveals where in the body HIV lies hidden, even when people have their infection well controlled by antiviral drugs. The team at the University of California, San Francisco hope this will lead to better treatments and even cures for HIV. As Timothy Henrich told us, they are also going to use the technique to investigate the notion that Long Covid is caused by the coronavirus persisting deep in the body's tissues.

Also in the programme, Roland Pease reports from the vast particle accelerator in Switzerland where the famous Higgs particle was discovered ten years ago. The scientists there are preparing to begin experiments with an upgraded Large Hadron Collider to learn more about the particle and the fundamental nature of the Universe.

Roland also talks to Frank Close, physicist and author of 'Elusive' - a new biography of Peter Higgs, a scientist as elusive as the particle named after him.

Finally an international team of archaeologists have revised the ancient history of the chicken, with a new programme of radiocarbon dating and analysis of buried bird bones. Humanity's relationship with the bird began much more recently than some researchers have suggested. Naomi Sykes of Exeter University and Greger Larson of Oxford University tell Roland when, where and how the domestication began and how the birds spread from Southeast Asia to the rest of the world.

Image: VRCPET body scan reveals HIV's hideouts Credit: Timothy Henrich / University of California, San Francisco

Presenter: Roland Pease Producer: Andrew Luck-Baker

Should we worry about the most recent Omicron subvariants, BA 4 and BA5? They are the subtypes of the Covid-19 virus now dominant in southern Africa and spreading elsewhere. New research suggests that they are better at evading our antibody defences than other forms of the virus. Columbia University virologist David Ho explains the findings and what they means for us. Also, reducing air pollution makes agricultural crops grow better, how large wildfires warm the upper atmosphere, and the dolphins in the Red Sea which use secretions from corals and sponges as preventative medicines.

Image Description: Coronavirus COVID-19 virus Credit: Getty Images

Presenter: Roland Pease Producer: Andrew Luck-Baker

Science in Action this week comes from a vast gathering of earth scientists in Vienna, at the general assembly of the European Geosciences Union.

Roland Pease hears the latest insights into the cataclysmic eruption of Hunga Tonga in the Pacific ocean from volcanologist Shane Cronin of the University of Auckland.

He also talks to NASA's Michael Way about how the planet Venus might have acquired its hellish super-greenhouse atmosphere, and how the same thing could happen to planet Earth.

There’s intriguing research from geologist John Tarduno of the University of Rochester that hints of a link between the ups and downs of the Earth’s magnetic field and the evolutionary history of animals.

Fraser Lott of the UK's Hadley Centre explains his ideas for calculating an individual person's responsibility for climate change-driven extreme weather events.

Image: Multi-beam sonar map of Hunga Tonga volcano post-eruption Credit: Shane Cronin/Uni of Auckland/Tonga Geological Services

Presenter: Roland Pease Producer: Andrew Luck-Baker