Bbc Inside Science

Women of science London's Royal Society was buzzing last week as historians and scientists chewed over the lives of iconic women scientists. But at a time when far more women go into science, the percentage who make it to professor is still alarmingly low compared to men. Last week's Revealing Lives event by The Royal Society was also about learning lessons from history which are of benefit to women working in science today.Mapping the ocean floor We really do know less about the ocean floor on Earth than we do about the surface of Mars, Venus and the Moon. In the case of the Red Planet, the maps are about 250 times better. This gap in our home-planet knowledge has recently been highlighted by the search for the missing Malaysia airlines plane MH370. The suspected search area in a remote part of the Indian Ocean is so poorly mapped, it's not even clear how deep the deepest parts are. Ocean floor mapping can be done by ship board echo-sounders, bouncing sound waves off the sea floor. But this is very expensive

Longitude Prize 2014 The Longitude Prize offers a £10 million prize pot to help find the solution to one of the greatest issues of our age. Votes from the British public will decide what that issue will be. This week, the six shortlisted challenges have been unveiled. They cover flight, food, antibiotics, paralysis, water and dementia. Alice Roberts talks to Adam about why we need an X-factor for science. Over the next month, Inside Science will profile each of these challenges and explain how you can cast your vote.Matter from Light In 12 months' time, researchers say they will be able to make matter from light. Three physicists were sitting in a tiny office at Imperial College London and while drinking coffee they found what they call a fairly simple way to prove a theory first suggested by scientists 80 years ago: to convert photons - i.e. particles of light - into electrons (particles of matter) and positrons (antimatter). Adam discusses the work with theoretical physicist Professor Steven Rose from Imper

Melting Antarctic Ice Shelf Nothing can stop the collapse of the Antarctic Western Ice shelf. That’s according to NASA this week. Key glaciers in Antarctica are irreversibly retreating, and according to the scientists studying this region they’ve reached a state of irreversible retreat - the point of no return. Brain enhancing devices If given the option, would you think faster or increase your attention span? Neuroscientists now say that non-invasive brain stimulation using electrical currents could do just that. The technology is still fairly new but is now being sold by commercial companies often marketed to gamers suggesting that it could increase your attention and make you think faster. But do they actually work? Inside Science sent Melissa Hogenboom to Oxford try one out and to discuss the science behind the hype.Black holes How big can black holes get? A listener asks and Professor Andy Fabien, Director of the Institute of Astronomy at Cambridge University answers.Optical and atomic clocks At this we

Artificial DNA DNA is the molecule of life, conserved across all living species for 4 billion years. But now scientists have made a new, artificial version, by introducing two extra letters, not found in nature, into the genetic code of a common microbe. The E. coli bacteria are able to grow and replicate as normal despite these artificial additions. In future, this research might create organisms that can make new proteins, which could offer new drugs and vaccines. What is fire? A listener wrote in to ask about fire – what is it? And what is the difference between a super-hot gas and plasma? We went straight to Dr. Guillermo Rein, Mechanical Engineer at Imperial College and Editor-in-Chief of the journal Fire Technology. It turns out, they’re great questions and even the experts can’t quite agree on the answers.Obituary - Colin Pillinger British planetary scientist Professor Colin Pillinger, best known for his 2003 attempt to land a spacecraft on Mars, has died aged 70. .Oxford Maths Institute The new Maths

A recent paper demonstrated that mice show elevated stress levels in the presence of male hormones. What implications does this have for future mouse research? Adam Rutherford heads to University College London to speak to Dr Clare Stanford, who works with mice and men.How do you get jet fuel from thin air? Just add water, carbon dioxide and a large amount of concentrated sunlight. A team from the European Solar Jet Project has, for the first time, proved that you can make 'green' or carbon neutral paraffin, the hydrocarbon used in jet fuel. It's feasible; the next step is to try and make this process commercially viable.Neuroscience is a fast growing and popular field, so naturally there are an abundance of stories reported in the press often illustrated with a beautiful picture of the brain. But despite the advances, when an area of the brain 'lights up" it does not tell us as much as we'd like about the inner workings of the mind. Adam Rutherford speaks to neuroscientists to get to the bottom of what brain

Y Chromosome We learn from a young age that if a fertilised egg carries XX chromosomes it will be a girl, but with XY it will be a boy. This male Y sex chromosome has lost many genes along its evolution over the past 180 million years and now only about 20 genes remain. Now two new studies in Nature journal have given clues into how the Y chromosome evolved into its current state by looking at the genetic make up of 15 species the team built an archaeological record of all the mutations that occurred over time - to trace the timing of how the Y originated.... Professor Henrik Kaessmann from the University of Lausanne in Switzerland explains that the genes that remain play a more important role than previously believed.Everest Avalanche Last week the biggest single loss-of-life event occurred on Everest: a huge avalanche killed 16 Sherpa guides. All were so-called "icefall doctors", possibly the riskiest job of all, which involves finding a route through the broken mass of icefall, and then securing ladders a

How sperm recognises the egg The discovery of a protein on mammalian sperm almost a decade ago, sparked the search for the corresponding receptor on the egg. Now researchers in the UK have found this receptor in mouse egg cells. They propose to call it Juno, after the Roman Goddess of fertility and marriage. The finding indicates that these two proteins need to interact for normal fertilisation to occur. And in humans, it could lead to early screening of couple to decide which appropriate fertility treatment they require.Dogs as clinical models Dogs play an important companion role in society, but man's best friend can suffer from hundreds of different diseases. Surprisingly, many of these are very similar to human diseases, including cancer and autoimmune conditions. Research into a range of naturally occurring canine conditions has the potential to lead to some ground-breaking medical advances and improve human health.Automatic Facebook Keeping up with your online social network of 'friends' on Facebook can

Whaling The International Court of Justice in the Hague recently ruled that Japan should stop whaling in the Antarctic “for scientific purposes.” They found that the primary purpose of the science programme, JARPAII, was not science. In that case, what was it for? Inside Science puts that question to whale biologist Vassili Papastavrou, and Lars Walløe, Japan’s expert witness at the ICJ.LUX Experiment to detect dark matter Scientists are entering a critical phase in the quest to find the one of most mysterious particles in the Universe. An experiment called LUX, in South Dakota is about to be switched on that offers the best hope yet of detecting dark matter - a substance thought to make up a quarter of the Universe, yet one that nobody has ever seen. Falling in the elderly As we age, we tend to fall more and the repercussions of falling are more serious But why? Even if you rule out physical reasons for why you might be more likely to fall, older people still fall more often. Professor Raymond Reynolds, at

Calorie restriction Careful restriction of the number of calories eaten, without causing malnutrition, extends the lifespan of numerous organisms – from worms to mice – but whether it works in monkeys is controversial. Building on results from a long-running primate experiment, a team at the University of Wisconsin show a reduction in mortality, in response to caloric restriction. So there seem to be some benefits, but Tracey Logan asks if this can be applied to humans? And would we want to live longer on a tightly controlled diet?Dating the Moon New work by planetary scientists from France, Germany and the USA, has given the most accurate date yet for the birth of the moon. The Moon is believed to have formed out of debris from a massive collision with another Mars-sized planet. The date of this event has always been controversial as radioactive decay readings have produced wildly different results. But this clock uses a different approach, and rules out an early-forming moon. The later the moon formed, the

School Report on Fracking This week, Inside Science is taken over by BBC School Reporters and Melissa Hogenboom eavesdrops on a school in Lancashire, preparing their report on fracking. They discuss the issues very local to them, as well as the wider international angles and how best to present the story.Purple GM tomatoes The chemical that gives blackberries, blackcurrants, blueberries and some red grape varieties their distinctive purple colour is Anthocyanin. It’s been shown to have some possible anti-cancer properties as well as some protection against cardiovascular disease. So scientists at the John Innes Centre have inserted the ‘purple gene’ into tomatoes to try and boost their health-giving properties. This step is relatively easy, compared to navigating the rules and regulations of getting to the stage of producing purple ketchup. Gareth Mitchell asks the School reporters what they think about Genetic Modification of food crops.Artificial humans With progress in 3D printing of organs, brain-machine

Cosmic Inflation and Gravity waves Scientists in the BICEP 2 Group say they've found the earliest rumbles of the Big Bang. Theory predicts how the universe first expanded. Now we have the first observation of the phenomenon behind it. The universe was kick-started by a so called 'inflation' - vigorous growth within a fraction of a second of the Big Bang going bang. To confirm inflation you need to detect ripples in the fabric of space called gravitational waves. And to find those, you need to look for twists and kinks in this stuff. The BICEP 2 radio telescope, at the South Pole, has been measuring the direction of twists of light from the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation - which is a form of primordial light, a remnant of the Big Bang. The signals have been released that show distortions in that light that can only have been caused by gravitational waves. They could only be there if there was inflation. In other words, these observations have shored up one of the most important theories in cosmology. Ga

Are black boxes outdated technology? With GPS widely available in everyday gadgets like mobile phones, how could Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 just disappear? Adam Rutherford speaks to Dr Matt Greaves, a Lecturer in Accident Investigation at Cranfield University, about how we track aircraft.Earlier this year, a new study from Japan announced a curiously easy way to make stem cells, by placing them in a mild acid bath. It seemed too good to be true, and according to recent critics, it is. One of the authors has declared that the paper should be withdrawn, that he has 'lost faith in it'.Ivan Oransky runs the site RetractionWatch, dedicated to scrutinizing irregular research. He talks to Adam about the value of post-publication peer review, and public scrutiny of science on the internet.A 30,000 year old killer, buried 100 feet under the Siberian permafrost, has risen from the dead. It's a mega virus, with the largest genome of any known virus, and, happily, only infects amoebae. Virologist Professor Jonathan B

Chemical weapons Disposing of Syria's chemical weapons is a difficult task, both politically and technically. The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), responsible for the decommissioning, has kitted out a special ship, the MV Cape Ray to hydrolyse "priority" toxic substances. Hamish de Bretton Gordon, a chemical weapons expert from SecureBio, explains why destroying chemical precursors on dry land is not an option and whether the job will be done on time.Tracking turtles Satellite tags have finally given researchers insight into the "lost years" of loggerhead turtles. After many failed attempts, researchers have worked out how to attach the tiny tags to the months-old animals during the uncertain period when they leave US coastal waters and head out into the Atlantic Ocean. The data suggests the loggerheads can spend some time living in amongst floating mats of Sargassum seaweed, in the Sargasso Sea.Technology for Nature The tools and gadgets available to remotely track animals and mon

Neuroscientist Miguel Nicolelis is one of the world's leading researchers into using the mind to control machines. He is involved in the "Walk Again Project" which aims to build a suit that a paraplegic person can wear and control so that he or she can kick a football at the opening ceremony of the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. Adam is joined by biomedical engineer, Professor Christopher James from Warwick University, who puts the field of Brain Machine Interfaces in context.Work published last week by Professor Ziv Williams looks at the possibility of rewiring the body. Paralysis is normally confined to spinal cord damage, not the limbs themselves. Ziv Williams' work aims to use implanted chips to bypass the injury and have the individual control their own paralysed arms.Listeners ask if there is a gene for fundamentalist intolerance. We put the question to Professor Tim Spector, author of Identically Different.Adam Rutherford heads down to the psychology department at London's South Bank University... for a pin

Bees - Nearly all bees in the UK suffering serious declines. They're mostly threatened by habitat and land-use change. But disease also plays a part. Adam Rutherford talks to Professor Mark Brown about new work he's done looking at the evidence of diseases harboured by honeybees, spilling over into wild bumblebees.Pain and epigenetics - Marnie Chesterton goes to Kings College, London to watch identical twins being tested for pain tolerance. The study is to gain insight into the genetic components of pain perception. One area which is fascinating researchers like Professor Tim Spector is the role of epigenetics in how we process pain. Our epigenome is a system that changes the way our DNA is interpreted. Genes can be dialled up or down, like a dimmer switch, by adding little chemical tags to the DNA. These chemical tags, unlike DNA, are changeable, in response to the changing environment. So could the way we live affect the pain we feel?Whales from Space - More listeners' questions, this time, asking whether s

Whales from Space. Scientists have demonstrated how new satellite technology can be used to count whales, and ultimately estimate their population size. Using Very High Resolution (VHR) satellite imagery, alongside image processing software, they were able to automatically detect and count whales breeding in part of the Golfo Nuevo, Peninsula Valdes in Argentina.The new method could revolutionise how whale population size is estimated. Marine mammals are extremely difficult to count on a large scale and traditional methods are costly, inaccurate and dangerous; several whales researchers have died in light aircraft accidents. How long will the floods last? Is this a trend caused by climate change? Should I turn on the kitchen taps so that house is at least flooded with clean water? We put listeners' flood questions to experts from the Centre of Ecology and Hydrology and the British Geological Survey.The instrument we're shown this week is from JET (Joint European Torus) in Culham,. It's the world's largest 'to

The warning that floods are likely to become more common, or more severe, won't be a high priority for those with homes currently deluged. But it is something architects, engineers and planners have been taking very seriously. Dr. Adam Rutherford finds out about some of the innovations, both in UK and abroad, being designed for homes in areas prone to flooding - from simple door guards and waterproofing which can be retrofitted to existing houses - to entire city re-landscaping, or 'waterscaping' which aims to make room for the river, rather than fighting against it.Last week Adam talked about research showing that most people of European or East Asian descent carry a small percentage of Neanderthal DNA - about 2%. He examined some of the physical characteristics we may have got from the genes of our ancient cousins. This week Inside Science addresses some of the questions this fascinating work prompted.A new study in the journal Neuron this week, looks at what happens in the brain when one of the senses is d

We now know that Neanderthals and our ancestors interbred over 40,000 years ago. Recent research has shown that most people of European or East Asian descent carry a small percentage of Neanderthal DNA - about 2%. But two new papers this week examine some of the physical characteristics we may have got from the genes of our ancient cousins. They include some disease susceptibilities and hair and skin characteristics, which may have helped our forebears survive in northern climes.There have been many sensationalist headlines in the news this week suggesting that the deadly bubonic plague could return, when really, it never went away. And while it can still be deadly, it can be treated early with antibiotics. In the Middle Ages the Black Death is thought to have killed up to half of the European population and so too did the Justinian Plague 800 years earlier. Now scientists have compared these two plague genomes to find that they were both caused by distinct strains of the same bacterium, Yersinia Pestis. Know

The Higgs boson has been discovered, providing the final piece of the jigsaw puzzle for the Standard Model of particle physics, a description of how the universe works. But what physicists haven't found yet, which they should have, are supersymmetry or SUSY particles. Roland Pease attended a recent meeting of top physicists, and shares with Adam Rutherford the latest discussions about where to look next.The history of neutrinos is littered with interesting characters. It was Wolfgang Pauli who first suggested their existence. Pauli was so unsettled by his proposal that he bet a case of champagne against anyone being able to discover these "pathologically shy" particles. Since then, scientists have built ever more elaborate experiments to try and detect these particles. Ray Jayawardhana, Professor of Astrophysics and author of a new book "The Neutrino Hunters" explains more about the most abundant particle in the universe.This week's Show Us Your Instrument is a tool used to help scientists measure the glacier

For a couple of hundred quid, one of many companies will send you a kit for sampling your own genome, and most will tell you your genetic risk for some diseases. In December the US Food and Drug Administration imposed a ban on one of these companies, 23andme. The reasoning was that if the organisation is offering medical advice, it needs to be medically regulated. Geneticist Professor Robert Green from Harvard Medical School argues that people can cope responsibly with their genetic information and that the FDA is being over-cautious.Most people are familiar with recurrent infections caused by bacteria such as tonsillitis and bladder infections, where you pick up an infection, get treated with antibiotics and then after a few weeks or months the infection reappears and you need another course of antibiotics; this is a problem that can go on for many years, and is a major healthcare burden world-wide. Marnie Chesterton met a team from Imperial College studying the elusive persister cells responsible for these