Bbc Inside Science

Antibacterial soaps and body washes make up an industry worth millions of pounds, but in the USA, producers have been told that they have just over a year to prove their products are safe, or, re-label or reformulate them. Many believe that using antimicrobial soaps, which often include the chemicals triclosan or triclocarban, keeps you clean and reduces the chance of getting ill or passing on germs to others. But the Food and Drug Administration in the USA says it's the job of manufacturers to demonstrate the benefits, to balance any potential risks. Professor Jodi Lindsay, expert in microbial pathogenesis from St Georges, University of London, tells Dr Adam Rutherford where this leaves British and European consumers.The world's most powerful satellite camera was launched today into space. Its mission, to map the billion stars in our galaxy. Professor Gerry Gilmore, Principal Investigator for GAIA, tells Inside Science about the planned "walk through the Milky Way" and BBC Science Correspondent, Jonathan Amo

Food crime is now big business that criss crosses national boundaries, according to today's report into the safety and authenticity of our food. Public Analyst, Dr Duncan Campbell tells Dr Adam Rutherford that he and his colleagues are hampered by lack of funding and the lack of a national plan for a sustainable laboratory infrastructure. While report author, Professor Chris Elliott, the director of the Global Institute for Food Security at Queen's University, Belfast describes how he wants the UK's scientific infrastructure to be strengthened to avoid yet another serious food scandal.Show Us Your Instrument: Cosmic Scientist Dr Natalie Starkey from the School of Planetary and Space Sciences at the Open University reveals the NanoSims instrument.Thousands of miles apart the same species of microbes seem to crop up deep beneath the earth's surface in cracks of hard rock. Yet nobody seems to quite know how they spread so widely. Scientists now believe they may have survived completely isolated from the surface

Badger culls in England have ended and Professor Roland Kao from the University of Glasgow discusses with Dr Adam Rutherford the scientific options remaining to tackle the spread of bovine tuberculosis. Field trials of the TB cattle vaccine are due to start next year and Professor Kao hopes that their success in sequencing the genome of Mycobactrium bovis will also provide a greater understanding about how this devastating disease spreads. The name of Douglas Mawson isn't discussed along with the famous triumvirate, Scott, Amundsen and Shackleton, but one hundred years ago, he led the first science-only Australasian Antarctic Expedition. A century later, Professor Chris Turney is co-leading a repeat expedition, where scientists will repeat many of the measurements of the Mawson trip.Rising inflexion at the end of your sentences is known as "uptalk" or "valleygirl speak" and it's usually associated with young Californian females. But now a new study shows that uptalk is expanding to men. Professor Amalia Arvan

Therapeutic hypothermia is standard treatment for cardiac arrest patients to protect against the damaging or deadly repercussions of a beatless heart. But this global practice has been called into question after research in the New England Journal of Medicine reported no difference in survival rates between patients chilled to 33 degrees and those cooled to just below normal body temperature to 36 degrees. Dr Jerry Nolan, vice chair of the European Resuscitation Council tells Dr Adam Rutherford how doctors worldwide are reacting to this new study and Dr Kevin Fong, author of "Extremes, Life, Death and the Limits of the Human Body" describes how medicine has historically harnessed hypothermic states to heal.Show Us Your Instrument: The European Space Agency's GAIA mission is due to launch just before Christmas. It will spend the next 5 years recording space, using a billion pixel camera. This camera is made up of charge-couple devices, similar to the ones you'd find in your smart phone. These are damaged by sp

Every twenty years there's a detailed survey of the birds of the UK and Ireland and today, the 2007-2011 Bird Atlas is published. Adam Rutherford hears from Dawn Balmer from the British Trust for Ornithology about the citizen scientists, the forty thousand volunteers who collected data on a staggering 19 million birds - 502 different species - and meets their record breaking volunteer, Chris Reynolds. A 73 year old retired maths teacher, Chris took part in the previous three atlases and walked thousands of miles in all seasons across his patch in the Outer Hebrides. Dawn describes the avifaunal picture revealed in this latest Atlas.In 2009, Williams developed a flywheel - which temporarily stores energy - for their formula 1 car. After the Research and Development was done, the F1 governing body changed the rules, and there was no longer space for a flywheel on their car. No matter, these things have other uses. Mark Smout from Smout Allen has proposed a design for the Isle of Sheppey in Kent, which uses bank

Global experts in DNA identification are flying to the Philippines to assess whether they can help families to determine, beyond doubt, which of the hundreds of victims of Typhoon Haiyan are their relatives. The International Commission on Missing Persons in Sarajevo used DNA matching to identify the thousands killed in the former Yugoslavia and has since helped in conflict zones around the world. Now, working with Interpol, scientists from the ICMP are called on to assist in victim identification after natural disasters as well, and head of forensic services, Dr Thomas Parsons, tells Adam Rutherford that a team will be sent to the Philippines on Monday.The enormous ash cloud following the 2010 eruption of the Icelandic volcano, Eyjafjallajokell, grounded aircraft across Europe for more than a week and caused unprecedented disruption. Dr Fred Prata has invented a weather radar for ash, and off the Bay of Biscay, his AVOID infra red camera system, the Airborne Volcanic Object Imaging Detector, has just been te

A hundred thousand Britons are being asked to donate their sequenced DNA, their personal genome, to a vast database on the internet, so scientists can use the information for medical and genetic research. The Personal Genome Project-UK was launched today and participants are being warned, as part of the screening process, that their anonymity won't be guaranteed. Stephan Beck, Professor of Medical Genomics at University College London's Cancer Institute and the Director of PGP-UK, tells Dr Lucie Green that anonymised genetic databases aren't impregnable, and that it is already possible for an individual's identity to be established using jigsaw identification. This new "open access" approach, he says, will rely on altruistic early-adopters who are comfortable with having their genetic data, their medical history and their personal details freely available as a tool for research. Jane Kaye, Director of the Centre for Law, Health and Emerging Technologies at the University of Oxford, describes the rigorous sele

A NASA spacecraft the size of a sofa is currently orbiting the Moon, gathering information about the toxic perils of moon dust. Dirt from the moon is sharp, spiky and sticky and it caused enormous problems for early astronauts as Professor Sara Russell from the Natural History Museum tells Dr Lucie Green. Joining Lucie from NASA HQ in Washington DC, Sarah Noble, programme scientist on the LADEE Mission, tells her that understanding the make-up and movement of lunar dust is vital to ensure humans can work on the Moon in the future.Electroceuticals is the new research area for medicine, tapping into the electricity transmitted through the vast network of nerves that run throughout our bodies. Kerri Smith reports on how the body's natural wiring could become a valuable tool for treating organs affected by disease. Glaxo Smith Kline has just invested £30 million into electroceuticals and researchers in labs around the world are working on devices that could "plug" into troubled organs and correct the electrical s

Britain's legacy of nuclear waste dates back 60 plus years and a long term solution to deal with it hasn't yet been found. After this week's announcement that the UK will have a new nuclear power station, Hinkley C in Somerset, Dr Adam Rutherford asks Professor Sue Ion, former Director of Technology at British Nuclear Fuels and Chair of the European Commission's Science and Technology Committee, Euratom, how much extra waste this new plant will add to the radioactive stockpile.Eighteen years ago the first planet outside of our solar system was discovered, "51 Pegasi b". This week the tally of exoplanets passed one thousand, and as astronomer Dr Stuart Clark tells Adam, an earth twin isn't part of the planetary list.....yet.Show Us Your Instrument: Public Astronomer Dr Marek Kukula introduces the original Six Pip Masterclock at the Greenwich Observatory. This clock was used in the 1920s to send the time signals down a telephone line to the BBC, for transmission to the whole country over the radio. That's not t

The link between genetics and a child's academic performance hit the headlines this week when Education Secretary, Michael Gove's outgoing special advisor, Dominic Cummings, called for education policy to incorporate the science behind genes and cognitive development. Mr Cummings cited the Professor of Behavioural Genetics, Robert Plomin, as a major source, and Professor Plomin tells Dr Adam Rutherford what he thinks about the way his research has been interpreted. Steve Jones, Emeritus Professor of Genetics from University College London says why he believes genetics and education is such a controversial subject.Fifty years ago, researchers tried, and failed, to teach chimpanzees English. They concluded that chimp noises were merely basic expressions of fear or pleasure. Dr Katie Slocombe from York University has shown that chimp language is far more tactical, machiavellian even, than that.The inventor of Golden Rice, the genetically modified crop, tells Adam Rutherford that he agrees with Environment Secret

The US has shut down government science with potentially devastating results for American and international science projects. Many individual scientists are banned from talking but Matt Hourihan from the American Association for the Advancement of Science tells Dr Adam Rutherford about the serious consequences of the political squabble.Roland Pease gives the low down on this week's Nobel Prizes including the much anticipated Physics gong for Peter Higgs' for his eponymous boson.Marnie Chesterton reports on the new iCollections at the Natural History Museum where butterflies collected 150 years ago are shedding new light on the changing British climate. And after studies this week linked cardiovascular disease to aircraft noise, Kevin McConway, Professor of Applied Statistics at the Open University quantifies the risks of complex science being distorted by simple headlines.Producer: Fiona Hill.

Dr Adam Rutherford and guests explore the scientific mysteries of the menopause after scientists in the US and Japan successfully induced pregnancy in post-menopausal women.Also in the programme, we hear from decision scientist Baruch Fischhoff on the difficulties of trying to communicate uncertainty in science in the wake of the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Following on from last week's Fracking report, one listener, Professor Kevin Anderson of the University of Manchester, raises his concerns about the consequences of exploiting shale gas for UK carbon emissions.This week's show us your instrument comes from the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Oxfordshire, where Dan Faircloth tends to the ISIS particle accelerator.

Fracking is touted as a technology that will lower UK energy bills. It's a controversial technique which unlocks natural gas from shale rock. But it raises many environmental concerns. So what does the science say? Adam Rutherford sorts science fact from science fiction, putting your frack FAQs to four experts. Reporter Gaia Vince travels to a gas well site in Warrington to discover the various techniques used to extract gas onshore in the UK.Also on the programme, your feedback to last week's story on new fingerprint technology.Lipstick forensics: Professor Michael Went at the University of Kent has developed a new method for unpicking the make-up of make up left at crime scenes.And this week's Show Us Your Instrument comes from Cardiff University, as we showcase herpetologist Dr Rhys Jones's snake hook. It's a low-tech but vital piece of kit for handling snakes. It's also useful for scrumping.

As Syria agrees to destroying its chemical weapon stocks, Adam Rutherford looks at how you solve a problem like Sarin. Dr Joanna Kidd from King's College London gives us a potted history of chemical weaponry. Environmental toxicologist, Prof Alastair Hay, from Leeds University has worked on chemical warfare issues for four decades. In the 1990s, he identified mustard gas and sarin residues from soil samples in Iraq, confirming their use by Saddam Hussein. He talks to Adam about the challenges of destroying chemical weapons in Syria. Reporter Roland Pease looks at a new phone app, OpenSignal, which uses your smartphone's sensors to help improve weather models. Today, London Underground workers are starting to boycott a new clock-in system, which uses their fingerprint for identification. Meanwhile, Apple fans are camping outside stores waiting to buy the new iPhone, which features a fingerprint scanner. Adam talks to Dr Farzin Deravi from the University of Kent about how fingerprint identification works and wh

As Spanish researchers unveil new stem cell research, Dr Adam Rutherford talks to Professor of Regenerative Medicine Fiona Watt. They look back at the history of stem cell research and what the future holds for regenerative medicine. Last week's discussion on science practicals generated huge amounts of feedback. Some listeners consider school practicals the secret to their success, others remember nothing more than breaking test tubes and blowing things up. Professor Robin Millar researches the best ways to teach science practicals; we ask him to respond to some of the points you raised. We unveil the mystery of the phantom head. Not an 18-rated horror film, but a dentists' training tool. This week's Show Us Your Instrument comes from Newcastle University's School of Dental Sciences. And, where there's muck, there's brass. In Newcastle, they're looking to sewage as a renewable alternative energy supply. It's flushed down the drains, but Northumbrian Water have taken a 'waste not want not' approach to our bio

Dr Adam Rutherford asks whether the proposed ice wall around the Fukushima nuclear plant will finally halt the radioactive leaks they've suffered since the tsunami in 2011.BBC Tokyo correspondent Rupert Wingfield-Hayes gives an insider's view on the current crisis and public reaction to the £300m rescue plan announced this week. Plus, Prof Neil Hyatt from Sheffield University describes the challenges ahead in building the ice wall, and decontaminating the water used to cool the crippled nuclear reactors.Amongst the many challenges of sending a manned mission to Mars is the problem of 'menu fatigue'. Eating the same ready meals for several years could send anyone over the edge. NASA recently completed a four month Mars simulation on a barren volcano in Hawaii, their mission was to invent dishes to recreate on the Red Planet. Cooking doesn't get tougher than this.School practicals may be popular with students and teachers but recent research suggests that they might not be a useful way to teach science. Is the

Science is supposed to be objective. Research by Professor John Ioannidis suggests the reality is falling short of the ideal. He talks to Alice Roberts about bias in softer science disciplines, and how having an American on the team leads to more exaggerated claims for the results. Is this due to the extra pressures they face to come up with new and exciting findings? Bomb-detection dogs are currently taught each new explosive, one at a time. It's time consuming, A team at Lincoln University are investigating a new approach, categorisation. It's known that dogs can visually recognise groups of items, but can they do this with a different sense, smell? Reporter Marnie Chesterton went to Lincoln to see the team at work. This week's Show Us Your Instrument comes from The Rutherford Appleton Lab. Dr Ceri Brenner shows us the high energy Gemini laser. It can be used to research the conditions inside stars. A team at Cardiff University are harnessing the power of social media to measure, for the first time, the kin

Prof Alice Roberts goes Inside Science this week to discuss the science behind artificial reefs. The 70 concrete blocks around Gibraltar are currently causing a diplomatic controversy as the Spanish government claim they restrict commercial fishing. We look at how artificial reefs are made and what effect they have on the marine environment.Bees have faced multiple dangers in recent years, from pesticides to parasites. Reporter Roland Pease visits a team at the University of Bath who are putting beehives into a CAT scanner to discover whether they can help breed bees that are more resistant to disease.Humans are special; our uniquely evolved feet testify to that, allowing us to walk upright. At least, that's what anatomy students have been taught for the past 70 years. Research published his week by a team at the University of Liverpool shows that our feet are much more ape-like than we thought. And some of us may have more 'apey' feet than others.Finally, this week Prof Andrea Sella from University College L

Influenza causes up to five million cases of severe illness and half a million deaths globally every year. Yet, as Adam Rutherford finds out, our current vaccination strategy is a seasonal game of chance, based on guessing the strain that will appear next. Research published this week in Science Translational Medicine, by a team from Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, offers hope for a universal flu vaccine, based on newly discovered antibodies.Earlier this week, a game to help combat ash dieback was launched on Facebook, called Fraxinus. Reporter Gaia Vince looks at the growing trend for using games to solve scientific problems. Is this new way of gathering and analysing data changing the way science is done?Currently half of all clinical trials are not published worldwide. Adam talks to Ben Goldacre, author of Bad Pharma, about his new campaign 'AllTrials', which aims to change that.Finally this week, physicist Peter Barham shows us his instrument - a spy camera system that he's designed to recognise penguin

Cultured meat was on the menu earlier this week, but Mark Post's public tasting of his lab-grown burger marks the culmination of decades of research on producing artificial meat. Adam Rutherford talks to one of the other major players in the world of manmade animal products, Gabor Forgacs. However, his company, Modern Meadow, is concentrating on launching a different product first - cultured leather.The football season is about to start, and for the first time electronic Goal Line Technology will be introduced. This year will see the Hawk-Eye system deployed at all Premier League grounds in an attempt to help referees make more informed decisions. But how will it work, and how accurate can it be? Inside Science speaks with the inventor, Paul Hawkins, and the engineers who are testing it to international standards.A bacteria or a bacterium? We sparked a controversy on last week's programme by using bacteria to describe a singular microbe. Adam talks to evolutionary biologist Mark Pagel about how words evolve a