The nearest habitable world beyond our Solar System might be right on our doorstep . Scientists say their investigations of our closest star, Proxima Centauri, show it to have an Earth-sized planet orbiting about it. What's more, it is moving in a zone that would make liquid water on its surface a possibility. Gareth Mitchell hears from Guillem Anglada-Escudé whose "Pale Red Dot" team made the discovery and discusses what the "earth- like" claims actually mean.The planet hunters of today search for worlds beyond our Solar System. The planet hunters of a century or so ago, were still going crazy trying to find one more planet orbiting this sun. In The Hunt for Vulcan shortlisted for this year's Royal Society Book Prize, Prof.Thomas Levenson examines the craze known as Vulcan -mania, in the desperate search for another planet in an attempt to explain the odd orbit of the planet Mercury. But why did the phantom planet theory survive for so long?We examine observations from space of fleeting blue lakes in East Antarctica. They come and go with the seasons, forming during the warmer months of the south pole summer. As Amber Leeson of Lancaster University explains, many of the lakes then drain away, an effect already been found in Greenland but never, until now, in this part of the Antarctic. And their effect is cause for concern.Deep sea sharks are nearly impossible to track around the planet, however they inherit the chemistry of the things they eat. Researchers at Southampton University have worked backwards and by examining the chemistry of the sharks, they've been able to determine what things a shark has been eating but also where in the world it has been feeding. Chris Bird and Clive Trueman discuss how they're building up the first accurate pattern of their extraordinary movements. Presenter: Gareth Mitchell
Producer: Adrian Washbourne.
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Folge vom 25.08.2016Proxima b exoplanet, The Hunt for Vulcan, East Antarctic lakes, Deep sea shark hunting
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Folge vom 18.08.2016Autonomous cars, Bees and neonicotinoids, Marden Henge, Royal Society Book PrizeFord has just announced that by 2021 it's going to have a driverless car on the road with no steering wheel. It sounds ambitious, since it is the intermediate stop on the road to full autonomy that's raising some of the big research questions at the moment. How can drivers enjoy the reduced workload of automation whilst still being alert enough to take control if something goes wrong? For a drive of the future, Gareth Mitchell went to Southampton University's simulator facility for automated vehicles to meet Professor of Human Factors in Transport, Neville Stanton.Neonicotinoid pesticides have been used widely in protecting the UK's vast acreage of oil seed rape. Research out this week claims there is a link between 'neonics' as they're known, and waning numbers of bees - with the worst affected populations declining by a third. The study has grabbed the headlines because of its scope - 18 years' worth of observations in the countryside. But how much is the link a cause for concern? Researchers Ben Woodcock and Nick Isaac of the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology discuss the results.Nestled in the Vale of Pewsey, Marden Henge is an artificial mound considered by archaeologists to be one of the best of the area's neolithic monuments. It represents the missing link between the stone circles at Stone Henge and Avebury. Teams from Reading, Historic England, and other volunteers, have been digging there this summer. Roland Pease has been along to meet them.And we've the next nomination in this year's Royal Society Science Book prize shortlist: Tim Birkhead's new book, The Most Perfect Thing, all about bird eggs. It covers how they are made, why they are the shape they are, where their patterns come from and much more.Producer Adrian Washbourne.
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Folge vom 11.08.2016Blow to the LHC "bump", Crow intelligence, Robot mudskippers, Royal Society book prizeNew results have squashed the hope that the hints of a new particle detected by the Large Hadron Collider would confirm the existence of something extremely exotic, such as a new Higgs, or even the theoretical Graviton. Instead, the intriguing data 'bump' turns out to be nothing more than a statistical fluctuation. Physicist Jonathan Butterworth of UCL discusses whether this false alarm affects the LHC's chances of finding something else.Crows, ravens and other members of the bird family we call Corvids are well known to have sophisticated skills in tool use and problem solving. Research out this week reports ravens bending wire to help forage for their food. But what constitutes intelligence in bird brains? Adam Rutherford visits the Tower of London where ravens have been permanent residents since the 16th Century, and so quite a good spot for scientists to go and put bird brains to the test. He meets Sophie Hamnett and Nathan Emery from Queen Mary, University of London.Animals evolved in the seas, but by about 400 million years ago, some fishy creatures had evolved to begin walking on terra firma. Nowadays we look at creatures like mudskippers, that can swim and wade, to see how those first crawlers might have crept up the beach. A new study has gone one step further: Jonathan Webb went to Georgia Tech in Atlanta to meet the robot mudskippers.We're profiling each of the shortlisted books for the Royal Society book prize this year, and this week it is the turn of oncologist Siddartha Muhkerjee. He has turned his attention to trying to understand the root of all cancers, and the mental health issues his own family endure. His new book, The Gene, details the central concept in inheritance.Producer Adrian Washbourne.
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Folge vom 04.08.2016Signs of life on planets, Royal Society Book Prize, Queen Bee control, Galactic Prom 29What should we be looking for when searching for life on other planets beyond our solar system? Scientists urgently need to come to a consensus on this as a new suite of telescopes soon begins detecting. The space agency NASA has put together a virtual institute called The Nexus for Exoplanet System Science, and they've just met to work out how we should be looking for bio signatures - on the burgeoning catalogue of worlds beyond the Solar System. Adam Rutherford hears from Sarah Rugheimer, an astrobiologist from the University of St Andrews, on why the world's astrobiologists have decided to lay down the law.The Royal Society Insight Investment Book Prize celebrates some of the best science published each year. Today the judges announced their shortlist: The Cure by Jo Marchant; The Gene by Siddhartha Mukherjee; The Hunt for Vulcan by Thomas Levenson; The Invention of Nature by Andrea Wulf; The Most Perfect Thing by Tim Birkhead; The Planet Remade by Oliver Morton. We're talking to all the authors over the next 6 weeks before the winner is announced on the 19th of September. The first is Oliver Morton's The Planet Remade: How Geoengineering Could Change the World.Bee hives have evolved to have a complex, fascinating social hierarchy, and although we know about Royal Jelly and pheromones, how exactly does the queen bee control the fertility of the rest of the hive? A team of New Zealand geneticists, Peter Dearden and Elizabeth Duncan, has finally worked it out.This Saturday's evening BBC Prom is set in space. The National Youth Orchestra performs The Planets by Holst, and Richard Strauss' Also Sprach Zarathustra. But the concert begins with a piece inspired by this year's detection of Gravitational Waves by LIGO, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory. Gravitational Waves composer Iris Ter Schiphorst discusses how she went galactic.Producer: Adrian Washbourne.