BBC Inside Science Folgen

Are black boxes outdated technology?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 One of the authors has declared that the paper should be withdrawn, that he has 'lost faith in it'.Ivan Oransky runs the site RetractionWatch, dedicated to scrutinizing irregular research.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 Ball, of the University of Nottingham, explains the implications of reanimating dead viruses.And actual spaceman, retired NASA pilot Captain Jon McBride, came into the studio to share his out-of-this-world memories and prediction that the next generation of astronauts will be chosen on brains not brawn.Producer: Fiona Roberts.

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 monitor populations and their habitats are getting better and more mechanised. Cameras mounted on birds can record where they fly; audio recordings capture bat calls; satellite images monitoring habitat change. However all this digital data needs to be analysed. Professor Kate Jones, an expert on biodiversity at University College London, thinks that this is where more technological advances are needed. She wants image recognition programmes to scan through millions of remote camera images, or sound recognition of hundreds of thousands of bat calls to be developed.Climate The recent extreme rainfall has left many asking, is this weather linked to climate change? A new project 'weather@home' 2014, aims to use a large citizen science experiment to answer this question. Myles Allen, Professor of Geosystems Science at the School of Geography and the Environment, and Dr Nathalie Schaller, both of Oxford University, explain that they aim to run two sets of weather simulations. One will represent conditions and "possible weather" in the winter 2014, and the second will represent the weather in a "world that might have been" if human behaviour had not changed the composition of the atmosphere through greenhouse gas emissions. By comparing the numbers of extreme rainfall events in the two ensembles, 'Weather@Home' will work out if the risk of a wet winter has increased, decreased or been unaffected by human influence on climate.Producer: Fiona Roberts.

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 pint. Dr Tony Moss has built a fake pub, complete with lighting, music and even a fruit machine, to make drinkers feel that they are in a real bar. He says the venue treads a middle ground between a sterile lab, and an actual pub, where there are too many variables to reliably study behaviour.Professor John Shepherd from Cardiff studies alcohol and behaviour from the other end - the drunken nights out that end up in A&E. A few simple initiatives have helped reduce violence levels by 40%Producer: Fiona Roberts.