BBC Inside Science

This week in the US, public discussions are taking place into controversial Gain of Function research. Who should decide the limits of studies where scientists make new, deadlier viruses in the laboratory? Dr Filippa Lentzos, biosecurity expert from King's College, London, lists a litany of accidental security breaches from the past. Should we stop this kind of dangerous research, or encourage it,...

This week is birthday time for the 3000-strong group of 70 year olds who might qualify for the title of longest-serving science guinea pigs. Participants in The National Survey for Health and Development cohort study have been closely monitored since their birth in 1946. Joining Adam Rutherford to discuss how this and other similar studies have influenced our lives, and what data we should collect...

Britain faces a referendum on whether to leave Europe. Science, and scientists, often cross borders in collaborations, so what would the implications be for a British exit from the EU? The House of Lords Science and Technology Committee have an ongoing inquiry into how EU membership influences British science. Inside Science condenses the pertinent points. The stem cells that make up our organs 'k...

Gravitational waves were announced last week, in what may be the science discovery of the decade. The Ligo detector, the most sensitive instrument on the surface of the planet, detected the ripples given off by the collision of two black holes. Adam Rutherford puts a selection of listener questions to UCL cosmologist Dr Andrew Pontzen. In March 2015, Campbeltown, Glasgow Prestwick, Stornoway, Newq...

The universe is silent no longer - physicists at the LIGO observatory have detected gravitational waves. LIGO, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory, with its giant laser beam arms totalling 5 miles across the remote Hanford desert, is the largest lab on the surface of the planet. It was constructed in the Columbia Basin region of south-eastern Washington specifically to detect g...

Some much-needed good news for our troubled bees and other pollinators: between 1998 and 2007, the amount of nectar produced from Britain's flowering plants rose by 25%. A new study suggests this may be due to reductions in atmospheric pollution. But researchers looked at records spanning over 80 years, and also found that the UK flowers which provide nectar suffered substantial losses during the...

The Zika virus is dominating the news this week. The latest data says it's been found in 21 countries so far. The symptoms are generally mild, but the possibility of a link to microcephaly has been raised in Brazil. Microcephaly is a serious condition where children are born with abnormally small heads and sometimes incomplete brain development. Trudie Lang, Professor of Global Health at Oxford Un...

Our ability to extract DNA from old bones is improving, giving us a much clearer picture of who our ancestors were, and what they did. Two new papers out this week in Nature Communications are filling in some gaps in our knowledge of the history of Britain. One of the pieces of research - led by Professor Dan Bradley from Trinity College Dublin - examines DNA from individuals who died in northeast...

The 100,000 Genome Project aims to sequence the DNA of 100,000 patients. One of those patients is four-year-old Georgia Walburn-Green. Her symptoms did not fit into any known disease category. Prof Maria Bitner-Glindzicz at University College London used early results from the 100,000 Genome project to diagnose Georgia's condition. Roland Pease reports on helping stem cells survive using a kind of...

El Niño is releasing vast quantities of heat normally stored in the Pacific, causing floods, droughts and fires. Adam Rutherford discusses the latest with our El Niño expert Roland Pease. This weather event arrives every 2-7 years but it's hard to work out how profound it will be. Back in May last year, the Met Office climate scientist Adam Scaife correctly predicted an El Niño. He returns to give...

Adam Rutherford and guests oceanographer Dr Helen Czerski, astrophysicist Chris Lintott and zoologist Dr Tim Cockerill share their highlights of the science year and answer listeners' science questions. Producer: Adrian Washbourn. 99% of users are being tracked by the algorithm. If you are part of the 1% who demands pure, untracked intelligence, you just found the bypass. Get the raw feed now. No...

Since the epic flyby of Pluto in July, NASA has been regularly downloading staggering images from the New Horizons mission. Pluto is not a dead rock, but a geologically active dwarf planet, with tectonic movements, ice plains, glaciers, dunes and cryo-volcanoes. For an end of year update on the observations and outstanding mysteries, Adam meets Alan Stern, the Principal Investigator on New Horizon...

Two times shuttle captain, and with 6 months on the ISS, Commander Chris Hadfield is best qualified to pass on his advice to Major Tim Peake about the science and life in general on the International Space Station. Polar bears walk further Polar bears are having to walk further to stay in the same place. As ice melts in the Arctic, the thin ice is blown around by the wind, making it harder for pol...

Flood modelling As parts of Cumbria and Somerset remain on flood alert, Adam looks at the science that predicts floods. Are our flood defences good enough and is climate change behind the recent cluster of '1 in 100 year' floods? Flood modeller Nick Reynard from the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology explains. What is a scientific model? Prompted by a listener's question, Adam asks scientists what t...

Science Funding Review In the Comprehensive Spending Review last week, the Government announced its commitment to protect the science budget in 'real terms'. After five years of declining spending on science, this has been welcomed by many in the research community. But a lot of the detail is still to emerge. Adam asks Minister for Universities and Science, Jo Johnson where the extra funds are com...

Ancient farmers' genomes New research looking at the DNA of people who lived in Europe as early as 8500 years ago shows signs of evolution, of natural selection, and of how farming has changed Europe in the last few millennia. The huge sample of 230 ancient individuals includes 26 Neolithic people from Anatolia thought to be the very first farmers. Cern's ALICE Experiment Adam visits CERN in Genev...

Antarctic ice-sheet instability A new study models how the ice sheets in Antarctica will react if greenhouse gases rise at a medium to high rate. They predict the most likely outcome is a rise in global sea level of about 10cm by 2100. Previous research had put this figure at 30cm: this has not been ruled out by the new research, but it's been ruled much less likely. Groundwater The Earth's ground...

Britain's oldest tree changes sex - The science behind the headlines - this week it was reported that the Fortingall Yew in Perthshire (known to be a male tree, over 2-5000 years old) had started to produce berries (female) on one of its branches. Dr. Max Coleman from the Royal Botanic Gardens in Edinburgh explains that sexuality in plants is more fluid than in animals. Cryo-volcanoes on Pluto The...

Grid cells and time Animals navigate by calculating their current position based on how long and how far they have travelled and a new study on treadmill-running rats reveals how this happens. Neurons called grid cells collate the information about time and distance to support memory and spatial navigation, even in the absence of visual landmarks. New research by Howard Eichenbaum at Boston Univer...

Oxygen on comet 67P Molecular oxygen (O2) detected on comet Churymov-Gerasimenko 67P, has scientists baffled. Current models of the formation of our Solar System do not predict conditions that would allow for O2. Bees and antimicrobial drugs The antibacterial properties of honey have been exploited for thousands of years, but now scientists at the University of Cardiff are using honeybees to colle...

Animal experiments Scientists are changing the way they measure animals used in research. The most recent Home Office report not only shows the numbers of animals used, it also grades how much each animal suffered. Dr Sara Wells from MRC talks to Adam about this new measure, and also the fact that the overall number of animals used in 2014 has declined for the first time in years. Bees and diesel...

In a special programme to mark, amongst other things, the centenary of Albert Einstein's General Theory of Relativity, Adam Rutherford is joined by The Film Programme's Francine Stock to explore the theme of time-travel - in science, in film and as film. With studio guest, science writer Marcus Chown, they'll discuss time-machines - as imagined by scientists and film-makers; the grandfather of all...

As evidence grows about the vulnerability of our ocean corals to climate change, what's often overlooked are the more subtle changes in the ocean waters that contribute to coral resilience. Adam visits Southampton's Oceanography Centre where new research is showing how an imbalance of nutrients in reef waters is increasing the vulnerability of reef corals to high water temperatures which could hel...

A special edition recorded in front of an audience at Write on Kew, the Royal Botanical Garden's new literary festival. Adam Rutherford examines the science behind the global challenges and innovative solutions to preserving the essential biodiversity of the planet. From new perspectives on how plant populations can be made more resilient, to the remarkable genetic diversity of plants just being r...

Adam Rutherford and panellists Helen Czerski, Andrew Pontzen and Nick Crumpton answer listeners' science questions: What's the best way to become fossilised when you die? What are the most genetically different animals than can breed, either in the wild or in captivity? Why are there no animals with green fur? If one of the fundamental constants, like the speed of light, was 50% faster how would i...