Should we worry about the most recent Omicron subvariants, BA 4 and BA5?  They are the subtypes of the Covid-19 virus now dominant in southern Africa and spreading elsewhere.  New research suggests that they are better at evading our antibody defences than other forms of the virus.   Columbia University virologist David Ho explains the findings and what they means for us. 
 
Also, reducing air pollution makes agricultural crops grow better, how large wildfires warm the upper atmosphere, and the dolphins in the Red Sea which use secretions from corals and sponges as preventative medicines.  Image Description: Coronavirus COVID-19 virus
Credit: Getty Images Presenter: Roland Pease
Producer: Andrew Luck-Baker

Should we worry about the latest Omicron subvariants?

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AI is already being used in every branch of science, and will become more and more a feature of future breakthroughs. But with its power to find subtle patterns in massive data sets comes a concern about how we will know when to trust its outcomes, and how to rely on its predictions. Science in Action talks to Alison Noble who just completed a Royal Society report on trust in scientific AI. With highly pathogenic bird flu infecting around 70 dairy herds across 10 states in the USA, including a herd of alpacas, we get an update from health journalist Helen Branswell of StatNews on the latest science and efforts to get on top of the infection. Also, from the pioneers of the mRNA vaccines that helped turn around the COVID pandemic, an experimental version that could be rolled out rapidly if the bird flu does cross worryingly into people. University of Pennsylvania’s Scott Hensley described how it works, and how promising it looks. Science in Action also hears how Europe’s new EarthCARE satellite, equipped to peer deep inside clouds, will tackle one of the biggest unknowns in the science of global warming. Presenter: Roland Pease
Producer: Jonathan Blackwell

Trusting AI with science

Fentanyl is a powerful morphine substitute, but it is also incredibly addictive – millions struggle with weaning themselves off it. And of the 600,000 drug deaths worldwide each year, the World Health Organisation estimates 80% are due to opioids in general, with synthetic opioids like fentanyl being a growing part of the problem. New work with genetically manipulated mice suggests that fentanyl affects two parts of the brain, one associated with the high, but also another that regulates fear. This knowledge could aid in the development of treatments to reduce addiction to the opioid.  Early developers: Long before a developing implants into a mother's uterus, in fact as the fertilised egg divides for the first time into a pair of cells, which line becomes the future baby and which will become the 'life support' system of the placenta has been decided. Embryologist Magdalena Zernicka-Goetz explains why this early unfolding of the genetic programme is important, and why it's taken so long to discover it.    Getting through pregnancy is only the first step in a person’s life. Surviving childhood, particularly for our old stone age ancestors, was the next challenge. And a new study looking at children’s teeth found at ancient archaeological sites gives clues as to why our ancestors fared better than the neanderthals around them during the last ice age.  Supersense: twitching hairs on some caterpillars turn out to be early-warning sensors feeling the electric field of an approaching wasp, giving the potential prey precious moments to hide or escape death. Biophysicist Daniel Robert explains the challenge of seeing the electric world of insect hunters and hunted.  Presenter: Roland Pease 
Producer: Jonathan Blackwell 
Production co-ordinator: Jana Bennett-Holesworth  (Image: Fentanyl. Credit: Isaac Lee via Getty Images.)

The roots of fentanyl addiction

They were the best northern and southern lights in decades, but why? And what’s next? We hear from astrophysicist Steph Yardley about the solar maximum, geomagnetic storms and atmospheric spectaculars. Also, the impossible heatwave in the Philippines made possible by global warming – the analysis of a continent-spanning climate extreme by the World Weather Attribution collaboration. Getting close up to raging tornadoes in order to fill in the big gaps that remain in the science of their development. And the tale of the lizard’s tail, and how it could lead to safer buildings in the future.  (Photo: The aurora borealis, also known as the 'northern lights’, are seen over The Roaches near Leek, Staffordshire, Britain, May 10, 2024. Credit: Carl Recine/Reuters) Presenter: Roland Pease
Producer: Jonathan Blackwell

Aurora Bore-WOW-lis

Could future blood transfusions be made safer by mixing in a new bacterial enzyme? Every year 118 million blood donations need to be carefully sorted to ensure the correct blood types go to the right patients. Prof Martin Olsson, of Lund University in Sweden, and colleagues in Denmark have published a study that suggests an enzyme made by bacteria in our gut could edit our blood cells to effectively convert type A, B and AB to type O. This would be a step towards a universal blood type that could be given to any patient.  Papua New Guinea’s Naomi Longa is a “Sea Woman of Melanesia”. She works to train local women from the Kimbe Bay region of the Coral Triangle to dive, snorkel, navigate and use AI to monitor the coral reefs there. She is winner of this year’s Whitley Award, and tells us why it is socially and scientifically useful to get locals - specifically females - involved in conservation efforts there.   Data scientist and roboticist Prof Daniele Rus of MIT has been using Machine Learning to decipher structure in a vast swath of Sperm Whale song data from Dominica. They have discovered a set of patterns and rules of context that seem to govern the way sperm whales structure their distinctive sets of clicks. The next step? See if we can decode any semantic content…  Also, 200 years after Beethoven’s 9th symphony premiered, science says its composer couldn’t hold a beat. A cautionary tale of the hubris of genetic data miners, Laura Wesseldijk describes to Roland how she and her collaborators designed the paradoxical study to point out the limitations of finding any sort of “musical genius” genes with contemporary techniques.  Presenter: Roland Pease 
Producer: Alex Mansfield
Production Coordinator: Jana Bennett-Holesworth (Image: Two Sperm Whales, Caribbean Sea, Dominica. Credit: Reinhard Dirscherl via Getty Images)

Changing blood types and whale grammar

As bird flu is found in US farm cats fed on raw cow’s milk, chimpanzees are observed eating infected bat dung instead of vegetables. There is a constant threat of infections crossing from species to us and also from species to other species, particularly because of what we do. That is, after all, what happened to start the pandemic. We hear about the ongoing struggles of the Chinese virologist who broke his instructions in China in order to share the first COVID genetic data. And a strange tale of how tobacco growing might provide bat viruses a path into other species. Presenter: Roland Pease
Producer: Alex Mansfield
Production co-ordinator: Jana Bennett-Holesworth Image: Cows on an American cattle farm (Credit: Adam Davis/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock)

Should we worry about the latest Omicron subvariants?

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