By BBC World Service
Explorations in the world of science.
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The tiny sap-sucking aphid, at just a few millimetres long, is the scourge of many gardeners and crop-growers worldwide, spreading astonishingly rapidly and inflicting huge damage as it seeks to outwit many host plants’ natural defences. With insights and guidance...
Ominously called the lamb vulture, there are many myths and misconceptions surrounding the bearded vulture. Flying the mountainous ranges across central Asia and eastern Africa, with a wingspan of almost three meters, the bearded vulture is am impressive Old World...
Wild Inside returns for a new series to take a look at some of our planet’s most exceptional and unusual creatures from an entirely new perspective: the inside. Whilst we can learn a lot from observing the outside, the secrets...
Hannah Fry explores two tales of data and discovery. A young researcher gains access to a secretive data set and discovers a system causing harm to the very people it is supposed to help. One day a student makes...
Millions of women around the world experience the menopause each year; it’s an important milestone, which marks the end of their reproductive years. But every individual's experience of it is personal and unique. In some cultures, there's a stigma about...
Hannah Fry explores two more tales of data and discovery. Gossip and rumour are plaguing a tile manufacturing company. The chatter is pulling morale to new lows, and amid it all, a question hangs in the air: who is spreading...
Hannah Fry explores two tales of data and discovery. Do orangutans - or humans - experience a midlife crisis? Hidden deep in the data, two economists have found a surprising pattern: happiness is U shaped. And, John Carter has...
Hannah Fry explores two tales of data and discovery. Two couples are brought together by a tragedy and a tatty piece of paper, which reveals a serial murderer hiding in plain sight. And, across the world in Singapore, a...
Hannah Fry explores two tales of data and discovery. In a few specific years across the 20th Century, the proportion of boys born, mysteriously spiked. We follow one researcher’s obsessive quest to find out why. And next, a tale...
Humans have a long-held fascination with the idea of Artificial Intelligence (AI) as a dystopian threat - from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, through to the Terminator movies. But somehow, we still often think of this technology as 'futuristic', whereas in fact,...
How do you solve a problem like CO2? As the curtain closes on the world’s most important climate summit, we talk to a scientist who was at COP 28 and is working to solve our carbon dioxide problem. ...
The Life Scientific zooms in to explore the intricate atomic make-up of metal alloys, with complex crystalline arrangements that can literally make or break structures integral to our everyday lives. Professor Sir Harry Bhadeshia is Professor of Metallurgy at Queen...
“Big data” and “data science” are terms we hear more and more these days. The idea that we can use these vast amounts of information to understand and analyse phenomena, and find solutions to problems, is gaining prominence, both in...
Professor Jim Al-Khalili meets one of Britain's greatest physicists, Sir Michael Berry. His work uncovers 'the arcane in the mundane', revealing the science that underpins phenomena in the world around us such as rainbows, and through his popular science lectures...
People around the world are living longer and, on the whole, having fewer children. What does this mean for future populations? Sarah Harper CBE, Professor in Gerontology at the University of Oxford, tells presenter Jim Al-Khalili how it could affect...
Our primate cousins fascinate us, with their uncanny similarities to us. Studying other apes and monkeys also helps us figure out the evolutionary puzzle of what makes us uniquely human. Sarah Blaffer Hrdy’s work brings a female perspective to this...
The Life Scientific returns with a special episode from the USA; Princeton, New Jersey, to be precise. Here, the Institute for Advanced Study has hosted some of the greatest scientific minds of our time - Einstein was one of its...
Exercise in older age is high on the agenda, but the idea that with age comes bags of time and a desire to ‘get out there’ isn’t true for a lot of us. How do you juggle exercise around caring...
How many hours do you spend sitting down per day? Six? Maybe eight? Or 10? Between commuting, working and relaxing, sitting can soon add up to hours and hours. James Gallagher delves into the science to find out exactly how...
A look at the evidence that links the health of our mouths with the rest of our bodies.
Adam Hart investigates the fastest land animal in the world – the cheetah! Built for high-speed chases, these spotted cats are slender, with semi-retractable claws for good grip and a flexible spine plus a long tail for balance and manoeuvrability....
Adam Hart investigates a frenzied and voracious fish from South America – the piranha! Said to be able to strip their prey to the bone in mere minutes, there are plenty of gruesome tales about the bubbling bloodbaths that occur...
Adam Hart investigates the most famous and feared predator in all the ocean – the great white shark! With rows of large, serrated teeth, it’s often thought of as a ferocious man-eater and was the villain of the film Jaws...
Adam Hart investigates the largest terrestrial member of the weasel family – the wolverine. They’re far more than just a superhero played by Hugh Jackman! With a reputation for gluttony and ferocity, these solitary killers use snowstorms to hunt much...
With the world's biodiversity being lost at an alarming rate, Alexandre Antonelli, Director of Science at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, has made it his life's mission to protect it. He is a bio-geographer revealing how changes to the Earth's...
Astronomer Paul Murdin believes a good imagination is vital for scientists, since they're so often dealing with subjects outside the visible realm. Indeed, over a long and successful career his imagination has taken him on a journey through space, discovering...
Some of the most complex medicines available today are made from living cells or organisms - these treatments are called bio-pharmaceuticals and in this episode of The Life Scientific Dr Bahija Jallal, CEO of Immunocore, shares her story of leaving...
Reproductive science has come a long way in recent years, but there's still plenty we don't understand - particularly around male fertility. The reliability and availability of data in this field has become more of a concern in light of a...
We’re used to hearing the stories of scientists who study the world as it is now but what about the study of the past - what can this tell us about our future? Gideon Henderson’s research focuses on trying to...
If you’ve ever seen the ocean during a storm, you’ll understand the extraordinary power contained in waves. On an island nation like Britain, that power could well be harnessed to produce clean energy; so why have we barely begun to...
Erica McAlister on the bee intellect and whether bigger brains are always better. Plus cockroaches may be reviled by many people, but Erica discovers the extraordinary flexibility of their simple nervous system led to the birth of neuroendocrinology. (Photo: A...
What are allergies and what is the purpose of them? What can we do to try and prevent them? And what are the best ways of accurately and safely diagnosing them?
Erica McAlister on the innocuous wasp-like black soldier fly, a crown jewel of a fast-growing insect farming industry that's addressing the urgent need to find cheap clean protein. And how Namib Desert beetles have evolved in a very special...
Blowflies may be some of the most reviled insects on the planet, but as Erica McAlister discovers, they are central to the surprisingly long tradition of forensic entomology and how there's more than meets the eye in the distinctive structural...
Dr Erica McAlister uncovers a treasure trove of remarkable insights from the insect world including the innocuous flies that are Drosophila melanogaster. More is known about these flies than any other animal on the planet, as a model for human...
Dr Erica McAlister uncovers a treasure trove of remarkable insects from the humble flea whose jump enables them to fly without wings and the mystery of the hawkmoth’s tongue, whose varying length has offered the simplest and most effective proof...
Imagine a world in which your laptop or mobile device accesses the internet, not via radio waves – or WiFi – as it does today but by using light instead: LiFi. Well, that world may not be as far away...
Anne-Marie Imafidon passed her computing A-Level at the age of 11 and by 16, was accepted to the University of Oxford to study Maths and Computer Science. She's used to the 'child prodigy' label that's followed her throughout her career, but...
Our genes can tell us so much about us, from why we look the way we look, think the way we think, even what kind of diseases we might be likely to suffer from. But our genes aren't the whole...
From landslides and wildfires to floods and tornadoes, Bruce Malamud has spent his career travelling the world and studying natural hazards. Today, he is Wilson Chair of Hazard and Risk and executive director of the Institute of Hazard, Risk and...
The world around us is three-dimensional. Yet, there are materials that can be regarded as two-dimensional. They are only one layer of atoms thick and have remarkable properties that are different from their three-dimensional counterparts. Sir Andre Geim created the...
Norwegian jazz musician Jon Larsen was having breakfast one clear spring morning when he noticed a tiny black speck land on his clean, white table. With no wind, birds or planes in sight, he wondered if it fell from...
We've been building computers to think like us for years, but our ability to replicate human senses has been impossible. Until now. Evolutionary biologist and broadcaster Professor Ben Garrod, is off to meet some of the sensory innovators and...
We've been building computers to think like us for years, but our ability to replicate human senses has been impossible. Until now. This technological revolution is starting to profoundly change not only how we interact with the world around us,...
In The Evidence on the BBC World Service, Claudia Hammond will be exploring the concept of solastalgia; broadly defined as the pain or emotional suffering brought about by environmental change close to your home or cherished place. Made in...
James Gallagher get's behind the hype to find out if sperm counts are really falling? There are plenty of headlines telling us they are, but also scientists who disagree - he unpicks the evidence with two of them. James also...
James Gallagher reports on a psychedelic renaissance; a new wave of research testing hallucinogenic drugs like magic mushrooms to treat mental health conditions. There’s genuine excitement and some early encouraging evidence. A manufacturer tells James that in five years’ time,...
