Discovery

Genetically modified crops are an established part of global food production.

Research effort is now turning to the development of genetically modified animals.

Canadian authorities have licensed a limited production of "enviro-pigs", animals that have been genetically modified to produce less phosphorus in their faeces.

In Edinburgh, scientists have recently created the world's first genetically modified chickens with resistance to viral disease, including bird flu.

Rather than vaccinating birds (and humans) against the disease, scientists hope that genetic modification could be a mechanism to protect large production flocks from avian flu.

In America, researchers at Texas A&M University have successfully cloned a calf that's resistant to brucellosis, tuberculosis and salmonellosis.

This research is still very secretive, but, as the pressure on future food resources increases, universities and companies are slowly becoming more open about the role of genetic modification in animal production.

Presented by Sue Broom

Our body is the playground for around 100 trillion microbes, hiding in our mouth, nose, guts, skin and genitals.

In this week's Discovery Geoff Watts visits the Human Microbiome Project, where they're sequencing the genomes of human microbes.

Many are 'good' bacteria, helping us digest food, produce natural moisturisers and synthesise vitamins.

But new research has suggested that 'bad' bacteria may be involved in a diverse range of diseases including obesity, heart disease, cancer, Alzheimer's, arthritis and autism.

The hope is that by understanding more about our microbes we can develop new ways to treat, and even prevent, these illnesses.

This week's Discovery looks at the controversy over language. Not human language, but that used by our closest relatives in the animal kingdom monkeys and apes.

Can they really communicate in a way that constitutes language and if so does this mean they are capable of what we might regard as conscious decision making?

Thirty years ago this week, the first cases of young gay men affected by a variety of mysterious symptoms and infections were reported in Los Angeles in California. They had what would later become known as Aids.

For Discovery, the BBC's Jon Stewart looks back at how those first cases were recognised - and what has happened since.

James Gleick is an acclaimed science writer who first came to prominence in the late 1980s with Chaos: Making a New Science his groundbreaking work chronicling the development of chaos theory.

Now comes The Information; A History; A Theory A Flood. The new book expertly charts the evolution of the language of communication from the talking drum to the personal computer.

In Discovery Colin Grant talks to James Gleick about the ideas that have been illuminated in The Information.

Several pioneering figures are thrown up in Gleick's account, including Ada Byron, regarded by some as the first computer programmer long before the birth of computers.

Charles Babbage the 19th Century inventor of an Analytical machine, is also a key player.

But at the heart of The Information is an examination of Information Theory which was first proposed by the mathematician Claude Shannon in 1948. Information Theory underpins all digital communication.

Grant discusses the lasting importance of Information Theory and the work of Shannon and his predecessors on the world of science.