Seriously...

The recent rise in migrant boat crossings between France the UK is being fuelled in part by the more sophisticated methods gangs are using to source the boats.

Last year when they investigated the smuggling gangs for BBC Radio 4, reporter Sue Mitchell and former British soldier and aid worker, Rob Lawrie, were alongside border force officials as they seized all manner of dinghies used in the crossings. Today that haul looks very different: the makeshift supply has been replaced by a sophisticated business which sees boats manufactured in Turkey and transported across Europe to the beaches of France.

This streamlined supply chain is big business and it’s enabled the gangs to rapidly expand the trade: bigger boats made specifically for these crossings are mass manufactured in Turkey and shipped straight into the hands of smugglers. It’s a complicated dodging of laws as they’re transported across Europe, with authorities slow to react. And it promises to thwart whatever deals are secured between Britain and France to intercept the Channel crossings themselves.

For thousands of years we have gazed up at the stars and wondered: is anybody out there? The idea of meeting aliens has been the inspiration for countless books and films; for art and music. But today, thinking about meeting life on, or from, other planets is no longer dismissed as pure make-believe – it’s the focus of political consideration and cutting-edge space science. Farrah Jarral presents the story of the fantasy and the reality of preparing for first contact with extra-terrestrials.

2 June 1953. As the crowds line the streets to see their new Queen crowned, the news that Everest has been conquered is relayed over loudspeaker and adds to the excitement of the day. The Times prints its headline - the scoop delivered in secret code from the mountain.

Edmund Hillary is knighted while the press clamour to know who was first to the summit.

No better news could have reached Britain on the day of the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. It was a magical day that brought together a young Queen, her Commonwealth and her people in celebration.

Presenter: Wade Davis

The world is waiting for news of success from the British expedition on Mount Everest.

James Morris, later to become Jan Morris, is a reporter from The Times newspaper embedded with the team on the mountain. When news arrives that Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay have reached the summit, he must find a way to get the news to London without it leaking to other journalists waiting in Kathmandu.

Morris delivers the news via a secret code.

As the climbing team make their way down the mountain crowds gather to greet the heroes.

Presenter: Wade Davis

In 1953 the 9th British expedition to the top of Mount Everest finally reaches the summit.

In the final team was a New Zealander and a Nepalese Sherpa. Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay come down the mountain to a blaze of publicity. They were soon to become the most famous men in the world. To the team involved and the wider world the expedition was a British one, but Britain, New Zealand, Nepal and even India would lay claim to its success.

Just as Britain was preparing Queen Elizabeth II's Coronation, the world would learn that Everest itself had been crowned.

Presenter: Wade Davis

Britain has tried and failed to reach the top of Everest for decades.

George Mallory and Sandy Irvine disappeared on the mountain in 1924.

There were various British expeditions during the 1930s - all unmitigated failures.

The Second World War interrupted the race to conquer Everest. But by 1951, with Tibet closed by communist China, a new unexplored route through Nepal was available.

The Swiss expedition had nearly succeeded in 1952. The French are scheduled to climb in 1954. For John Hunt's British team in 1953 the pressure is on. It is now or never.

Meanwhile, back in London, a different race begins. If the British get to the top it's the scoop of the century for whichever newspaper can report the story first. The Times pays £10,000 to have its reporter James Morris, later Jan Morris, embedded with the expedition.

Presenter: Wade Davis

In 1953 Queen Elizabeth II is crowned. It's also the year that the British expedition makes an attempt to climb to the summit of the highest mountain in the world.

The story of Mount Everest spans the life of the new Queen and beyond, from the height of the British Empire to the rebirth of Britain as a nation. In this episode, Wade Davis, explorer and anthropologist, looks at events taking place in Britain in 1953 and how the nation was poised for news of an Everest success as it planned for the coronation of a new monarch.

Presenter: Wade Davis

Are we entering a ‘newgenic’ age - where cutting-edge technologies and the power of personal choice could achieve the kind of genetic perfection that 20th century eugenicists were after?

In 2018, a Chinese scientist illegally attempted to precision edit the genome of two embryos. It didn’t work as intended. Twin sisters - Lulu and Nana - were later born, but their identity, and the status of their health, is shrouded in secrecy. They were the first designer babies.

Other technological developments are also coming together in ways that could change reproduction: IVF can produce multiple viable embryos, and polygenic screening could be used to select between them.

Increased understanding and control of our genetics is seen as a threat by some - an inevitable force for division. But instead of allowing genetics to separate and rank people, perhaps there’s a way it can be used - actively - to promote equality. Professor Paige Harden shares her suggestion of an anti-eugenic politics which makes use of genetic information.

Contributors: Dr Helen O'Neill, lecturer in Reproductive and Molecular Genetics at University College London, Dr Jamie Metzl, author of Hacking Darwin, Professor Kathryn Paige Harden from the University of Texas and author of The Genetic Lottery: Why DNA Matters for Social Equality.

Music and Sound design: Jon Nicholls

Clips: 28th Nov 2018 - BBC Newsday report, BBC Breakfast News / BBC Breakfast news report Chinese letter of condemnation / BBC Newsnight from 1988 on 10th anniversary of Louise Brown’s birth

A key goal of eugenics in the 20th century was to eliminate genetic defects from a population. Many countries pursued this with state-led programmes of involuntary sterilisation, even murder. We unpick some of the science behind this dark history, and consider the choices and challenges opened up by the science today.

In the mid-19th century, an Augustinian friar called Gregor Mendel made a breakthrough. By breeding pea plants and observing how certain traits were passed on, Mendel realised there must be units - little packets - of information determining characteristics. He had effectively discovered the gene.

His insights inspired eugenicists from the 1900s onwards. If traits were passed on by specific genes, then their policies should stop people with ‘bad’ genes from having children.

Mendel’s ideas are still used in classrooms today - to teach about traits like eye colour.

But the eugenicists thought Mendel's simple explanations applied to everything - from so-called ‘feeblemindedness’ to criminality and even pauperism.

Today, we recognise certain genetic conditions as being passed on in a Mendelian way. Achondroplasia - which results in short stature - is one example, caused by a single genetic variant. We hear from Professor Tom Shakespeare about the condition, about his own decision to have children despite knowing the condition was heritable - and the reaction of the medical establishment.

We also explore how genetics is taught in schools today - and the danger of relying on Mendel’s appealingly simple but misleading account.

Contributors: Dr Brian Donovan, senior research scientist at BSCS; Professor Tom Shakespeare, disability researcher at London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine; and Dr Christine Patch, principal staff scientist in Genomic Counselling in the Society and Ethics Research group, part of Wellcome Connecting Science.

Music: Jon Nicholls

In the name of eugenics, the Nazi state sterilised hundreds of thousands against their will, murdered disabled children and embarked on a programme of genocide.

Why?

We like to believe that Nazi atrocities were a unique aberration, a grotesque historical outlier. But it turns out that leading American eugenicists and lawmakers like Madison Grant and Harry Laughlin inspired many of the Nazi programmes, from the mass sterilisation of those deemed ‘unfit’ to the

The Nazis went further, faster than anyone before them. But ultimately, the story of Nazi eugenics is one of international connection and continuity.

Contributors: Professor Stefan Kühl from the University of Bielefield, Professor Amy Carney from Penn State Behrend, Dr Jonathan Spiro from Castleton University, Professor Sheila Weiss from Clarkson University and Dr Barbara Warnock from the Wiener Holocaust Library

Music and Sound Design by Jon Nicholls