Unseasonably high temperatures have been recorded in both polar regions.  Glaciologist Ruth Mottram discusses why they might be occurring now and the potential impact on her own work measuring climate change in Greenland. Erica Ollmann Saphire from the La Jolla Institute for Immunology tells us about her work developing new treatments for Ebola, she is looking to develop drugs which work not just on Ebola but also a range of related Viruses.  And Eugene Koonin from the United States National Institutes of Health shows us how his computer modelling of the mutations of Sars Cov -2 suggest some good news - that the virus might not be able to mutate into further dangerous forms – at least not with its current set of genetic tools.  Eugene is originally from Russia and both he and President Obama’s science advisor John Holdren are keen to keep up ties with scientists in Russia despite the international sanctions now being applied over the war in Ukraine.  Both point out that many Russian scientists have opposed the war, and that curtailing scientific collaboration could have a detrimental effect not just on science in Russia but elsewhere as well.  Image: Penguins on an ice float, Paradise Harbor, also known as Paradise Bay, behind Lemaire and Bryde Islands in Antarctica. Credit: Leamus via Getty Images) Presenter: Roland Pease
Producer: Alex Mansfield

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A black hole just discovered in our Milky Way galaxy, weighing 33 times the mass of the Sun, and dating back to near the time of the Big Bang, gives new clues to the origins of this dark astronomical mysteries. And dancing with a Sun-like star in our galactic neighbourhood, it offers a great opportunity for astronomers to take a detailed look in coming years, as astronomer Professor Gerry Gilmore of Cambridge University tells the programme.   Presenter Roland Pease has headed to the lab of Professor Ludovic Orlando in Toulouse, France where they are extracting ancient DNA from horses as part of a project called “Horsepower” - to reveal how our prehistoric ancestors tamed and domesticated these powerful animals (long after cattle and sheep) and in the process helped shape the extraordinary history of the first states of China and Mongolia.   
  
And a deep look into the mechanisms of addiction – showing how drugs of abuse, such as cocaine, hijack the neuronal pathways that had evolved to drive our innate needs such as eating and drinking. Roland hears from psychiatrist Eric J. Nestler of the Friedman Brain Institute at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York, how this could one day improve addiction treatments.   Presenter: Roland Pease 
Producer: Jonathan Blackwell 
Production Coordinator: Jana Bennett-Holesworth  (Image: An artist's impression shows the orbits of the most massive stellar black hole in our galaxy, dubbed Gaia BH3, and a companion star. Credit: European Southern Observatory via Reuters)

Unexpected black hole in our galaxy

The highly pathogenic strain of bird flu, H5N1, has arrived on the continent. Australian bird specialist Megan Dewar, from the Federation University of Australia, has led a mission aboard the research ship the Australis.   Science in Action remembers physicist Peter Higgs 60 years after his Nobel prize winning theory of the Higgs particle.   The unfolding scandal of manipulated data behind claims of incredible room-temperature superconductivity. Science writer Dan Garisto has seen the details in a Rochester University internal investigation.  And the alga – single-celled seaweed – with superpowers. As well as capturing carbon from CO2 in the atmosphere, like other plants, this one can directly capture nitrogen too, essential for life, but which few organisms can do for themselves. We hear from the marine scientist who has revealed this evolutionary trick.  Presenter: Roland Pease 
Producer: Jonathan Blackwell  
Production Coordinator: Jana Bennett-Holesworth  (Image: KAPPA-FLU team selecting skua carcasses for post-mortem examination. Credit: Ben Wallis)

Bird flu in Antarctica

A powerful earthquake hit Taiwan on Wednesday morning, but thanks to the country’s early warning system and engineering-preparedness, there was little destruction and few deaths. Seismologist Ross Stein, CEO of earthquake consultancy Temblor, Inc., shares his analysis. 
 
The highly pathogenic bird flu H5N1 has been detected in cattle in the US and in a cattle handler in Texas. To learn more about this special animal-to-human transmission, Roland speaks to virologist Richard Webby of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Tennessee and Director of the World Health Organization Collaborating Center for Studies on the Ecology of Influenza in Animals. 
 
French Space Institute Supaero in Toulouse is collaborating with Japan’s space agency JAXA to send and land a rover on Phobos, one of Mars’ tiny moons. Roland travels to the University of Toulouse to learn more about building this wheeled Rover from Supaero’s Naomi Murdoch.  Transitioning to a clean energy future requires mining materials like rare earth minerals, but how will this impact our environment? Jessi Junker of the ecology charity ReWild explains her research and concerns for great apes as mining for these materials expands in Africa.   Presenter: Roland Pease 
Producers: Roland Pease, Ella Hubber, Jonathan Blackwell 
Researcher: Imaan Moin 
Production Coordinator: Jana Bennett-Holesworth  (Photo: Damaged building caused by the earthquake in Hualien on April 4, 2024. Credit: SAM YEH/AFP via Getty Images)

Earthquake in Taiwan

3000 light years from Earth, a white dwarf star called T Coronae Borealis is on the brink of a “once-in-a-lifetime” explosion.  Astrophysicist Bradley Schaefer is enthusiastic about the bright star set to appear in the night sky in the coming months.  Professor Irving Weissman has been researching ways to restore youth using mouse models for decades. He has sewn old and young mice together to join their circulatory systems and has found that giving old mice blood from younger mice reverses some signs of ageing. In his group’s paper, the use of an antibody-based therapy has been shown to restore a declining immune system in ageing mice. Not quite the fountain of youth but potentially a key step in halting many age-related diseases. Roland gets the details from Irving and first-author Dr Jason Ross.  And, in the small town of Cabrières in Southern France, producer Ella Hubber goes on the hunt for some 480-million-year-old fossils with part-time fossil prospectors Eric and Sylvie Monceret. Their latest excavation site is a gold mine of rare, soft-bodied fossils from the period during a time when this part of France was underwater. And at the South Pole.   Presenter: Roland Pease 
Producer: Ella Hubber (Photo: Illustration of the northern springtime constellations of Lyra, Hercules, Corona Borealis, and Bootes. Credit: Alan Dyer/Stocktrek Images)

Star for a day

The last great "out of Arica" movement of our ancestors swept out of the northeast of the continent 74,000 years ago. Archaeologist John Kappelman of the University of Texas brings us an update to this complex tale in the form of animal carcasses.   We take a trip to Oxford to meet some of postgraduate researcher Ally Morton-Hayward's archive of preserved brains. Not only is Ally shining a light on these underappreciated brains, she is also using them to unlock a rich treasure-trove of information about our ancestors and how they were preserved. How do you develop and promote a vaccine against a widespread but neglected parasite? Maria Elena Bottazzi from Baylor College of Medicine is in India promoting their latest development in creating a hookworm vaccine that works against these life-limiting childhood parasites.  And, is the Chandra X-Ray Observatory at risk? In a decision that has shocked astronomers, the functioning telescope is on the chopping block because of NASA budget cuts. We hear from Belinda Wilkes of Bristol University about Chandra’s impressive history and why it should keep going.  Presenter/producer: Roland Pease  
Researcher: Katie Tomsett  
Production co-ordinator: Jana Bennett-Holesworth (Image: Sunset in savannah of Africa. Credit: Anton Petrus via Getty Images)

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