Discovery

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Geoengineering The Planet Nov 01, 2021

Show notes

Even with the best efforts, it will be decades before we see any change in global temperatures through our mitigation efforts. Given the pace of global heating and the time lag before our emissions reductions have any impact, scientists are exploring additional ways of reducing global temperature. Gaia Vince explores ways of actively removing carbon from the atmosphere. She discusses the idea of BECCS, biological energy with carbon capture storage, and DAC, direct air capture with Simon Evans of Climate Brief. Sir David King, Chair of the Centre for Climate Repair at Cambridge University, explains how he is planning an experiment in the Arabian Sea that will allow the oceans to take up more carbon. Professor Rachael James of the University of Southampton talks about her experiments in enhanced rock weathering, where she finds ways of speeding up the slow continual process in which carbon dioxide in the atmosphere dissolves in rainwater, forming a weak acid that reacts with the surface of rocks. She hopes this will lock up more carbon and bring benefits to farmers and mining companies.

And psychologist Ben Converse of the University of Virginia considers whether we might find geoengineering a socially acceptable approach to tackling climate change.

Editor: Deborah Cohen

Picture: Clouds, Credit: Gary Yeowell/Getty Images

The Evidence: When misinformation kills Oct 30, 2021

Show notes

A maelstrom of misinformation and its sinister cousin, disinformation, have been swirling all around us about Covid-19. The rumours and conspiracy theories have raced around the globe as fast as the virus itself.

Untruths, half-truths, misunderstandings and deliberate mischief-making aren’t new when it comes to health of course, but a global pandemic with a novel virus means that there is much uncertainty and a lack of definite facts. In that gap, falsehoods flourish and in our super-connected world, they spread far and wide.

Claudia Hammond and her panel of global experts assess the scale of misinformation and its impact and conclude that misinformation really does cost lives.

Dr Brett Campbell, a physician in a dedicated Covid intensive care unit at Ascension St Thomas Hospital in Nashville, Tennessee, tells Claudia about the unvaccinated patients, many of them close to death, who still cannot accept that the virus is real.

Claudia’s guests include Heidi Larson , Director of the Vaccine Confidence Project and Professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine; Dr Saad Omer, Director of the Yale Institute for Global Health and Professor of Medicine and Infectious Diseases in the USA and Robert Kanwagi, a public health specialist and a member of the Global Task Force on Vaccine Confidence and Uptake.

Produced by: Fiona Hill and Maria Simons Studio Engineer: Jackie Marjoram

Chilean mummies Oct 25, 2021

Show notes

Think of ancient mummies, and you might imagine Egyptian pharaohs in their highly decorated cases. But in actual fact, Chile has the oldest mummies in the world. Unesco recently addded the archaeological sites and the artificial mummification of the Chinchorro culture to its World Heritage List. Around 300 mummies have been excavated from three different sites in the north of the country, near the border with Peru. The nomination took decades of work, drawing on many years of different scientific studies.

Jane Chambers travels to Arica in northern Chile to find out more about the Chinchorro culture and how they used mummification to remember their dead, 7000 years ago.

Photo: Chilean mummy from the Chinchorro culture (Credit: Bioarchaeology lab of the University of Tarapaca)

Earthshot 3 - The prize winners Oct 18, 2021

Show notes

Over the last 2 weeks we have featured the 15 finalists in the Earthshot prize, an initiative to highlight and award projects designed to conserve and sustain natural environments, and improve our lives in ways that are sensitive to issues such as climate change and biodiversity loss. Here we discuss this year’s winning projects and what future investment could mean for them.

There are five prize categories with a million pounds up for grabs in each.

Protect and restore nature. Clean our air. Revive our oceans. Build a waste-free world. Fix our climate.

Image: Europe, Middle East and Africa region on planet Earth from space. (Elements by NASA) Credit: Harvepino/Getty Images

Earthshot 2 – Tackling our energy crisis Oct 11, 2021

Show notes

Just how do we balance the growing demand for electricity worldwide with the need to reduce fossil fuel emissions to address climate change?

In our second programme on the Earthshot prize Chhavi Sachdev looks at some of the solutions. From projects looking at providing green hydrogen to industry worldwide and remote communities, to village scale solar electricity networks in Bangladesh and a portable pay as you go powerpack in Nigeria.

Also how to provide a livelihood for people who live in areas where conservation concerns mean they are no longer able to follow their traditional hunting practices . And we feature solutions for dealing with our wastes in their many forms from cleaning up polluted water to recycling human and agricultural organic waste – including an innovative city based system for collecting and redistributing food that would otherwise be destroyed.

The Earthshot Prize is an initiative from the Royal Foundation designed to highlight and reward inspiring solutions to some of the world’s greatest challenges. There are 5 categories with a million pound prize available in each.

Protect and restore nature. Clean our air. Revive our oceans. Build a waste-free world. Fix our climate.

Image: Earth at night, Credit: Roydee/Getty Images

Earthshot 1 Oct 04, 2021

Show notes

While international meetings to discuss climate change and polices that affect the world can seem rather distant to us as individuals, on a local level there are many exciting and creative initiatives all over the world where people are developing practical solutions to the environmental problems they see. The Earthshot prize highlights many of these projects, ideas and initiatives which have the potential to make a difference locally and globally.

In this three part series Chhavi Sachdev looks at the practical work of the prize nominees, and profiles their solutions on a range of subjects; protecting nature, cleaning the air, ocean revival, climate change and waste.

Picture: Earth floating in space, Credit: Chris Clor/Getty Images

The Evidence: To boost or not to boost? Oct 02, 2021

Show notes

The divide between the Covid vaccine haves and have-nots has been described as “criminal”, with only 20% of people in low and middle income countries having had one dose, compared with 80% in higher income countries. Countries with high vaccination rates have been called on to give up their place in the vaccine queue.

The dual-track global vaccination programme has led to real anger, made worse by announcements of booster programmes in richer countries (despite the World Health Organisation calling for such plans to be put on hold).

Claudia Hammond and her panel of global experts discuss the scale of vaccine inequity and consider whether evidence of waning vaccine immunity justifies the rollout of booster jabs, or if the soundest scientific case dictates everybody in the world should be vaccinated first.

Claudia’s guests include Dr Yodi Alakija, co-chair of the African Union’s Delivery Alliance for Covid-19 in Abuja, Nigeria, Dr Maria Van Kerkhove, the World Health Organisation’s Technical Lead for Covid in Geneva, Switzerland and two world leading immunologists, Dr Peter Openshaw, Professor of Experimental Medicine at Imperial College, London, UK and Dr Akiko Iwasaki, Professor of Immunobiology and Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology at Yale University in the US.

Produced by: Fiona Hill, Paula McGrath and Maria Simons Studio Engineers: Jackie Marjoram

China's great science leap Sep 27, 2021

Show notes

President Xi Jinping is investing seriously into his strategic vision of turning China into a nation of scientific pace-setters. China’s past contributions to modern-science have been proportionally lacklustre, but with a reinvigorated focus over the past two decades, China is fast turning from imitator to innovator. What might this increasing scientific prowess mean for the future of China’s development as well for the international scientific community?

Whereas once many Chinese scientists chose to go abroad to further their careers, presenter Dr Kevin Fong hears how the government has sought to lure its brightest researchers back and what that means for both scientific collaborations and the culture of science in China and the UK. As scientific research relies on transparent information sharing, what are the challenges of collaborating with an authoritarian regime?

In this second episode Kevin explores China’s booming space programme and quantum advancements; from a newly built space station to the launch of the world's first quantum satellite.

Kevin speaks to Professor Jian-Wei Pan, a scientist whose illustrious career is a list of quantum firsts and hears how China is fast making inroads into quantum computing and communications. We imagine what a quantum future - with China at the forefront - might look like and whether this potentially game-changing technology will be developed in a collaborative or competitive spirit.

Image: Wenchang Space Launch Centre in China's Hainan province, Credit: Photo by STR/AFP/Getty Images

China's great science leap Sep 20, 2021

Show notes

President Xi Jinping is investing seriously into his strategic vision of turning China into a nation of scientific pace-setters. China’s past contributions to modern science have been proportionally lacklustre, but with a reinvigorated focus over the past two decades, China is fast turning from imitator to innovator. What might this increasing scientific prowess mean for the future of China’s development, as well as for the international scientific community?

Whereas once many Chinese scientists chose to go abroad to further their careers, presenter Dr Kevin Fong hears how the government has sought to lure its brightest researchers back. He asks what that means for both scientific collaborations and the culture of science in China and the UK. As scientific research relies on transparent information sharing, what are the challenges of collaborating with an authoritarian regime?

In this first episode, Kevin Fong hears how Chinese science has advanced over recent decades following a low point during the Chinese cultural revolution. He speaks to a Chinese bio-chemist about his career in the US and finds out why he decided to move back to China to start a biotech business. At Loughborough University, Kevin meets a team of researchers working on Artificial Intelligence tools with Chinese counterparts, to help monitor and predict air pollution.

But are Western countries equal partners and beneficiaries of these academic partnerships? As China is set to become the UK’s most significant research partner, at a time of rising geopolitical tensions, we examine how the UK might navigate these choppy waters and what the risks and benefits of scientific collaboration might be.

(Photo: Chinese scientist at work, Credit: Guang Niu/Getty Images)

Covid origins: The science Sep 13, 2021

Show notes

Presenter: Roland Pease

Picture: Wuhan Residents Told Not To Leave As Coronavirus Pneumonia Spreads, Credit: Stringer/Getty Images