2D supermaterials; Inside an MRI; Antarctic architecture
BBC Inside Science
BBC
4.6 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 25 July 2013
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Nobel Prize and - as of this week, Copley Medal - winner Andre Geim outlined in Nature today his vision for the next generation of super-materials.
Chemist Prof Andrea Sella joins Adam to explain how the discovery of graphene may have been the start of a remarkable new class of tailor made materials technically known as 'Van der Waals heterostructures'.
This week on Show Us Your Instrument, Prof Sophie Scott introduces the MRI machine and explains why you never press the 'quench' button, unless you want to blow the roof off.
Finally, an exhibition on Antarctic architecture opens on Friday 26th July in Glasgow, commissioned by the British Council and curated by The Arts Catalyst. We talk to Hugh Broughton who designed the new Halley VI base, a Thunderbirds inspired building, perched on top of stilts, on top of skis.
Plus, Adam calls the current Halley Base Commander, Agnieszka Fryckowska, to find out what it's like to live and work during three months of darkness.
Producer: Michelle Martin.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Choosing what to watch night after night the flicking through the endless |
| 0:06.8 | searching is a nightmare we want to help you on our brand new podcast off the |
| 0:11.8 | telly we share what we've been watching |
| 0:14.0 | Cladie Aide. |
| 0:16.0 | Load to games, loads of fun, loads of screaming. |
| 0:19.0 | Lovely. Off the telly with me Joanna Paige. |
| 0:21.0 | And me, Natalie Cassidy, so your evenings can be a little less |
| 0:24.9 | searching and a lot more watching listen on BBC sounds hello I'm |
| 0:30.4 | Adam Rutherford and this is the Inside Science Podcast. |
| 0:33.5 | Terms and whatnot are at BBC.co.uk. |
| 0:36.7 | slash Radio 4. |
| 0:38.0 | What a lot of weather we've been having lately, but do perhaps spare a thought for those |
| 0:41.9 | currently wintering in Antarctica |
| 0:44.0 | where the temperature is always in minus double figures and the sun doesn't rise for more than |
| 0:48.4 | a hundred days. I'll be talking to the base commander of the Halle 6 research station about engineering, architecture, science and |
| 0:55.9 | horror films later on and we'll be getting inside our brains with inside science's new regular |
| 1:01.0 | feature show us your instrument. But first we're |
| 1:04.4 | getting decidedly two-dimensional. You may well have heard of graphene, a new |
| 1:08.6 | ultra-thin, ultra-strong form of carbon. We're in a bit of a boom these days with over 10,000 |
| 1:14.8 | grapheine papers published every year and it's opening up a whole new field of |
| 1:19.4 | other super skinny materials that have unusual and potentially useful properties. |
| 1:25.2 | The technique for isolating graphing was perfected by Andre Geim and collaborators, which earned |
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