Hello you this is the podcast of Inside Science from BBC Radio 4 first broadcast on New Year's Eve 2015.

I'm Adam Rutherford and I hope you've had a splendid year.

2016 is going to be packed with science so buckle up buckeroo the website is

BBC.co. UK slash radio4

2015 is almost done and dusted and we've been hoarding your excellent

questions over the course of the year.

Our mail bag has been bulging with some splendid scientific queries and today we're deploying

our expert panel to address our favorites.

All the universes in the program today but keep

sending them in inside science at BBC.co. UK. As ever we've selected some of the

finest minds available across the various sciences so without delay let's crack on

panel please identify yourselves I'm Chris Linta I'm an astronomer at Oxford and I'm also

co-presenter of the sky at night I'm Helen Chersky I'm a physicist at University College London.

I'm Tim Cockrell I'm a science communicator with a background in ecology and biodiversity.

Outstanding so we're going to crack straight on with our first question which comes from William

Nelson and this is one for you, Helen.

William says, Tides are a source of renewable hydroelectric power, but if we take energy out of the tidal system will

that have an impact however tiny on three things he points out one the level of the

tide to the orbit of the moon 3, will the Earth itself end up spinning more slowly?

There is a lot of energy in the tides, however the amount of energy you can take out of it

using tidal systems is very, very, very small in comparison to all the energy

that there is so almost certainly the effect on Earth's orbits and large-scale

...