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BBC Inside Science

Anaesthesia; Chilean earthquakes; Strange weather; Jellyfish

BBC Inside Science

BBC

Technology, Science

4.51.3K Ratings

🗓️ 14 August 2014

⏱️ 29 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Anaesthetics. General anaesthetic is an essential part of modern medicine. Millions of surgical procedures, many life-saving, simply could not be performed without rendering the patient unconscious with one of a long list of drugs that induce anaesthesia. But, we don't know how they work. Part of this mystery is because we're not entirely sure what we mean when we say unconscious. But part of it is that there's a whole fleet of different molecules than can work as an anaesthetic, so there's no well-known pathway we can study. Neuroscientist, Luca Turin at the Alexander Fleming Research Center in Greece thinks that the answer to how they work, could lie, not at the chemical level, but at the quantum level.

2014 Iquique Earthquake in Chile Before the massive 8.1-8.2 Magnitude earthquake struck Iquique in Chile, in April, this year, there were a series foreshocks at the fault line. Adam Rutherford asks Roland Pease if these creaks could be a way of warning us about an imminent big quake in the future. They also discuss whether the stress released by the megathrust quake means the region will be seismically inactive for a while. The experts think not.

Strange Weather We are obsessed with the weather. It is a powerful, shared daily experience, offering us an immediate talking point. Yet when we talk about climate change the sense of guilt or powerlessness can often be enough to kill the conversation. A new exhibition at Science Gallery at Trinity College Dublin aims to engage conversations about both weather and climate in a playful, provocative way. By bringing together works by artists, designers, scientists, meteorologists and engineers STRANGE WEATHER asks questions such as: Should human culture be reshaped to fit strange weather or should we reshape weather to fit our strange culture? Who is going to take advantage of climate chaos and how will strange weather benefit me? How will you choose to work, celebrate, live and die when weather gets weird?

Strange Weather runs at Science Gallery, Trinity College Dublin from 18th July to 5th October 2014

Neutrinos A listener writes in to ask if we will ever run out of room in our Universe for the trillions and trillions of neutrinos being created. Malcolm Fairbairn at Kings College London does the maths.

Jellyfish Last year was a record for jellyfish sightings off the UK coast. We know very little about our jellyfish, and experts at the Marine Conservation Society want to know more. They're set up a survey, complete with photographic guides and reporting forms for you to send in your sightings of these coastal visitors.

Producer: Fiona Roberts.

Transcript

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0:00.0

Just before this BBC podcast gets underway, here's something you may not know.

0:04.7

My name's Linda Davies and I Commission Podcasts for BBC Sounds.

0:08.5

As you'd expect, at the BBC we make podcasts of the very highest quality featuring the most knowledgeable experts and genuinely engaging voices.

0:18.0

What you may not know is that the BBC makes podcasts about all kinds of things like pop stars,

0:24.6

poltergeist, cricket, and conspiracy theories and that's just a few examples.

0:29.7

If you'd like to discover something a little bit unexpected, find your next podcast over at BBC Sounds.

0:36.0

Hello You, this is the podcast of BBC Inside Science First Broadcast on the 14th of August 2014. I'm Adam Rutherford.

0:45.0

Things to read if you're really bored at BBC.co.uk.

0:49.0

UK slash Radio 4.

0:51.0

It's the usual glorious Smorgasbord of the weird and wonderful science that shapes our lives on the program today.

0:57.0

Earthquake's in Chile. Are we closer to being able to predict when the planet next will let us know just how small we are.

1:04.7

We visit a new gallery where it rains indoors, a project to help us understand the increasingly

1:09.3

weird weather, and a terror of the deep is coming back but in greater numbers. Jellyfish are on the rise,

1:16.2

swamping our waters and it's not just a nasty sting we should be worried about.

1:20.6

But first, count backwards from 10, 9, 8, and you're out. General Anesthetic is an essential

1:28.8

part of modern medicine. Millions of surgical procedures, many life savingsaving simply could not be performed without

1:35.3

knocking the patient out with one of a huge menu of drugs that induce anesthesia.

1:40.3

But here is medicine's darkest secret.

1:43.2

Whisper it, discovered 160 years ago, used everyday millions of times,

1:48.0

we don't really know how they work.

1:51.0

Yes, just like we don't have a working model of consciousness, the mechanisms by which these drugs switch off our conscious minds are largely unknown.

1:59.0

Neuroscientists Luca Turin at the Alexander Fleming Research Center in Athens has led a study which chips away at this biological

...

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