Behavioural profiling at airports; Light and colour in art; Hadrian's Wall; Cassini

BBC Inside Science

BBC

Technology, Science

4.5 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 10 July 2014

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Airport security has been tightened recently. Passengers must be able to switch on their electronic devices to prove they don't contain explosives. Inside Science asks about the science behind spotting a potential terrorist. Adam asks whether behavioural profiling works. Can trained security staff tell the difference between a nervous traveller and a potential terrorist?

Light and colour in art Pigments and paint evolved over time, and these changes are one focus of the 'Making Colour' exhibition at the National Gallery. Different paints fade and degrade in different ways; often the patina of age is what appeals when looking at art, so how do you decide which hue to use when restoring paintings? Another intriguing issue is how you light a painting. The National Gallery is moving away from tungsten lighting, to more modern, tuneable LED lights. How does this affect the way visitors view the art? An interactive experiment is helping them to unpick light perception.

Hadrian's Wall A listener asks how did the Romans knew where to build the great defensive wall. We get the answer from Professor Ian Haynes, an archaeologist at Newcastle University, who reveals that the Romans were obsessed with measuring.

Cassini mission to Saturn Cassini-Huygens is an unmanned spacecraft sent to the planet Saturn. The NASA-ESA-ASI robotic spacecraft has been orbiting and studying the planet and its many natural satellites for 10 years. Adam talks to the mission's leader of the imaging science team, Carolyn Porco, about how successful it's been. And he offers her a blank cheque to choose her next mission.

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, I'm Adam Rutherford and this is the podcast of Inside Science from BBC Radio 4, first broadcast on the 10th of July 2014.
0:46.0	Blah blah at BBC.co.uk.uk.
0:50.0	It's a classical theme on today's inside science.
0:52.8	We'll be revisiting Hadrian and his eponymous wall
0:55.6	to find out how obsessive the Romans were at measuring things.
0:59.5	We take a microscopic look at Ariadne and Bacchus,
1:02.4	at least as Titian saw them and will be
1:04.7	celebrating a fantastic voyage via Prometheus Atlas Phoebe and a couple of
1:09.6	other Titans but ultimately heading for Saturn Jupiter Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite.
1:14.0	It's the 10th birthday of Cassini, one of our greatest space missions.
1:18.0	And on the subject of birthdays, it's happy birthday to us inside science is one year old today. Thank you very much for listening all that time
1:26.7	But first the school holidays start next week which means that loads of you will be packing your bags and heading off to the airport.
1:33.6	Has anyone tampered with your luggage?
1:36.0	This week I expect you are mildly irritated by the news that along with no pen knives,
1:40.0	lighters, liquids or nail clippers, US customs are insisting you charge your phone or computer
1:46.0	before traveling so they can examine them too.
	...

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