Bovine TB; Coral sunscreen; Space junk
BBC Inside Science
BBC
4.6 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 4 July 2013
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Today the government announced a plan to rid England of bovine TB within 25 years. Adam Rutherford looks back at how this issue has evolved and the extent to which scientific evidence has informed the eradication strategies, from culling badgers to vaccination programs.
Pharmacognosy is the study of medicines found in nature. Reporter Gaia Vince travels to the seaside to find out how corals could save us from sunburn in summers to come.
There are an estimated 23,000 pieces of space junk around the size of a tennis ball floating above us. But there are millions of smaller bits of flotsam and jetsam, from the exploded rocket debris to fleck of paints. Even a 1cm bit of space debris could deliver the same energy as a car impacting on a concrete wall at 30 miles per hour.
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. |
| 0:29.1 | Hello Adam Rutherford here this is the podcast version of the new weekly BBC Radio 4 show Inside Science. |
| 0:36.0 | But then you probably already knew that as you almost certainly chose to download it. |
| 0:40.0 | Anyway, this week we look into the dangers posed by junk from space, badges, there's an important |
| 0:46.4 | comma in that sentence, and how sea creatures protect themselves from the sun and how that might |
| 0:51.6 | be helpful to us. But first, twice this week public policy |
| 0:56.4 | and scientific evidence collided. The recreational drug Cat, a herb used |
| 1:01.2 | mostly by the North African community, is to be banned by the UK government |
| 1:05.2 | against the opinion of scientists. |
| 1:07.7 | In contrast, earlier today, the government finally issued its strategy on controlling |
| 1:12.2 | bovine tuberculosis, which according to |
| 1:14.4 | Defra has a robust scientific base. After years of anger, arguments and heartfelt |
| 1:20.5 | campaigning for and against the culling of badges, this strategy will encompass |
| 1:24.9 | an arsenal of measures, including techniques for identifying infected animals called PCR, new vaccines |
| 1:31.6 | and yes, further culling. But the definitive trial on Badger |
... |
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