Climate change and extreme weather; Primate brain size; Earthquake forecasting; Planet 9
BBC Inside Science
BBC
4.6 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 30 March 2017
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Following yesterday's US House Committee on Science,Space,and Technology's controversial hearing on scientific method and climate change, Adam Rutherford meets atmospheric scientist Professor Michael Mann after he emerged from the heated debate and who's just published a new paper suggesting a direct link between extreme weather and greenhouse gases via a particular behaviour of the jet stream across the northern hemisphere
How has intelligence evolved? For over 2 decades the idea has prevailed that primate brain size and intelligence has been driven mainly by complex social hierarchies. But a new study by Alex DeCascien of New York University suggests that diet is a better predictor of brain size.
This month is the 6th anniversary of the earthquake and tsunami that devastated much of Japan's coastline. Roland Pease reports on new research that aims to embrace uncertainty to improve quake forecasting
And we hear how you can join in the search for the missing mysterious 9th planet of our solar system. Adam Rutherford hears from astronomer Brad Tucker on Walkabout at the Mount Stromlo Observatory in New South Wales
Producer: Adrian Washbourne.
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 | Fladiated. |
| 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 |
| 0:25.0 | searching and a lot more auction listen on BBC sounds. |
| 0:29.0 | Hello You this is the podcast of Inside Science from BBC Radio 4, first broadcast on the 30th of March |
| 0:35.8 | 2017, and I'm Adam Rutherford. |
| 0:38.8 | We have a dynamite interview with the US Climate Scientist Michael Mann, moments after he stepped out of a house committee on science and technology |
| 0:45.1 | hearing which was pretty hostile to science in general and along with chilled monkey brains |
| 0:50.1 | we're hooking up with stargazing live the for Planet 9, and you can get involved too. So here we go. |
| 0:57.0 | Monkey Brains on the menu this week, and more specifically how Diet has influenced our brain size. We mark the sixth anniversary of the earthquake and |
| 1:05.2 | tsunami that devastated the Japanese coast and ask if we're any better prepared |
| 1:09.6 | today. And you can join the hunt for the mysterious Planet 9. It's big, it's far out, and you might be the one to spot it. |
| 1:18.0 | But first, it's troubling times for climate scientists everywhere, even more so in the US. |
| 1:24.0 | President Trump has sometimes described human-induced climate change as a hoax, sometimes he has, quote, |
| 1:30.0 | an open mind about it. You probably heard in the news this week that he ordered the executive |
| 1:35.1 | to demolish many of the laws introduced during the Obama administration on green policies. |
| 1:40.7 | Even more troubling, Texas Senator Lamar Smith, who chairs the Science Space and Technology Committee, |
| 1:47.0 | launched a breathtaking attack yesterday on scientists in a hearing about climate change, |
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