Could we have evidence of life on Mars?

BBC Inside Science

BBC

Technology, Science

4.5 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 9 October 2025

⏱️ 31 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

News broke this week that rocks picked up by NASA’s Perseverance rover on Mars may have found chemical signatures left by living organisms.

With the search for life on the red planet capturing our imaginations for decades, Victoria Gill is joined by science journalist Jonathan Amos to look at what we know about the history of life on Mars, and what could be different about this discovery.

As commemorations take place this week for the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, we hear about the project helping to protect birds in New York from the effects of a giant annual light display in memory of the victims of the tragedy.

Dr Andrew Farnsworth, from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, tells us how they’re working with the organisers of the Tribute in Light memorial to help save the lives of a wide range of birds.

Victoria is joined by managing editor of the New Scientist, Penny Sarchet, to look through this week’s most exciting scientific discoveries.

And in our series profiling the six books shortlisted for this year’s Royal Society Trivedi Book Prize, we speak to neuroscientist and clinical neurologist Professor Masud Husain about his book Our Brains, Our Selves, and what his encounters with patients reveal about how our brains make up who we are.

Presenter: Victoria Gill Producers: Clare Salisbury, Dan Welsh, Jonathan Blackwell, Tim Dodd Editor: Martin Smith

Transcript

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0:00.0	BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts.
0:05.6	Your time starts now.
0:07.2	You're about to listen to a BBC podcast.
0:09.4	Absolutely right.
0:11.5	So, you might like to know that the BBC makes loads of other podcasts.
0:15.6	Really?
0:16.4	Wow.
0:17.2	Many of them are very funny.
0:19.1	Which I think means...
0:20.3	A hatful of ha-hars. And energy. Even if you do say so ourselves. I agree 100% to that. Find them all on BBC Sounds. Just tell us a joke. Come on, tell us a joke. Tell us a joke. Come on, tell us a joke. Just search comedy on BBC Sounds. I'm really looking forward to getting stuck in. Hello, lovely, curious-minded listeners.
0:38.4	Welcome to the Inside Science podcast presented by me, Victoria Gill,
0:42.2	and first broadcast on the 11th of September 2025.
0:45.7	Today, on the anniversary of the 9-11 terrorist attacks,
0:49.2	two columns of light will be beamed into the sky from Manhattan.
0:53.6	I will be speaking to one scientist who will be at the event on an all-night bird-watching vigil. And we're finding out how a change in one part of our brain can fundamentally alter who we are. I'm also joined by the excellent Penny Sarshe, managing editor at New Scientist, who has been combing through
1:11.2	a plethora of scientific publications to bring us the discoveries we need to know about.
1:15.9	Hello, Penny. How are you? I'm very well, thank you. It's good to have you back on Inside Science.
1:20.7	What have you got for us this week? Well, I think my favourite story has to be our hunter-gatherer
1:25.3	ancestor hairstyles. I'm very intrigued. Much more on that later, so stick with us, Penny. But first,
1:33.3	though, could we finally have evidence of life on Mars? You might have read the news and heard
1:38.7	the fanfare because it's just been revealed that rocks picked up by NASA's Perseverance
1:43.3	rover appear to contain chemical
	...

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