Forensics Centre in Dundee; D'Arcy Thompson centenary; Scottish science adviser; Coffee and climate
BBC Inside Science
BBC
4.6 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 22 June 2017
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The Leverhulme Research Centre for Forensic Science at the University of Dundee has expanded to test new psychoactive substances. Adam Rutherford talks to Professors Sue Black and Niamh Nic Daeid, who jointly run the Centre, about how they can keep up with the many new illegal drugs coming onto the market and about how they intend to modernise forensics.
2017 is the centenary of the publication of On Growth and Form, the book by D'Arcy Thompson that influenced many people from mathematical biologists to architects. Adam discusses the man and the book with Matthew Jarrron in the D'Arcy Thompson Museum at the University of Dundee.
Astrophysicist Sheila Rowan has been the Chief Science Adviser to the Scottish Government for just over a year. Adam asks her about the role and how she deals with controversial issues such as GM crops.
And Aaron Davis of Kew Gardens explains the impact of climate change on coffee growing in Ethiopia.
Transcript
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| 0:36.0 | Hello You, this is the podcast of Inside Science from BBC Radio 4, first broadcast on the 22nd of June 2017. I'm Adam Rutherford and mostly I'll be in Scotland |
| 0:46.0 | for the next 25 minutes. |
| 0:47.5 | Hello, we're shaking things up this week. We've come north of the border today to look at some of the |
| 0:53.1 | past and future of Scottish science. I'm here at the University of Dundee to the |
| 0:57.3 | opening of a new center for studying psychoactive substances and a forensics |
| 1:01.5 | lab that is specifically designed to disrupt the way things are done. |
| 1:06.0 | It's the 100th anniversary of one of the great biology books of the 20th century, Darcy Thompson's |
| 1:10.9 | on-growth and form, which shook up the Darwinian status quo. |
| 1:14.8 | I'll be quizzing Scotland's chief scientific advisor to look into the future of research |
| 1:18.6 | in these slightly uncertain political times and further a field if climate change doesn't worry you |
| 1:24.5 | which it should then perhaps the possible extinction of coffee in the next few years |
| 1:29.4 | might shake you up a bit too. But first when you think of forensic science no doubt some |
| 1:35.8 | stylish moodily lit lab comes to mind with sudden revelations that solve the most |
| 1:40.3 | heinous crimes or possibly Sherlock having some visionary |
| 1:43.7 | hallucination that puts all of the pieces of a puzzle together in a flash of genius. |
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