Fukushima ice wall; Martian menus; Science practicals; Eye tracker

BBC Inside Science

BBC

Science

4.6 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 5 September 2013

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Dr Adam Rutherford asks whether the proposed ice wall around the Fukushima nuclear plant will finally halt the radioactive leaks they've suffered since the tsunami in 2011.

BBC Tokyo correspondent Rupert Wingfield-Hayes gives an insider's view on the current crisis and public reaction to the £300m rescue plan announced this week. Plus, Prof Neil Hyatt from Sheffield University describes the challenges ahead in building the ice wall, and decontaminating the water used to cool the crippled nuclear reactors.

Amongst the many challenges of sending a manned mission to Mars is the problem of 'menu fatigue'. Eating the same ready meals for several years could send anyone over the edge. NASA recently completed a four month Mars simulation on a barren volcano in Hawaii, their mission was to invent dishes to recreate on the Red Planet. Cooking doesn't get tougher than this.

School practicals may be popular with students and teachers but recent research suggests that they might not be a useful way to teach science. Is the aim to train up the technicians of the future, or teach children how to think scientifically? Science teacher and writer Alom Shaha and Prof Jim Iley, from the Royal Society of Chemistry, discuss how to make science demo more effective. And the best way to make cheese on toast.

Finally, Dr Pete Etchells from the University of Bath shows us his instrument - an eye-tracker used in psychology experiments. Recent applications include discovering why professional cricketers are better than amateurs, and whether horses are conscious.

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 auction listen on BBC sounds hello it's the
0:30.6	Inside Science Podcast I'm Adam Rutherford back in the hot seat after Alice Roberts
0:34.4	stint. You know they only recruited us because we have the same initials and it saves on stationary
0:38.6	costs. There are both terms and conditions at BBC.co. UK slash radio 4 we are generous like that.
0:45.6	Anywho in this week's pod it's back to school so we've got singed eyebrows and
0:50.1	stained shirts from chemistry demos but we we'll be asking, are science
0:53.9	practicals any use? We'll also be sampling a Martian menu. If we're going to send
0:58.6	people to the red planet, what will they eat? Is their loaf on Mars? That joke by the way was written by the
1:04.0	producer Michelle Martin please direct any complaints to her and finally I'll
1:08.6	ask another scientist to show us their instrument we'll be looking at how we look at how you look at stuff.
1:15.1	Clear? Good. But first, March 2011, Japan was struck by a magnitude 9 earthquake, the fifth largest in recorded history.
1:25.0	Welcome to BBC News. There's been an explosion at a Japanese nuclear power station damaged in yesterday's
1:31.4	massive earthquake.
1:33.0	Clives of smoke could be seeing rising above the Fukushima nuclear site north of Tokyo.
1:38.0	The Fukushima Nuclear Power Station automatically shut down its three working reactors
	...

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