Gene-editing human embryos, Spaceman's eyes, Science book prize, Sexual selection in salmon
BBC Inside Science
BBC
4.6 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 3 August 2017
⏱️ 36 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy is the heart condition that can lead to seemingly super-fit athletes collapsing with heart failure. It affects one in 500 people, and is a heritable disorder. Scientists using the precise gene-editing technique, Crispr CAS 9, have identified one of the genes responsible for the disease and 'fixed' it. This is in very early stage human embryos, prior to implantation. Dr. Fredrik Lanner at the Karolinska institute, is a leader in this field and he describes the work as purely at the experimental stages, but the team have managed to overcome various issues with the technique.
Despite the obvious benefits of being an astronaut... exploring new worlds, seeing Earth from space, and of course the glory and fame, it can take a real toll on the body. Astronauts' skeletons and muscles deteriorate in zero gravity, their immune system weakens, and they experience nasal congestion and sleep disturbance. Many symptoms persists once they're back on Earth. But, there's another to add to the list, space flight-associated neuro-ocular syndrome or SANS. Ophthalmologist at Houston Methodist Hospital, Dr Andrew Lee explains that the build-up of fluid in the brain can squeeze the eye and optic nerve and lead to visual disturbance and even vision loss.
The shortlist for the Royal Society Insight Investment Science Book Prize 2017 has just been announced. Adam pesters judge Claudia Hammond for the name of the winner (she doesn't tell!) and discusses the criteria for this £25,000 prestigious award. The top 6 books will be featured over the next 6 weeks on BBC Inside Science.
Sexual selection - who you decide to have babies with - is usually decided at the dating stage. But the choice does not have to stop at copulation. Post-mating sexual selection is a thing. Mechanisms such as sperm competition, and cryptic female choice, can happen after sex, but before the sperm fertilises the egg. It's not just an internal thing either, it happens in 'external fertilizers', where eggs are laid, and then fertilized by the male sperm outside the female's body, like come fish do in water. Professor Neil Gemmell, at the University of Otago in Dunedin in New Zealand, has been studying just such processes in Chinook salmon. His findings are surprising and could inform us about human reproduction and fertility.
Produced by Fiona Roberts.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Just before this BBC podcast gets underway, here's something you may not know. |
| 0:04.6 | My name's Linda Davies and I Commission Podcasts for BBC Sounds. |
| 0:08.4 | As you'd expect, at the BBC we make podcasts of the very highest quality featuring the most knowledgeable |
| 0:14.3 | experts and genuinely engaging voices. What you may not know is that the BBC |
| 0:20.4 | makes podcasts about all kinds of things like pop stars, |
| 0:24.6 | poltergeist, cricket, and conspiracy theories and that's just a few examples. |
| 0:29.7 | If you'd like to discover something a little bit unexpected, find your next podcast over at BBC Sounds. |
| 0:36.0 | Hello You, this is the podcast of Inside Science from BBC Radio 4, first broadcast on the 3rd of August 2017. I'm Adam Rutherford. Hello you Kate |
| 0:45.1 | Hamilton who likes the hello use. Now there's cool-headed analysis of the |
| 0:49.2 | crisper modification of human embryos that's up first and last we have sexual selection in the |
| 0:54.5 | Chinook salmon that's a much longer interview than the one in the |
| 0:57.6 | broadcast as we often do unshackled from the tyranny of broadcast schedules |
| 1:01.8 | and it is quite rude. I'm |
| 1:03.7 | I'm apologetic about that my old duty is to quip that evolution was all about the |
| 1:07.4 | four f's fighting fleeing feeding and reproduction. Physicists never get to talk about sperm or external fertilisation. and Send all letters of complaint to Gareth Mitchell who is presenting while I call off. |
| 1:24.0 | Holidays are upon us. We're previewing your Paulside Brain Food Reading list |
| 1:28.0 | with the announcement of the Royal Society Book Prize Shortlist. |
| 1:31.0 | And if you're an astronaut looking for a book, |
| 1:33.3 | Don your reading glasses now because you've almost certainly got the newly described |
| 1:37.3 | Space Flight Associated Neuroocular Syndrome. And we examine the mating behavior of the Chinook salmon. |
| 1:44.0 | Some terrific new biology that helps us understand a major force of evolution, sexual selection, |
| 1:49.0 | but also comes with an adult warning and some giggling. |
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