4.5 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 3 October 2019
⏱️ 36 minutes
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| 0:00.0 | Hello you this is the podcast of Inside Science from BBC Radio 4 first broadcast |
| 0:05.1 | on the 3rd of October 2019 I'm Adam Rutherford |
| 0:08.7 | the diamond light syncretron has been fired up to read some ancient Greek papyrus scrolls that were carbonized and |
| 0:15.2 | embedded in cement-like concrete during the eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79. |
| 0:20.9 | And the mighty Bill Bryson has a brilliant new book, his first science book for 15 years, and we are super excited. |
| 0:27.0 | Bill popped in to give us a guided tour of the human body. |
| 0:30.0 | But first, the ongoing saga of gene-edited babies from China has kept us interested |
| 0:36.6 | and appalled for almost a year now with all of its twists and turns none of which |
| 0:41.6 | are particularly joyous. |
| 0:43.0 | It's a saga of the worst violations of the scientific process, |
| 0:46.2 | but today we've got a story that has emerged from this, |
| 0:48.8 | which is the scientific process working almost as it should. A bit of background first, this sorry saga began at the end of November |
| 0:56.4 | 2018 when Chinese scientist Hejan Quay announced at the International Human Genome Editing Summit in Hong Kong, |
| 1:03.6 | that he had genetically engineered two human embryos |
| 1:07.2 | in a misguided attempt to grant them immunity to HIV infection. |
| 1:11.3 | He then implanted the embryos into their mother and two girls had been born. |
| 1:16.6 | Now we've discussed the astonishing levels of ethical violations in this endeavor a few times, |
| 1:21.6 | but another twist came in June this year when the geneticist |
| 1:24.8 | Rasmus Nielsen and Jinju Wei published study in the top tier journal Nature Medicine |
| 1:30.0 | suggesting that the gene editing that Hayjunankway had attempted may shorten lifespan as a result. |
| 1:36.0 | Well, this week, the authors requested that their paper is withdrawn and retract it. |
| 1:41.0 | We on Inside Science are committed to showing how science works, |
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