meta_pixel
Tapesearch Logo
Log in
BBC Inside Science

Hyabusa mission; ProtoDUNE neutrino detector; Caledonian crow skills; Koala microbiome

BBC Inside Science

BBC

Science

4.61.3K Ratings

🗓️ 28 June 2018

⏱️ 28 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Yesterday a small Japanese ion-thruster spaceship arrived at its destination after a three year and half year, 2 billion mile journey. Hyabusa2 is currently floating alongside the asteroid known as 162173 Ryugu. BBC Science Correspondent Jonathan Amos dissects the aims of this audacious sample-return mission and the initial images that have just arrived back on earth.

There's a plethora of neutrinos flowing through your body right now. Adam Rutherford goes inside 'protoDune', the world's latest and largest neutrino detector whose prototype is about to be filled with over 700 tonnes of liquid argon and hopefully pick up a few signals generated by interactions from these elusive particles. We hear from project leader Christos Touramanis who is a particle physicist from Liverpool University.

Caledonian crows craft tools with greater sophistication than most animals, and can learn to modify their tools to make them gradually more effective. This "cultural accumulation" is commonplace amongst humans - where we pass on information socially. But it's extremely rare in other animals to see them passing on knowledge in this way. Sarah Jelbert from Cambridge University discusses her new evidence that suggests crows manage to transmit their tool designing skills from one bird to another in this sophisticated way

Our gut bacteria are emerging as key determinants of our health and the microbiome may even influence our behaviour. The interaction between ubiquitous bacteria and the food wild animals eat is beginning to be studied all over the world. Could manipulating the microbiome prove a new tool for conservation in animals whose food supply is under threat? Ecologist Ben Moore from Western Sydney University has been studying the eating habits of koalas and whether faecal transplants could alter the eating habits of this highly fussy herbivore.

Producer Adrian Washbourne.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Hey, it's Doleepa, and I'm at your service.

0:04.7

Join me as I serve up personal conversations with my sensational guests.

0:08.8

Do a leap interviews, Tim Cook.

0:11.2

Technology doesn't want to be good or bad.

0:15.0

It's in the hands of the creator.

0:16.7

It's not every day that I have the CEO of the world's biggest company in my living room.

0:20.7

If you're looking at your phone more than you're looking in someone's eyes, you're doing the wrong thing.

0:26.0

Julie, but at your service.

0:28.0

Listen to all episodes on BBC Sales.

0:31.0

Hello You, this is the podcast of Inside Science from BBC Radio 4 first

0:35.2

broadcast on the 28th of June 2018 I'm Adam Rutherford we've got crows koalas neutrinos and asteroids today. New experiments on Caledonian crows that involve a

0:46.4

vending machine show that they make new tools based on their memory of what tools work best.

0:55.2

We've got new developments of the Large Hadron Collider, a gargantuan metal cube to be filled with 770 tons of liquid argon, all to detect neutrinos and koalas famously cute but also

1:06.2

terribly fussy eaters they don't necessarily adapt well to moving to new

1:09.8

environments so Australian researchers are trying to help them with

1:13.1

Focal transplant it's a very trendy medical procedure at the moment it's seen in humans

1:18.5

And it's been used in other animals for other purposes as well a simple way to test our hypothesis that the

1:23.2

microbiome is constraining what the animals could eat was to see if we get older

1:27.1

the microbiome and see if that changed the koala's behavior.

1:30.0

But first yesterday a small Japanese iron thruster spaceship arrived at its destination after a three and a half year 2 billion mile journey

1:39.6

Hiabusa 2 is currently floating alongside the asteroid known as 1621-73 Ryugu.

1:47.0

This is the sequel to Hyabusa, a Troubled Mission which launched in 2003, but the new one is addressing all the glitches and is currently

...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.

Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.