Microbes: Secret Rulers of the World?
The Infinite Monkey Cage
BBC
4.7 • 9.4K Ratings
🗓️ 7 January 2019
⏱️ 46 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Microbes: Secret Rulers of the World?
Brian Cox and Robin Ince return for a new series of the hugely popular, award-winning science/comedy show. This week they are joined by comedian Ed Byrne, oceanographer Dr Jon Copley and planetary scientist Prof Monica Grady to ask whether the real master-race on planet Earth is not human but microbe. They'll be looking at how microbes are found in every extreme environment on the planet, how and when they first arrived on the Earth and why the hunt is on to find evidence of microbes in space.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts. |
| 0:04.9 | Welcome to the first Monkey Cage of 2019. |
| 0:08.0 | This is a very special year for lovers of science and lovers of conspiracy theories. |
| 0:14.3 | Or is it? |
| 0:15.6 | Something for everyone who enjoys an entirely pointless Twitter spat. |
| 0:18.5 | 50 years ago, human beings walked on the moon or did they? |
| 0:23.2 | And 50 years ago, the US Air Force closed Operation Blue Book the investigation into unidentified |
| 0:28.3 | flying objects, concluding there was no evidence of extraterrestrial life or technology, |
| 0:32.5 | entirely ignoring the fact that the moon is a spaceship. |
| 0:36.9 | Where did you read that? |
| 0:37.9 | I actually learned that from an excellent book called Amastereous Spaceship Moon, which |
| 0:41.8 | is £35 on eBay, so at that price it must be correct. |
| 0:46.7 | Did you see that clip on YouTube where Buzz Aldrin met that moon, Hoaxa? |
| 0:50.6 | No, what do you mean? |
| 0:52.7 | I mean that I'm going to demonstrate the conservation of momentum to you. |
| 0:56.2 | There we go, and that is how a physicist threatens you with a punch. |
| 0:59.3 | So, yes, this is... |
| 1:02.7 | Oh, the Robin doesn't think so, a science show. |
| 1:06.2 | Yes, this is a science show. |
| 1:07.4 | We have no listeners who believe that multicellular organisms capable of building a spacecraft |
| 1:12.0 | of visited Earth. |
| 1:13.0 | Or if we do, they can write it afterwards and complain to our usual complaint address, |
... |
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