mRNA vaccinations; bacterial space miners; Artemis accords

BBC Inside Science

BBC

Technology, Science

4.5 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 12 November 2020

⏱️ 37 minutes

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Summary

Scientists this week announced hopeful results in two of the big COVID-19 vaccination trials. Trudie Lang, Professor of Global Health at the Nuffield Department of Medicine, Oxford, describes some of the methodology used, what the efficacy statistic means, and how the novel approach of inserting mRNA rather than deactivated virus parts, is so exciting. Prof Charles Cockell has been investigating how bacteria might be grown in space on lumps of asteroid to extract precious minerals, and as Kim McAllister reports, his lab is itself in orbit. And it is just a few weeks since the UK, and several other countries, signed up to a set of bilateral agreements with the US called the Artemis Accords. These are an attempt to update previous outer space treaties on how countries - and indeed companies - might mine and use resources in space, given that no-one can currently legally claim sovereignty. As Dr Thomas Cheney of the Open University and Prof Jill Stuart of the LSE describe, the Accords have been greeted in certain quarters with some discord. Presented by Marnie Chesterton Produced by Alex Mansfield Made in collaboration with The Open University.

Transcript

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0:34.0	BBC Sounds, Music Radio Podcasts.
0:37.0	Hello there, this is the podcast of Inside Science from BBC Radio 4,
0:42.0	first broadcast on the 12th of November 2020.
0:45.6	I'm Marnie Chesterton and I'm the lucky person who gets to share an episode of
0:50.1	Inside Science that's positively brimming with hopeful developments.
0:54.0	Coming up, I'll be exploring the final frontier because NASA aims to put a woman on the moon by
0:58.6	2024 as part of their Artemis programme.
1:01.7	And the UK have just signed up to the Artemis Accords
1:05.2	so we've brought in a couple of space lawyers yes genuine profession to unpick the new
1:10.5	rules of space behaviour no d ducking, no diving, no bombing, no littering. But before
1:16.2	that, rejoice. We've found a way out of the swamp of sadness that has been 2020 as not one but two of the 10 vaccines currently in
1:26.0	phase three trials have announced an efficacy of over 90%. To help me understand
1:32.3	what that means, how the front-running vaccines work and
	...

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