Neonics dispute, Hygenic bees, Hip-hop MRI
BBC Inside Science
BBC
4.6 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 6 July 2017
⏱️ 31 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The results of the first large-scale field study looking at neonicotinoid pesticides and their impact on bees has caused controversy. It was carried out by the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (CEH) and commissioned and funded by the agricultural chemical companies Syngenta and Bayer. However, both companies have expressed dissatisfaction with the paper. Adam Rutherford talks to Dr Peter Campbell from Syngenta and Dr Ben Woodcock from CEH about the results.
In a separate project, beekeepers have been trying to improve hive health by breeding 'hygienic bees'. These nifty insects love to keep their homes clean and free from disease, improving colony numbers and reducing the need to use antibiotics. Reporter Rory Galloway embarks on some fieldwork at the University of Sussex, with Luciano Scandin, Honeybee Research Facility Manager and Francis Ratnieks, Professor of Apiculture.
What happens when you rap inside an MRI scanner? Neuroscientist Sophie Scott wanted to find out. She's been making movies of the internal workings of some extraordinary voice boxes, owned by beatboxers, opera singers and rappers, like biochemist Alex Lathbridge aka Thermoflynamics.
Presenter: Adam Rutherford Researcher: Caroline Steel Producer: Michelle Martin.
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, |
| 0:33.0 | find your next podcast over at BBC Sounds. |
| 0:36.2 | Hello You, this is the podcast version of Inside Science from BBC Radio 4, |
| 0:40.2 | first broadcast on the 6th of July 2017. I'm Adam Rutherford. |
| 0:45.0 | Chickadee check out our excellent videos of the rapper Thermo Flinamics and crazy MRI scans of vocal |
| 0:50.9 | chords in action on the website. |
| 0:52.4 | Apologies for being a 42-year-old middle-class radio. scans of vocal chords in action on the website. |
| 0:52.8 | Apologies for being a 42 year old middle class radio for presenter being all into hip-hop, |
| 0:57.7 | but that's just the way it is. |
| 0:58.8 | Word to your mother. |
| 0:59.8 | Mostly the program is in fact about bees. |
| 1:02.4 | Hello bees have been all over the news this week. |
| 1:05.0 | In a minute we'll be clinically dissecting the latest research |
| 1:08.0 | and the politics of that research on the effects of pesticides on bee colonies. And we're on to the vocal |
| 1:14.3 | chords of opera singers and rap artists. The tongue is how it's huge. I mean I'm not saying |
| 1:18.8 | Alex you've got a big tongue, but it's a massive muscle isn't it? Look how quickly |
... |
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