Orion Launch; Fake Mars trip; XDNA; Richard the Third's skeleton

BBC Inside Science

BBC

Technology, Science

4.5 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 4 December 2014

⏱️ 28 minutes

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Summary

A NASA space capsule, Orion, that could transport humans to Mars is due to make its maiden flight. Given that this is a first outing, there will be no people aboard. The capsule will orbit the earth twice in four and a half hours, before splashing down in the Pacific. BBC correspondent Jonathan Amos is on location at Cape Canaveral and gives Adam the latest news.

This is a step towards a crewed mission to Mars. But how do humans cope with being confined for the 8 months it takes to get there? The European Space Agency studied this question in 2010. 6 volunteers were shut up in a replica space shuttle for over a year. Engineer Diego Urbina was one of them. He shares his thoughts on taking part in a fake Mars mission.

Philip Holliger from the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge heads the team that two years ago built XNA, a set of genetic molecules that behave just like DNA, but are man-made. Like DNA, those XNAs didn't actually do that much, but this week, the team has published a paper where they have got them working. These are the first synthetic enzymes on Earth.

Back in 2012, a shallow grave was uncovered underneath a car park in Leicester. Evidence suggested the skeleton in it was King Richard the Third. Finally this week, the DNA confirmation by geneticist Turi King is in. And something is rotten in the state of his lineage. Kevin Schurer, historian, and Richard Buckley, the lead archaeologist on the dig, talk us through the DNA anomaly that hints at infidelity in the royal line.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Choosing what to watch night after night the flicking through the endless
0:06.8	searching is a nightmare we want to help you on our brand new podcast off the
0:11.8	telly we share what we've been watching
0:14.0	Cladie Aide.
0:16.0	Load to games, loads of fun, loads of screaming.
0:19.0	Lovely. Off the telly with me Joanna Paige.
0:21.0	And me, Natalie Cassidy, so your evenings can be a little less
0:24.9	searching and a lot more watching listen on BBC sounds.
0:29.1	Hello you this is the podcast of BBC Inside Science first broadcast on the 4th of
0:33.8	December 2014 I'm Adam Rutherford for more information go to BBC.
0:38.7	go to BBC.co. UK slash radio for hello sin death and hell have set their marks on him.
0:44.8	The ignominy of Richard III continues, crooked from birth, clubbed to death, and then
0:50.0	dumped in a shallow grave in Leicester. This week DNA analysis confirms beyond doubt that the bones in the car park are definitely the Kings, but that also there was a little bit of infidelity in his and maybe our royal lineage.
1:03.4	And you've heard of DNA, you might have heard of RNA, all life is based on them.
1:08.2	But what about XNA?
1:10.0	Find out about the first product of synthetic genetics designed and built by us
1:15.6	and what it tells us about life in the universe. But first, although we've been
1:20.3	sending probes and droids to the far reaches of the solar system, landing on
1:24.7	Mars, crashing into the moon, and of course bouncing around on comets, no human has set foot on another
1:30.5	world for decades. In fact, Sunday is the 42nd anniversary of the launch of Apollo 17, the last manned mission
1:38.0	to the Moon.
1:39.0	We were meant to take another small step to get humans back into space today at lunchtime with the rocket Orion
	...

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