Out of Africa, Predicting future heatwaves, Virtual reality molecules, Life in the dark
BBC Inside Science
BBC
4.6 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 12 July 2018
⏱️ 31 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Scientists have found the earliest known evidence of a human presence outside Africa. A set of 96 stone tools has been found in the mountains of south-east China, which is the furthest afield this type of tool has been located. The scientists who found them have put the date of these tools at 2.1 million years old, which is at least 300,000 years earlier than the current evidence for early human presence outside of Africa. John Kappelman, a paleoanthropologist at the University of Texas, discusses how we're now moving beyond a Eurocentric view of human evolution in Eurasia.
Much of northern Europe has been experiencing a heatwave - notable for its intensity and duration. It's caused by "atmosphere blocking". Can we predict when these blocks will come and how long they will last? Adam Rutherford talks to Jana Sillmann, director of the Centre for International Climate Research in Oslo, Norway, author of a new study that has modelled 40 years' worth of heatwaves and blocking, and looked to the end of the century in attempting to predict blocking patterns as the climate changes.
How can researchers get to grips with the shape of molecules in the digital world? Chemists have for years used ball and stick representations of the shapes their molecules come in. But when they publish, they have to flatten it all down onto a 2D a piece of paper losing crucial information. Bristol University's David Glowacki has put the power of virtual reality into the hands of the molecular magicians. Inside Science's Roland Pease went to his virtual lab, to see atoms dance in a molecular space odyssey.
Given that half the world is in the dark half of the time, and the depths of the oceans are perpetually hidden from sunlight, there's lot of darkness to explore. For those of us drawn to the shadows, a new exhibition at the Natural History Museum in London does exactly that. Geoff Boxhall, professor of invertebrate biology, gives Adam Rutherford a tour of Life in the Dark.
Producer Adrian Washbourne.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey, it's Doleepa, and I'm at your service. |
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| 0:08.8 | Do a leap interviews, Tim Cook. |
| 0:11.2 | Technology doesn't want to be good or bad. |
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| 0:20.7 | If you're looking at your phone more than you're looking in someone's eyes, you're doing the wrong |
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| 0:26.4 | Julie, at your service. |
| 0:27.4 | Listen to all episodes on BBC Sales. |
| 0:30.4 | Hello You, this is the podcast of Inside Science from BBC Radio 4 first |
| 0:35.8 | broadcast on the 12th of July 2018 I'm Adam Rutherford day and night a truly |
| 0:40.8 | diurnal show today the sun continues to beat down in the ongoing |
| 0:44.8 | wretched heat wave and we now know that it's caused by what meteorologists refer to |
| 0:49.3 | as atmospheric blocking can we predict how long and how hot heat waves will be in the changing climate? |
| 0:56.1 | And out of the blazing sun we are into the darkness with a new exhibition at the Natural History Museum in London |
| 1:01.8 | which celebrates the creatures that adopted the dark, were born in it and were molded by it, not just bats, but fish, scorpions, kiwis and sloths. |
| 1:11.0 | But first, technology is a key part of our evolution. Humans are |
| 1:16.0 | obligates tool users meaning that we can't survive without objects crafted to |
| 1:20.6 | extend our abilities. Tools have been used in our evolutionary lineage for several million years now, |
| 1:26.0 | many examples discovered in East Africa, |
| 1:29.0 | but there have been waves of early humans who left Africa and spread all over the world, notably Homer Erectus, and evidence for these people ranges all the way to Southeast Asia. |
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