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BBC Inside Science

Precious Metals, Earlier Eggs, and Meaningful Meteorites

BBC Inside Science

BBC

Technology, Science

4.51.3K Ratings

🗓️ 2 June 2022

⏱️ 33 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

With the cost of living spiralling, many are probably thinking more about the price of food than lithium, titanium, copper or platinum. But the volatility in the global market for these materials - partly because of the pandemic and geopolitical unrest - is causing 'chaos' in the technology supply chain. Elizabeth Ratcliffe, Royal Society of Chemistry, tells Vic that many of us are unwittingly stockpiling these precious metals in our homes, in our old phones and defunct computers, because we don't know what to do with them. Reporter Samara Linton visits N2S, a company in Bury St Edmunds which has found a way to recycle the precious metals and other scarce elements in discarded circuit boards using bacteria. This week more evidence that spring is springing earlier, as Vic heads to what might be the most studied woodland in the world: Wytham Woods in Oxfordshire. Ella Cole, Oxford University, explains how climate change is causing birds to lay eggs three weeks earlier than they did in the 1940s. And Chris Perrins, of Oxford University, shares his thoughts on the changing woodland. And from new life to the very stuff of life. Could the building blocks of DNA have first been delivered to earth on a meteorite? In a paper in Nature Communications, scientists announce the discovery of the last two of the five key nucleobases locked in meteorites dating to the formation of the solar system. Samples of the Murchison Meteorite, a specific type of soft, loamy rock (CM2 carbonaceous chondrite) that fell to earth in 1969, have been re-examined, and the confirmation extends the ongoing debate around the nature and composition of terrestrial life's original crucible. Sara Russell, Professor of Planetary Sciences at London's Natural History Museum, helps Vic unravel the complicated and surprisingly controversial history of space rocks and primordial soup. Presented by Vic Gill Producer: Alex Mansfield Reporter: Samara Linton

Transcript

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0:00.0

Ever wondered what the world's wealthiest people did to get so ridiculously rich?

0:05.5

Our podcast Good Bad Billionaire takes one billionaire at a time and explains exactly how they made their money.

0:11.9

And then we decide if they are actually good, bad or just plain wealthy.

0:15.5

So if you want to know if Rihanna is as much of a bad guy as she claims,

0:19.2

or what Jeff Bezos really did to become the first person in history to pocket a hundred billion dollars,

0:24.6

listen to Good Bad Billionaire with me, Simon Jack, and me, Zingsing.

0:28.5

Listen, on BBC Sounds.

0:31.2

Hello, you lovely curious minded people.

0:33.3

This is the podcast edition of BBC Inside Science,

0:36.6

originally broadcast on the 5th of May 2022.

0:39.8

I'm Victoria Gill.

0:41.4

This week we're heading to what might be the most studied woodland in the world

0:45.4

to find out how birds are adjusting to a dramatic shift in the timing of spring.

0:50.4

And we're asking some very big questions about how life got started on this planet

0:55.1

and whether its ingredients might have been delivered via meteorite.

0:58.6

But first, with the cost of living, spiraling,

1:01.4

you're probably thinking more about the price of food than the price of lithium, copper or platinum.

1:06.6

But anyone with a smartphone in their pocket is carrying around these precious metals.

1:11.0

The volatility in the global market for many of these elements,

1:14.2

in part because of the pandemic and the horrific war in Ukraine,

1:17.8

is causing what the Royal Society of Chemistry has called chaos in the technology supply chain.

1:23.2

Some elements that are fundamental ingredients

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