Predator bacteria therapy, New money for UK science, Stick-on stethoscope, Taming fears in the brain scanner
BBC Inside Science
BBC
4.6 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 24 November 2016
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Bdellovibrio is a small bacterium which preys and kills other bacteria. A team of researchers in the UK has shown in animal experiments that injections of the predator microbe can successfully treat infections. So how close does this take us to Bdellovibrio therapy for human patients and what part might it play in tackling the growing crisis of antibiotic resistance? Adam Rutherford talks to Professor Liz Sockett of the University of Nottingham.
The British government has announced that it will be spending an additional £2 billion on research and development by 2020. Commentators say it is the largest hike in public funding for science in a very long time. Dr Sarah Main of the Campaign for Science and Engineering, and Dr Arnab Basu, physicist and CEO of Kromek, discuss the new money and how it would be best used.
Also in the programme, materials and electronics engineers in the US have devised a small wearable heart monitor - the size and thickness of a sticking plaster. Adam talks to its lead designer Professor John Rogers of Northwestern University in Chicago. And could phobias be cured without exposure to the thing which frightens people? Dr Ben Seymour outlines an intriguing experiment which involved reading people's thoughts in a brain scanner, which suggests ultimately it may be possible.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello you this is the podcast of Inside Science from BBC Radio 4 first broadcasts on the 24th of November 2016. |
| 0:07.0 | I'm Adam Rutherford and on this day in 1859 the most important book ever written was published |
| 0:13.4 | happy a hundred and seventh birthday to the origin of species now here's some brand new science |
| 0:18.2 | A new technique can recognize fear in our minds and it quenches it without us even noticing. |
| 0:24.0 | This might be a potential treatment for fear or anxiety related disorders. |
| 0:28.0 | How does it work? It involves giving people a tiny bit of cash. |
| 0:32.0 | And while we're on money, the government has announced a |
| 0:34.4 | colossal pot of cash for science and engineering during the current parliament. |
| 0:38.9 | We get stuck into the pounds and pence of what this actually means. |
| 0:43.0 | And we've got a new piece of tech that will listen to your heart |
| 0:46.0 | and any other parts of your body that move, |
| 0:48.0 | and is only the size and dimensions of a sticking plaster. |
| 0:52.0 | In some ways it's like a, you know, a kid's temporary transfer tattoo, |
| 0:56.0 | and that's the way that we think, you know, these things have to be designed |
| 1:00.0 | in order to get people to wear them. |
| 1:02.0 | But first, using one organism to kill another |
| 1:04.7 | might not seem like such a great idea. |
| 1:07.2 | But cats do make very good ratters. |
| 1:09.6 | Scale things down a bit, |
| 1:11.0 | and we might just be able to use one bacterium to kill another. |
| 1:14.7 | Shigella is a family of bacteria that causes dysentery and hundreds of thousands of deaths, |
| 1:19.2 | mostly children, every year. Good sanitation prevents Shagella infections but there is no vaccine that stops it. |
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