Rock traces of life on Mars, Desert fireball network, Gut microbes and Parkinson's Disease, Science Museum's maths exhibition
BBC Inside Science
BBC
4.6 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 8 December 2016
⏱️ 37 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Could rocks studied by the Mars rover Spirit in Gusev Crater in 2007 contain the hallmarks of ancient life? Geologist Steve Ruff of Arizona State University talks about what he found in hot springs in Chile which begs that question. He says the evidence is intriguing enough for NASA to send its next and more sophisticated Mars robot back to the same spot on the Red Planet in 2020.
Adam also talks to Phil Bland of Curtin University in Australia - one of the creators of the Desert Fireball Network - an array of automated cameras across Australia, built to locate where shooting stars land as meteorites and also pinpoint from where they came in the solar system. Boosting the chances of collecting these meteorites and knowing their space origins should helps us to better understand how the Earth and other planets formed 4.5 billion years ago.
There's new compelling evidence that microbes in the gut play a role in the development of Parkinson's disease. Tim Sampson of Caltech in the US outlines his experiments which raise this possibility and Patrick Lewis, another Parkinson's researcher at the University of Reading, puts the new findings into a wider context.
Adam takes a tour of the spectacular new mathematics gallery at the Science Museum in London. The Winton Gallery's exhibited objects and design by the celebrated architect Zaha Hadid focusses on mathematics in the real world. Adam's guide is lead curator David Rooney.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello you, this is the podcast version of Inside Science from BBC Radio 4, first broadcasts on the 8th of December 2016. |
| 0:07.0 | There's a whole new series of that other Radio 4 show that I do with the estimable Dr. Hannah Fry, the curious cases of Rutherford and |
| 0:14.4 | Fry, and on the podcast there are extended versions just like on inside science, |
| 0:18.2 | mostly of us pratting around not like on inside science. Now on with the altogether much more serious |
| 0:24.8 | and grown up inside science. We're going with the flow today a new exhibition on |
| 0:29.6 | maths in the real world from aerodynamics to hydrodynamics to money as it flows through the economy. |
| 0:36.4 | See a shooting star and make a wish. |
| 0:38.4 | If your wish was invent an amazing technology for finding the meteorite that was that shooting star, then it is granted. |
| 0:45.3 | We take a look at the awesomely named Desert Fireball Network. |
| 0:48.8 | And a startling new result which suggests that answers to the cause of Parkinson's disease may be in our guts. |
| 0:55.0 | But first, Hope Springs Eternal and here's the kind of thing we really like to hear on BBC |
| 1:00.5 | Inside Science. I think this is a really good chance that we've finally found |
| 1:05.6 | something on Mars that could spell life. I think it's a really good shot that we |
| 1:10.5 | found what we've been looking for. Yes that that's Stephen Ruff, a geologist who's been studying discoveries made by the |
| 1:16.3 | Rover Spirit ever since it first trundled across Goose of Crater on Mars. |
| 1:21.6 | Spirit is now sadly trundling no more and will forever remain on the red planet, |
| 1:25.7 | but in 2007 it found something and the data is still being scrutinized. |
| 1:30.6 | Amid a field of dark ancient lava flows, Spirit came across a lighter coloured outcrop of rocky |
| 1:36.8 | lumps. On closer examination with its high-res camera, it looked just like the formations |
| 1:42.3 | of mineral deposits that you get in volcanic hot springs right here on earth. |
| 1:47.5 | Whoa they said because wherever we have hydrothermal springs on earth, we find life. |
| 1:54.0 | Films of blue-green algae and other microbes and even animals. |
... |
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