Running Rings Around Matter

BBC Inside Science

BBC

Technology, Science

4.5 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 9 June 2022

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Astronomers have captured the first image of Sagittarius A*, the gargantuan black hole at the centre of our galaxy. Dr Ziri Younsi, University College London, shares what it took to capture a picture of a supermassive black hole that is 26,000 light-years away and from which (almost) nothing, not even light, can escape. The world’s largest and most powerful particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider, is restarting after three years of upgrades. Roland Pease visits the European Particle Physics Laboratory, CERN, to see how things are going, and looks back on some of the team's past successes. Also, how do you investigate the mysterious deaths of the world’s biggest fish when their bodies sink without trace? That’s the quandary facing marine scientists who’ve been trying to figure out what exactly is killing whale sharks. Freya Womersley, UK Marine Biological Association, shares how satellite tracking technology is helping us solve the mystery. And finally, what’s in a name? As our inventory of Earth’s biodiversity progresses, the number of species given a Latin name is also growing. So, where do scientists find their naming inspiration? In Royal Society Proceedings B this week, an analysis of nearly 3,000 parasitic worm species uncovered some intriguing patterns and worrying biases. Samara Linton reports. Presenter Victoria Gill Produced by Alex Mansfield and 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.
0:32.4	BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts.
0:35.9	Hello, you lovely curious minded people.
0:37.9	This is the podcast edition of BBC Inside Science,
0:41.0	originally broadcast on the 12th of May, 2022.
0:44.0	I'm Victoria Gill.
0:45.5	This week we're investigating mysterious deaths in the ocean.
0:49.1	We're going underground to the world's largest scientific instrument,
0:52.7	the newly upgraded large Hadron Collider.
0:55.8	And we're asking, what's in a name when it comes to choosing a title for a newly discovered parasitic worm?
1:02.3	But first, breaking news from the middle of our galactic neighborhood.
1:06.6	Astronomers have captured the first image of the gargantuan black hole that lives at the centre of the Milky Way.
1:13.9	It's known as Sagittarius A Star and it's four million times the mass of our sun.
1:19.2	We're going to give you an audio tour of this extraordinary object
1:22.2	and the technical tour de force of capturing a picture of a black hole
1:25.9	that's 26,000 light years away and from which nothing, not even light, can escape.
	...

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