Sherpas - dolphin rescue - quantum computing - hot lavas

BBC Inside Science

BBC

Science

4.6 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 25 May 2017

⏱️ 33 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The superior performance of Sherpa guides on Mountain Everest is legendary. New findings reveal how their bodies make the most of low oxygen levels at high altitude.

Presenter Gareth Mitchell also talks to the Mexican biologist heading a last ditch attempt to save the world's most endangered marine mammal - a small porpoise called vaquita. There are fewer than 30 animals left, all of them in the Gulf of California. The plan is to capture up to half of them and move them to a safe haven in the Gulf, away from the illegal fishing nets that have been trapping and drowning them. Key players in the plan are US Navy dolphins, trained to find and follow the vaquitas so the scientists can catch and move them. The idea is to keep the porpoises in a protected bay until the illegal fishing threat has been tackled.

Also in the programme, white hot lavas and reporter Roland Pease asks whether quantum computing is finally coming of age.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Just before this BBC podcast gets underway, here's something you may not know.
0:04.6	My name's Linda Davies and I Commission Podcasts for BBC Sounds.
0:08.4	As you'd expect, at the BBC we make podcasts of the very highest quality featuring the most knowledgeable
0:14.3	experts and genuinely engaging voices. What you may not know is that the BBC
0:20.4	makes podcasts about all kinds of things like pop stars,
0:24.6	poltergeist, cricket, and conspiracy theories and that's just a few examples.
0:29.7	If you'd like to discover something a little bit unexpected, find your next podcast over at BBC Sounds.
0:36.2	Greetings, this is the podcast edition of BBC Inside Science.
0:40.2	Originally, this was a radio program broadcast on Radio 4 on Thursday the 25th of
0:44.9	May 2017 and no of course I'm not Adam Rutherford I'm Gareth Mitchell with you for
0:49.2	one week only standing in on the podcast and broadcast edition.
0:53.2	Adam though he's left a pint of milk in the fridge and instructions for watering the plants and he says
0:57.4	hi by the way so hello from Adam.
0:59.7	He also says do crack on with the program now won't you so I will climbing to Everest
1:03.8	base camp we're talking about that this week you're not even getting out of breath
1:06.8	how do Sherpa guides do it and this week physiology has the. It may also save the lives of critically ill patients in intensive care.
1:17.0	And a rare porpoise is at the brink of extinction. There's a plan to rescue a third of the entire remaining population.
1:24.0	So who or what is coming to the rescue?
1:28.0	We started talking to the Navy and see how that option would go.
1:32.0	And I mean they were excited, course it's it's the first time
1:35.8	anybody uses dolphins to save another citation.
1:40.6	Yes dolphins on a conservation mission, not a military one.
	...

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