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Curious Cases

Surprising Symmetries

Curious Cases

BBC

Technology, Science

4.84.1K Ratings

🗓️ 3 March 2022

⏱️ 33 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Two eyes, two arms, two legs - we’re roughly symmetrical on the outside, but inside we’re all over the place! We just have one heart, which is usually on the left, one liver on the right, one spleen and one appendix….‘Why is that?’ wonders listener Joanne. Our science sleuths discover that being symmetrical down the middle - at least on the outside - is by far the most common body plan across the animal kingdom. Professor Sebastian Shimeld from the University of Oxford takes us on a journey into the deep evolutionary past, to uncover how two-sided body structures first emerged in ancient worm-like creatures, and why this layout eventually proved so useful for swimming, walking and flying. Garden snails turn out to be a surprising exception – their shells coil in one direction and on just one side of their body. Professor Angus Davison from the University of Nottingham tells the tale of his international quest to find a romantic partner for Jeremy – a rare left-coiling snail who could only mate with another left-coiling snail! Dr Daniel Grimes from the University of Oregon unfolds the delicate mechanisms by which an initally symmetrical embryo starts to develop differently down one side, and everyone puzzles over the mystery of the left-handed 'mirror molecules' - so called L-amino acids - which turn out to be the building blocks of every living organism. A curious case indeed! Presenters: Hannah Fry and Adam Rutherford Producer: Ilan Goodman

Transcript

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0:00.0

BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts.

0:04.6

MUSIC

0:10.6

I'm Dr Adam Rutherford.

0:12.3

And I'm Dr Hannah Fry.

0:13.6

And you are going to send us your everyday mysteries.

0:16.5

And we are going to investigate them using the power of...

0:19.6

Science!

0:20.4

Science!

0:21.2

Science!

0:22.2

I like it.

0:23.2

MUSIC

0:26.0

OK, hello and welcome to a special left handed episode of Curious Cases.

0:32.0

And actually, really enough, this one links back to something that we said in our pre-season teaser

0:38.0

about snogging.

0:39.6

But this is not an F-sad on snogging.

0:41.8

This is an F-sad on left and right.

0:44.5

And features a snail that during the course of the recording pretty much got into some snogging

0:50.5

with another snail right on my hand.

0:51.9

And you know what I lied when I said there was no snogging on with the F-sad.

0:58.0

MUSIC

1:01.1

In many ways, this programme represents the perfect balance of two forces, opposite, yet

1:07.0

attuned, yin and yang, lightness and dark, Rutherford and Fry.

...

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