meta_pixel
Tapesearch Logo
Log in
BBC Inside Science

Testing for asymptomatic coronavirus carriers, Human Cell Atlas, and invasive parakeets

BBC Inside Science

BBC

Technology, Science

4.51.3K Ratings

🗓️ 9 April 2020

⏱️ 29 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

You can’t build up a picture of Covid-19’s spread throughout the UK without testing those who might have it and those who might have already had it. Britain currently is only testing people who are hospitalised, some healthcare workers and a handful of exceptions. The upshot is that we don't have reliable numbers on how many people in the community have, or have had, Covid-19. Even self-reporting doesn’t pick up those who carry the virus, but do not show any symptoms. Professor Mike Bonsall is part of a team at Oxford University running a new project that seeks to change that. They want to estimate how common the coronavirus causing disease is in the UK, using a new diagnostic tool called nanopore sequencing. If you want to take part, have not had any symptoms and live in the Oxford area - https://covidstudy.zoo.ox.ac.uk/ You probably think you know your body like the back of your hand, but given that it’s made up of an average of about 37 trillion cells, some sort of guide book might be helpful. This is what the Human Cell Atlas, an international project, is doing. By providing a map of human cell types, aims to help researchers fight diseases, from cancer to covid19. Although every cell in our bodies has the same genetic code – the same DNA; the differences between, for example, muscles cells, brain cells, and fat cells – come down to which bits of the DNA each cell uses - which genes are switched on and off. This gives cell types their different characteristics. The Atlas not only helps scientists understand the precise nature of each cell type but also how they interact with other cells in the body. There are a lot of myths surrounding the source of the rose-necked parakeets in south east England. The introduction of these noisy green alien invaders have been attributed to Jimi Hendrix, George Michael and even Humphrey Bogart. But where did they really come from? Presenter - Marnie Chesterton Producer - Fiona Roberts

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

You're about to listen to a BBC podcast and trust me you'll get there in a moment but if you're a comedy fan

0:05.2

I'd really like to tell you a bit about what we do. I'm Julie Mackenzie and I commission comedy

0:10.2

podcast at the BBC. It's a bit of a dream job really.

0:13.0

Comedy is a fantastic joyous thing to do because really you're making people laugh,

0:18.0

making people's days a bit better, helping them process, all manner of things.

0:22.0

But you know I also know that comedy is really

0:24.4

subjective and everyone has different tastes so we've got a huge range of comedy on offer

0:29.6

from satire to silly shocking to soothing profound to just general pratting about. So if you

0:36.2

fancy a laugh, find your next comedy at BBC Sounds.

0:41.0

BBC Sounds, music radio podcasts.

0:45.0

Hello there, this is the podcast of Inside Science from BBC Radio 4,

0:50.0

first broadcast on the 9th of April 2020.

0:54.3

I'm Marnie Chesterton.

0:56.6

This week on the show, as people's travel ambitions

0:59.2

become limited to their front doors,

1:01.3

let's hear from a new guidebook with a smaller scale. It's an

1:04.5

Atlas of human cell types. And as spring does its thing, British birdlife is

1:09.9

gloriously noisy. In recent years there's been a tuneless addition to the dawn chorus, particularly in the

1:15.2

southeast from a colourful invasive species. We'll hear how the rose-ringed parakeet got so cozy in the UK.

1:26.6

But first, as more emerges about the coronavirus, we're building up a picture of its surprising and pernicious nature. For example, a recent Chinese

1:32.4

paper suggests that in a small but significant number of cases, people appear to still have the virus and be infectious for longer than the WHO recommended quarantine period of 14 days.

1:44.0

And a thorough study of the population of one hard hit Italian village

...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.

Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.