The moral brain, stem cell developments, ancient DNA in cave dirt, mangrove forest
BBC Inside Science
BBC
4.6 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 4 May 2017
⏱️ 34 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Adam Rutherford talks to neuroscientist Molly Crockett about moral decision-making in the brain. She combined brain scanning with a test involving money and electric shocks.
Geoff Marsh reports from Japan where stem cell research appears to be bringing regenerative medicine for a common cause of blindness ever closer.
A team at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology has pulled off another triumph in the study of ancient human DNA. Viviane Slon explains how they've extracted DNA of extinct species of humans from the soil in caves across Europe and Russia. Adam discusses the significance with Ian Barnes, ancient DNA specialist at the Natural History Museum in London.
Dan Friess of the National University of Singapore studies mangrove forests around the coasts of tropical Pacific and Indian ocean countries. This kind of forest has turned out to store much more carbon than even rainforests, as measured by the hectare. Dr Friess talks about carbon counting in mangroves and how this research may save the forests from further destruction.
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 |
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| 0:36.2 | Hello You, this is the podcast of Inside Science from BBC Radio 4. |
| 0:40.0 | First Broadcast on the 4th of May 2017. May the 4th be with you. I'm Adam Rutherford. That was quite |
| 0:45.8 | tragic, wasn't it? Anyway, science from all over the planet today. In Japan, |
| 0:50.0 | researchers are restoring sight by growing stem cells to replace patches of the |
| 0:54.0 | retinant loss through eye disease. In Southeast Asia we have a wade around one of the |
| 0:58.6 | richest ecosystems on Earth, the mangrove forest, and then a whistle stopped tour around the caves of Europe on the |
| 1:04.9 | hunt for the DNA of ancient humans straight out of the dirt. |
| 1:08.8 | It's a new technique that has the potential to upheave a field already in perpetual revolution. |
| 1:14.0 | The problem with making statements about how this type of work is going to go |
| 1:20.0 | is that the field is moving so fast that I'm going to look like an idiot if I say no. |
| 1:25.5 | So the chances are within a year or two something really extraordinary will come out. |
| 1:30.6 | That's coming up in just a minute, but first, imagine yourself in this position. |
| 1:35.0 | I'm going to give you a tenor and someone is going to get electrocuted. |
| 1:39.0 | The question for you is this, do you take the cash and receive the shock yourself, or do you accept the money and zap a random |
| 1:46.2 | stranger? |
... |
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