UK Covid-19 Inquiry

BBC Inside Science

BBC

Technology, Science

4.5 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 21 December 2023

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Key scientific witnesses including former Chief Scientific Adviser Patrick Vallance and Chief Medical Officer for England Chris Whitty are called to the UK Covid-19 Inquiry. The BBC’s Jim Reed brings us his three key moments from the evidence heard over the past few days that have been dubbed “science week”.

NASA has managed to let loose a tool kit in the Earth’s orbit -- and you can even see it in the night sky with binoculars. Lucinda King explains how this is possible and if space junk is getting out of control.

The United Nations has warned we’re heading towards 3 degrees warming and another Conference of the Parties, known as COP, is about to take place. The BBC’s Georgina Rannard reminds us there is still hope for our planet to curb global warming.

The winner of the 2023 Royal Society Trivedi Science Book Prize was announced on Wednesday night. It’s Ed Yong for his book ‘An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us’. Marnie Chesterton was at the ceremony and nabbed Ed as well as Chair of the Judges Alain Goriely to find out what made this book the winner.

Presenter:  Marnie Chesterton Producers: Harrison Lewis, Hannah Robins and Louise Orchard Editor: Richard Collings Production Co-ordinator: Jana Bennett-Holesworth

BBC Inside Science is produced in collaboration with the Open University.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Once you've wrapped up this podcast, how about trying a very British cult?
0:06.0	What happens if the person you trust with your future isn't what you think they are?
0:10.0	I did feel the whole time he was watching me Yeti.
0:14.0	I saw a footprint and that really gave me goosebumps.
0:16.0	Or people who knew me.
0:18.0	Emmy, I remember every secret, every lie.
0:21.0	I'm the only one who knows the truth.
0:23.0	Discover more of our biggest podcast from 2003.
0:27.0	Listen on BBC Sounds.
0:29.0	BBC Sounds, Music, radio podcasts.
0:34.8	Congratulations for downloading the podcast of BBC Inside Science.
0:39.4	First broadcast on the 23rd of November, 2023. I'm Marnie Chesterton.
0:45.0	Hello, one mantra of the COVID-19 pandemic was,
0:50.0	Follow the Science. But was that really what was going on? I think it became taken both
0:56.8	widely in the press and again possibly inside government as well as a sort of direct following the science, a slavish following
1:07.1	of it, which I agree. These are difficult ministerial decisions. They are precisely what needs to be taken by ministers to
1:15.5	integrate the different forms of evidence and make those almost impossible
1:20.2	judgment calls which the science can't make and shouldn't make.
1:23.6	Former chief scientific advisor Sir Patrick Valence giving his evidence at the
1:27.8	COVID inquiry on Monday.
1:29.4	We'll be hearing the highlights of what's been dubbed Science Week. Also butterfingers on the
1:36.1	International Space Station leads to an unexpected flying object in the night sky.
	...

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