Link to the Show / Show NotesGenes show human history
350,000 people have joined The Genographic Project where human DNA is analysed to determine its origin. The project demonstrates lineages and shows how human populations split, contracted and expanded over time.
Beagle voyage retraced
It was the Beagle which transported Charles Darwin around the world on his 5-year voyage allowing him to see the enormous variation of life forms which led to his theory of evolution by natural selection. Now having just celebrated 200 years since Charles Darwin´s birth and 150 years since the publication of his famous book describing his theory, the voyage of the Beagle is being retraced. Pauline Newman joins the crew for the leg between Lima and the Galapagos.
Desert soils
Ferran Garcia-Pichel walks through the Sonoran desert looking down. He studies the crust and the microbes which hold it all together. Desert soils differ from other soils in that the microbes need to come up with ways of getting food without relying on plants. It could resemble the surface of Mars, although here on Earth it gets much hotter. Micro organisms have a range of tricks for their survival. Some produce sunscreens! Others respond to water scarcity by moving deeper into the soil. Microbes and bacteria also play an important role in soil preservation. They bind the particles and hold the soil in the most extreme wind conditions. But they don´t respond well to physical compression from people, tyres and hooves, taking many years to recover.
Teaching science in Namibia
Daniel Scott is an Australian science teacher teaching in Namibia. He describes some of the challenges and joys to Sarah Caster-Perry.
ISIS Facility reveals atomic structures
The ISIS Facility in Oxfordshire allows materials to be studied at the atomic level. A wide range of materials is studied including silk, the world´s oldest commercial fibre. Silk is stored as a jelly, but is pulled out by the spider as a thread-like fibre. These experiments reveal silk´s protein components and hopefully why silk is as strong as it is.
David Attenborough - Bowerbirds
David Attenborough describes the bowerbird, the bird which collects items and objects, often of a particular colour, building them into a structure, a bower, in its attempt to impress a female.
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