Discovery

Professor Tom Kariuki has spent his career battling for science in Africa, both as a leading immunologist and as the former director of the Alliance for Accelerating Excellence in Science in Africa. Now, as the world comes to grips with the coronavirus pandemic and a global movement for social justice, could this prove an opportunity for the transformation of African science? Tom talks to leading scientists in Africa about the successes they have achieved as well as the profound challenges they face, from the complexities of international funding to keeping the lights on. He asks who African science belongs to and benefits, and what needs to happen if its future is to be prosperous.(Photo: A team of scientists in a lab. Credit: Getty Images)

In a special edition of The Evidence, Claudia Hammond and her panel of experts focus on Africa, on how the more than fifty countries on the continent, home to 1.3 billion people and the most youthful population in the world, have fared, two years into the pandemic.African scientists have been key players in the global response, sequencing variants of the virus and sharing this vital information with the world.But there’s been huge frustration and anger on the continent about the way Africa has, yet again, found itself at the back of the global queue for life-saving tests, treatments and vaccines.The sense that the global health system isn’t set up to deliver for Africa has prompted what’s been described as unprecedented solidarity, and galvanised calls for increased healthcare independence, self-sufficiency and a new public health order for the continent.This includes plans to manufacture the vaccines, medicines and tests that Africa needs to increase its health security in Africa for Africa.In The Evidence,

Whilst watching a documentary about some poisonous frogs, Curio Janni in Amsterdam, started to wonder what would happen if a frog licked itself or another frog of the same species. She asks Dr Adam Rutherford and Professor Hannah Fry to investigate whether an animal would react badly to a toxin it itself produces? In essence 'can a venomous snake kill itself by biting itself?'Of course the answer is complicated, but the sleuths know exactly who to ask.Steve Backshall, award-winning wildlife explorer, best known for his BBC series 'Deadly 60'. Author of 'Venom – Poisonous Creatures in the Natural World'. Steve has been bitten, stung and spat at by a plethora of venomous creatures during his career. He also studied the first known venomous newt - the sharp-ribbed newt - a creature that has sharpened ribs that when it's under attack, it will squeeze its body force those ribs out through its skin, coating them in venom, which is then delivered into the mouth of an attacker.Professor Nick Casewell, studies venomou

'What is the slipperiest thing in the world?' asks 8 year old Evelyn? 'Why do my feet slip on a wet floor but when my feet are even slightly moist it's nearly impossible to put on a pair of socks without falling over and cursing the universe. What is going on here?' asks Evelyn's Dad, Sam. Hannah and Adam investigate the science of friction and lubrication - so called 'tribology' with the help of tribologists and mechanical engineers Professor Ashlie Martini from California University Merced and Professor Roger Lewis from the University of Sheffield. With their help Hannah and Adam find out why leaves on the line are so slippery, what happens to graphite in space and what is the slipperiest food. Professor of Materials, Mark Miodownik from University College London explains what's going on when friction stops two materials sliding past each other and wonders whether the slipperiest substance was actually discovered accidentally in a lab by scientists looking for something completely different. Also in the pro

Dr Mitch Lomax is a sports scientist at the University of Portsmouth. She helps actual Olympic swimmers get faster. She explains how most of the muscles attached to our skeletons work: Tiny fibres use small-scale cellular energy, which, when all these fibres work in concert, turns into visible muscular movement. Mitch also explains how the dreaded Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness, or DOMS, can hit, taking a stair-wincing 48-72 hours to peak after exercise.But skeletal muscles turn out to be quite different to heart muscles, as consultant cardiologist Dr Rohin Francis explains. Heart cells are more efficient and don't get fatigued like skeletal muscle cells. They are extremely energetic and 'just want to beat'. He also explains that the sensory feedback from the heart muscles is different too. They have a different sort of nerve supply, with fewer sensory nerves, so that there is less chance of pain signals being sent to the brain.However, heart cells' incredible abilities are counterbalanced by one Achilles-like

“I don’t really understand why water has so many properties on different scales ranging from very large and cosmic to very small quantum and quarky - Could you help by zooming in and out on water to explain what is known about it? Asks Neil Morton in Stirling.“Why does boiling water sound different to cold water?’ asks Barbara Dyson in Brittany in FranceOllie Gordon, in Christchurch in New Zealand, wants to know ‘why water is essential for all life as we know it?’And many more questions on the weirdness of water are tackled by super science sleuths Hannah and Adam helped by quantum physicist Professor Patricia Hunt, at the Victoria University in Wellington in New Zealand, science writer and author of ‘H2O – a biography of water’ Philip Ball and physicist and bubble expert in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at UCL, Dr Helen Czerski.Presenters: Hannah Fry & Adam Rutherford Producer: Fiona Roberts

“I don’t really understand why water has so many properties on different scales ranging from very large and cosmic to very small quantum and quarky - Could you help by zooming in and out on water to explain what is known about it? Asks Neil Morton in Stirling. Rutherford and Fry learn about the special hydrogen bonds that makes water such an unusual liquid.Quantum physicist Professor Patricia Hunt, at the Victoria University in Wellington in New Zealand explains to Hannah the quantum properties of individual water molecules and how they link up with other water molecules in liquid water and solid ice. She describes the hydrogen bonds that give water some of it’s weird and wonderful properties such as why ice floats, why water is able to store huge amounts of heat and why water has such a strong surface tension.Science writer and author of ‘H2O – a biography of water’ Philip Ball describes how in the 18th century it was discovered that water was not one of the classical elements, but a compound liquid of water

Everybody hopes that the new super-charged Omicron variant of coronavirus will be less severe, but even if it is, it’s spreading so fast and infecting so many people, health services around the world could still buckle under the strain.Two years into the pandemic, Claudia Hammond is joined by two world-leading scientists to discuss the impact of Omicron and to review what the world has got right in its response to coronavirus, and what it has got very, very wrong.As many countries roll out and plan for booster campaigns in the face of this new variant, concerns are raised that enhancing vaccine coverage in richer countries will again monopolise scarce supplies, and leave the millions of unvaccinated in poorer countries – including three quarters of healthcare workers in Africa – exposed yet again.Dr Soumya Swaminathan, the Chief Scientist of the World Health Organisation, acknowledges the need to boost the elderly and vulnerable, but says it's good science to make sure everyone around the world gets their fir

Dogs and humans have gone paw in hand for thousands of years. Historic and genetic evidence shows we’ve shaped each other's existence over millennia. But dogs were only first trained as guides for blind people in the UK 90 years ago. What’s the biology behind this extraordinary partnership? Hannah heads to Guide Dogs UK’s training school in Royal Leamington Spa. She meets up with expert Graham Kensett to find out what it takes to make a guide dog from nose to tail, starting from before birth and following the life course through to retirement.Hannah also meets the delightful Wendy and Wilmott, a German shepherd and a retriever cross. Despite both still growing into their ears, they show her their already extraordinary skill set, from tackling obstacle courses to safely crossing roads. Cool, calm, patient, unflappable: Guide dogs are the astronauts of the canine world. But, as trainer Jenna explains, it’s all in the partnership with the owner, who needs to do plenty of work in terms of training and learning ro

The launch of the James Webb Space Telescope is only days away. Scheduled for lift off on 22 December, the largest and most complex space observatory ever built will be sent to an orbit beyond the moon. James Webb is so huge that it has had to be folded up to fit in the rocket. There will be a tense two weeks over Christmas and the New Year as the space giant unfurls and unfolds. Its design and construction has taken about 30 years under the leadership of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.With its huge 6.5 metre-wide primary mirror, the giant observatory promises to extend our view across the cosmos to the first stars to shine in the early universe. That’s a vista of Cosmic Dawn: the first small clusters of stars to form and ignite out of what had been a universe of just dark clouds of primordial gas. If the James Webb succeeds in capturing the birth of starlight, we will be looking at celestial objects more than 13.5 billion light years away. Closer to home, the telescope will also revolutioni

CRISPR is the latest and most powerful technique for changing the genetic code of living things. This method of gene editing is already showing great promise in treating people with gene-based diseases, from sickle cell disease to cancer. However, in 2018 the use of CRISPR to edit the genes of two human embryos, which were subsequently born as two girls in China, caused outrage. The experiment was done in secrecy and created unintended changes to the children's genomes - changes that could be inherited by their children and their children's children. The scandal underlined the grave safety and ethical concerns around heritable genome editing, and called into doubt the ability of the scientific community to self-regulate this use of CRISPR.CRISPR gene editing might also be used to rapidly and permanently alter populations of organisms in the wild, and indeed perhaps whole ecosystems, through a technique called a gene drive. A gene drive is a way of biasing inheritance, of getting a gene (even a deleterious one

Professor Matthew Cobb looks at how genetic engineering became big business - from the first biotech company that produced human insulin in modified bacteria in the late 1970s to the companies like Monsanto which developed and then commercialised the first GM crops in the 1990s. Were the hopes and fears about these products of genetic engineering realised?Thanks to The State of Things from North Carolina Public Radio WUNC for the interview with Mary-Dell Chilton.(Picture: DNA molecule, Credit: KTSDesign/Science Photo Library/Getty Images)

As all eyes have been on the virus, other serious killer diseases took a backseat. Resources and staff were diverted, lockdowns were common all over the world and a very real fear of Covid-19 kept people away from clinics and hospitals.Claudia Hammond and her expert panel from Africa, Asia, Europe and Latin America look at the devastating impact of the pandemic on illnesses other than Covid, on global killers like tuberculosis, polio, measles and HIV/Aids.And they hear that the worldwide disruption to cancer care will inevitably lead to late diagnoses, late-stage cancer treatment and more deaths.Dr Ramya Ananthakrishnan runs REACH, which supports, cares for and organises treatment for TB patients in Chennai, India’s fourth most populous city. She tells Claudia about how hard the pandemic hit the work they do.Claudia’s guests include Dr Abeeba Kamarulzaman, Professor of Medicine and Infectious Diseases at the University of Malaya in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and the President of the International Aids Society; Dr

Biologist Matthew Cobb presents the first episode in a series which looks at the 50-year history of genetic engineering, from the concerns around the first attempts at combining the DNA of one organism with the genes of another in 1971 to today’s gene editing technique known as CRISPR.The first experiments to combine the DNA of two different organisms began at Stanford University in California in 1971. The revolutionary technique of splicing genes from one lifeform into another promised to be a powerful tool in understanding how our cells worked. It also offered the prospect of a new cheap means of manufacturing life-saving drugs – for example, by transferring the gene for human insulin into bacteria, growing those genetically engineered microbes in industrial vats and harvesting the hormone. A new industrial revolution based on biology looked possible.At the same time some scientists and the public were alarmed by disastrous scenarios that genetic engineering might unleash. What if microbes engineered with t

Coral reefs are some of the most diverse ecosystems in the world, and also some of the noisiest. Up close, a healthy reef teems with trills, whoops, buzzes, hums and snaps made by the diverse lifeforms that inhabit it. But as many reefs are now degrading due to rising temperatures, their sound signatures are changing. Conservationist Rory Crawford meets marine scientists who believe these sounds could provide a new way of monitoring the health of coral reefs, and boosting their resilience. He listens in to soundscapes that have been recorded around reefs in diverse parts of the world, and hears a selection of the sometimes surprising noises that have been picked up by researchers’ hydrophones.Sounds are crucial to underwater species and a healthy-sounding reef will attract fish and other organisms to settle on it, so is it possible to use acoustics to boost the ecosystem on damaged coral?Underwater recordings courtesy of: Tim Lamont/University of Exeter, Ben Gottesman, The Centre for Global Soundscapes, and D

Geoengineering is already underway from Australia to the Arctic as scientists try to save places threatened by global heating. It’s time for a global conversation about how we research these powerful techniques, with agreements on how and where to deploy them. Global temperature today is 1.2°C hotter than preindustrial levels and it is causing climate change and sea level rise, threatening the lives and livelihoods of millions of people. Coral reef ecosystems are headed for extinction within decades; glacial melt is speeding up with runaway consequences; agriculture has been hit by drought and extreme weather…. And as our carbon emissions rise, it’s only going to get worse, because we’re headed this century for at least 3°C of temperature rise if governments meet their netzero targets. Faced with this heat emergency, scientists are acting. In Australia, they are brightening clouds to make them more reflective, hoping to save the Great Barrier Reef, and coating the waters with a thin reflective film; in the

Even with the best efforts, it will be decades before we see any change in global temperatures through our mitigation efforts. Given the pace of global heating and the time lag before our emissions reductions have any impact, scientists are exploring additional ways of reducing global temperature. Gaia Vince explores ways of actively removing carbon from the atmosphere. She discusses the idea of BECCS, biological energy with carbon capture storage, and DAC, direct air capture with Simon Evans of Climate Brief. Sir David King, Chair of the Centre for Climate Repair at Cambridge University, explains how he is planning an experiment in the Arabian Sea that will allow the oceans to take up more carbon. Professor Rachael James of the University of Southampton talks about her experiments in enhanced rock weathering, where she finds ways of speeding up the slow continual process in which carbon dioxide in the atmosphere dissolves in rainwater, forming a weak acid that reacts with the surface of rocks. She hopes this

A maelstrom of misinformation and its sinister cousin, disinformation, have been swirling all around us about Covid-19. The rumours and conspiracy theories have raced around the globe as fast as the virus itself.Untruths, half-truths, misunderstandings and deliberate mischief-making aren’t new when it comes to health of course, but a global pandemic with a novel virus means that there is much uncertainty and a lack of definite facts. In that gap, falsehoods flourish and in our super-connected world, they spread far and wide.Claudia Hammond and her panel of global experts assess the scale of misinformation and its impact and conclude that misinformation really does cost lives.Dr Brett Campbell, a physician in a dedicated Covid intensive care unit at Ascension St Thomas Hospital in Nashville, Tennessee, tells Claudia about the unvaccinated patients, many of them close to death, who still cannot accept that the virus is real. Claudia’s guests include Heidi Larson , Director of the Vaccine Confidence Project and

Think of ancient mummies, and you might imagine Egyptian pharaohs in their highly decorated cases. But in actual fact, Chile has the oldest mummies in the world. Unesco recently addded the archaeological sites and the artificial mummification of the Chinchorro culture to its World Heritage List. Around 300 mummies have been excavated from three different sites in the north of the country, near the border with Peru. The nomination took decades of work, drawing on many years of different scientific studies.Jane Chambers travels to Arica in northern Chile to find out more about the Chinchorro culture and how they used mummification to remember their dead, 7000 years ago.Photo: Chilean mummy from the Chinchorro culture (Credit: Bioarchaeology lab of the University of Tarapaca)

Over the last 2 weeks we have featured the 15 finalists in the Earthshot prize, an initiative to highlight and award projects designed to conserve and sustain natural environments, and improve our lives in ways that are sensitive to issues such as climate change and biodiversity loss. Here we discuss this year’s winning projects and what future investment could mean for them.There are five prize categories with a million pounds up for grabs in each. Protect and restore nature. Clean our air. Revive our oceans. Build a waste-free world. Fix our climate.Image: Europe, Middle East and Africa region on planet Earth from space. (Elements by NASA) Credit: Harvepino/Getty Images