Bencast

Ben has a coffee and an erudite discussion with three friends/ published academics. Anthony Ashmore from the Theoretical Physics department at Imperial College London describes mirror symmetries in nature, and why radioactivity can tell your left hand from your right hand (with a brief digression into the origin of life quite possibly being a comet that delivered an excess of left-handed amino acids to the Earth 4 billion years ago). William Heard from The Sainsbury Laboratory in Norwich enlightens us on "biological control" - using living organisms to catch and kill other more dangerous ones. From the Old Lady who Swallowed a Fly (and then a spider, etc) to giving patients malaria to help fight syphilis (followed by a swift G&T to kill the malaria) and fighting drug-resistant bacteria using bacteriophages: viruses which have evolved to kill and eat specific types of bacteria. Emma Molyneaux from the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience at Kings College London gives us an insight into "foe