Rank #1: Is quantum supremacy ‘garbage’?

Also we look at a new method of gene editing, which avoids cutting up DNA, get to grips with where the worlds worms live and watch elements being created in distant solar collisions.
(Photo: A quantum circuit from Google's Sycamore computer. Credit: Google)
Presenter: Roland Pease
Producer: Julian Siddle
Oct 24 2019
37mins
Rank #2: Wildfires and winds in California

The glaring gaps in human genetics are in Africa – much overlooked because the companies and universities sequencing DNA are mostly based in Europe, the US and other advanced economies. A ten-year attempt to fill in some of those gaps came to fruition this week, with the release of a study covering thousands of individuals from rural Uganda. Deepti Gurdasani, of Queen Mary University London, explains the data reveal both new medical stories, and the scale of past migration within Africa.
There are also gaps in the climate record from Africa. Knowing past climates could help massively in understanding the prospects for climate change in coming years on the continent. Journalist Linda Nordling has just published an article in Nature that shows that the records exist – old weather data collected since the 19th Century. It’s just they’re scattered, unexamined, in vaults and collections across Africa.
Adam McKay of Nasa and Alan Fitzsimmons of Queens University Belfast talk to Roland Pease about the latest observations of the interstellar interloper Comet Borisov.
(Photo: A firefighter sets a back fire along a hillside during operations to battle the Kincade fire in Healdsburg, California. Credit: Philip Pacheco/AFP/Getty Images)
Presenter: Roland Pease
Producer: Deborah Cohen
Oct 31 2019
28mins
Rank #3: 'Free' water and electricity for the world?

A long running study of gorilla behaviour in the DRC has found they exhibit social traits previously thought to only be present in humans. This suggests such traits could have developed in the prehistory of both species.
More than 500 fish species can change sex. Analysis of the underlying mechanism shows how sex determination is heavily influenced by environmental and in the case of one species social factors.
(Picture: Future PV farm: not just generating electricity, but also producing fresh water. Credit: Wenbin Wang)
Presenter: Roland Pease
Producer: Julian Siddle
Jul 11 2019
29mins
Rank #4: US foetal tissue research ban

Scientists point to the lack of feasible alternatives to using foetal tissue – which comes from embryos donated to scientific research via abortion clinics.
They say the move to halt this kind of research will have a negative impact on the ability of US medical institutions to develop new treatments for a range of diseases from diabetes to cancer.
More controversy from the ‘Crispr babies ‘ scandal – with a new analysis showing the modified gene may have a wide impact on the health of the children it was claimed to have been implanted into.
A reassessment on North Korea’s Nuclear tests using cold war methodology suggest the last explosion was more powerful than previously thought.
And we investigate a small British Earthquake south of London.
(Picture: Donald Trump, Credit:SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images)
Presenter: Roland Pease
Producer: Julian Siddle
Jun 06 2019
34mins
Rank #5: From batteries to distant worlds

And we also see what salamanders have to offer in the treatment of arthritis
(Picture: Illustration of the Earth-like exoplanet Kepler-452b and its parent star Kepler-452. Credit: NASA/Ames/JPL-Caltech/Science Photo Library)
Presenter: Roland Pease
Producer: Julian Siddle
Oct 10 2019
29mins
Rank #6: Malaria's origins and a potential new treatment

Also, why improved monitoring is changing our perceptions of earthquakes and the story of an endangered Polynesian snail.
Presenter: Roland Pease
Producer: Julian Siddle
(Photo: Gorilla. Credit: Hermes Images/AGF/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
Oct 17 2019
29mins
Rank #7: Analysing the European heatwave

And we look at what seems an incredibly simple idea to counter the effects of global warming – plant more trees, but where and how many?
(Photo: People cool themselves down in the fountain of the Trocadero esplanade in Paris. Credit: AFP/Getty Images)
Presenter: Roland Pease
Producer: Julian Siddle
Jul 04 2019
28mins
Rank #8: Cracking the case of the Krakatoa volcano collapse

Wyoming Dinosaur trove
The BBC got a secret visit to a newly discovered fossil site somewhere in the US which scientists reckon could keep them busy for many years. Jon Amos got to have a tour and even found out a tasty technique to tell a fossil from a rock.
Bioflourescent Aliens
Researchers at Cornell University’s Carla Sagan Institute report their work thinking about detecting alien life on distant planets orbiting other stars. Around 75% of stars are of a type that emits far more dangerous UV than our own sun. What, they argue, would a type of life that could survive that look like to us? Well, just maybe it would act like some of our own terrestrial corals, who can protect their symbiotic algae from UV, and in doing so, emit visible light. Could such an emission be detectable, in sync with dangerous emergent UV flares around distant suns? The next generation of large telescopes maybe could…
Exopants
Jinsoo Kim and David Perry of Harvard University tell reporter Giulia Barbareschi about their new design for a soft exosuit that helps users to walk and, crucially also to run. They suggest the metabolic savings the suit could offer have numerous future applications for work and play.
(Photo: Volcano Anak Krakatoa. Credit: Drone Pilot, Muhammad Edo Marshal, ITB university in Bandung, Indonesia)
Presenter: Roland Pease
Producer: Alex Mansfield
Reporter: Giulia Barbareschi
Aug 15 2019
33mins
Rank #9: The snowball effect of Arctic fires

We visit Naples which is built on a super volcano. A new analysis is designed to help predict when it might erupt.
We hear from young scientists around the world on their hopes for the future and hear about the discovery of a new potentially earth like planet.
Presenter: Roland Pease
Producer: Julian Siddle
(Photo: Arctic wildfires: Credit: Getty Images)
Aug 01 2019
26mins
Rank #10: The human danger – for sharks

We look at how tourists might be a useful source for conservation data, And we meet one of the planets smallest predators, is it a plant is it an animal? Well actually it’s a bit of both.
(Photo: Tiger shark. Credit: Barcroft Media via Getty Images)
Presenter: Roland Pease
Producer: Julian siddle
Jul 25 2019
30mins