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BBC World Service


The BBC brings you all the week's science news.


Science In Action

A desktop nuclear fusion reactor that uses electrochemistry to up the ante. Also, a global survey of human wildfire exposures finds Africa burning ahead, plus tiny swarming robots and record-breaking 2024 ice melts from glaciers on Svalbard. 

Presenter: Roland Pease 
Producer: Alex Mansfield 
Production co-ordinator: Jana Holesworth 

(Photo: The Thunderbird Reactor at the University of British Columbia (UBC). Credit: Berlinguette Group/UBC)

Not cold fusion all over again

US Health Secretary RFK Jr’s call to retract a study on childhood vaccines is resisted by the journal. Also antibiotics get designed by AI, and a new way for stars to die. 

A study focussing on Danish childhood vaccination data has attracted the US Secretary for Health’s anger, as RFK jr calls for the journal in which it was published, the Annals of Internal Medicine, to retract it. The Editor, Christine Laine, talk to Science in Action about the strengths and challenges of observational studies. 

The cuts to prestigious US federal science funded research continue, as last week it was announced that $500 million funding for future mRNA vaccines would be withdrawn. Barney Graham, one of the pioneers in the field and prominent during the Covid vaccines, argues that the research will still happen, though maybe not in the US, as mRNA has become a fundamental area of global research. 

Meanwhile, strides are being made in the field of synthetic biology as Jim Collins and colleagues at MIT and Harvard have used AI to design potentially viable antibiotics for two important drug-resistant superbugs. Previously, AI has been used to comb through libraries of known antibiotics. This study has gone a step further, and used generative AI to design new ones, that can then be synthesised using real chemicals. Though a long way from being prescribable drugs, the team think this could herald a new golden age of antibiotic development – something which has been lacking in recent decades. 

Finally, it seems astronomers may have discovered a new way for a star to die, sort of. Supernova 2023zkd was seen to explode back in 2023, found by a team looking for odd events. It didn’t seem quite like normal supernovae, in that it took a bit longer to die down. Then the team looked back, and noticed that it had also been getting slowly brighter for almost a year. At 730 million light years away, in a galaxy far, far away, it also seemed to have been stripped of all its hydrogen and even stranger yet, appeared to have exploded twice. As Ashley Villar of the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics explains, the almost unique observation fits with a model of the huge star getting closer to a black hole, the gravity of which may have disrupted the star enough to cause it to explode. 

Presenter: Roland Pease 
Producer: Ella Hubber with Alex Mansfield 
Production Coordinator: Jana Bennett-Holesworth 

(Image: Child getting a vaccine. Credit: Luis Alvarez via Getty Images)

Vaccine study retraction request rejected

As the United States secretary of health and human services, Robert F Kennedy Jr., announces a $500 million cut to mRNA vaccine research in the United States, we hear a statement from the Nobel Prize winning biologist who made mRNA vaccines possible. 

A team of scientists from Northwestern University have uncovered the pathway believed to protect some people from allergic reactions (even when they are sensitive to an allergen) and have tested a drug which could protect the most severely allergic. 
 
Also this week, satellite data shows that large parts of the Earth are running dangerously low on ground water. 

And although people often believe scientific fraud is committed by a few bad actors, a new paper uncovers networks of journals, editors, and authors who are allegedly cooperating to publish fraudulent papers. 

Presenter: Roland Pease 
Producer: Ella Hubber and Alex Mansfield 
Assistant producer: Minnie Harrop 
Production co-ordinator: Jana Bennett-Holesworth
 
(Photo: Allergy testing. Credit: Peter Dazeley/Getty Images)

An end to allergic reactions?

After most of the population of the Pacific rim sought higher ground this week, we speak with the architect of the tsunami warning technology. Also how aging Killifish might help us probe our senior moments. 

This week, an M8.8 earthquake near Kamchatka in the western pacific led to tsunami evacuation alerts thousands of miles away. Seismologist Judith Hubbard was writing about the area in the days leading up to it, following a M7.4 event 9 days before, which we now know to categorize as a foreshock. As she says, it’s these subduction zones between tectonic plates that give out the most energy, produce the biggest quakes, leading to the worst tsunamis. 
 
The Tsunami alarms were based on modelling developed by Vasily Titov of NOAA’s Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory in Seattle. Having studied these phenomena for many decades, he describes the fine balance between the potential accuracy of a prediction, and the practical actionable advice authorities need to give out to save as many lives as possible. 

Finally, how can a short-lived African freshwater fish help scientists studying senescence? Stanford’s Judith Frydman and colleagues publish this week a study in Science that finds Killifish’s brain cells’ ability to encode proteins degrades with age, in keeping with similar patterns of older human brains. Because Killifish have such brief life cycles, yet seem to follow the brain cycles of most vertebrates, they provide an ideal model species from which to find out more, as she explains. 

Presenter: Roland Pease 
Producer: Imaan Moin and Alex Mansfield 
Production Coordinator: Jana Holesworth

(Image Credit: Vasily Titov PMEL/NOAA)

Getting ahead of tsunamis

Have we found Betelgeuse’s ‘Betelbuddy?’ An astronomical mystery seems to be solved as the long-predicted stellar companion to the bright star Betelgeuse has been detected by a team of researchers led by Steve Howell of the NASA Ames Research Center using the Gemini North telescope in Hawaii. Steve discusses this breakthrough alongside astronomer Andrea Dupree of the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, who has discussed the predictions of this star on previous Science in Action programmes. 

Malaria is a mosquito-borne disease caused by the parasite plasmodium that kills more than half a million people each year. George Dimopoulos of the Johns Hopkins Malaria Research Institute is using gene editing and gene drive technology to target the parasites as they develop in the guts of mosquito. Can this new method disrupt the malaria parasite life cycle safely and sustainably? 

Our gut microbiomes are linked to our brains, but how can the bacteria in our colon communicate with our nervous system? M. Maya Kaelberer of the University of Arizona explains this neurobiotic sense, suggesting that the microbes in our large intestine communicate with specialised sensory cells in the gut. These cells send signals up to our brain and regulate our appetite. So, who really decides when you're hungry? Is it you, or is it your microbiome? 

Presenter: Roland Pease 
Producer: Imaan Moin with Alex Mansfield 
Production Coordinator: Jana Bennet-Holesworth 

(Image: Betelgeuse and Its Stellar Companion in Orion. Credit: International Gemini Observatory/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA Image Processing: M. Zamani (NSF NOIRLab))

Discovering Betelgeuse’s Betelbuddy

Two black holes have collided and combined in the largest merger yet observed. Mark Hannam of Cardiff University and member of the study explains how the Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatories (LIGO) detected this ‘violent’ event through spacetime.
 
The lifestyle of ancient humans had an impact on their risk for infectious diseases. Astrid Iversen of the University of Oxford explains how the shift away from being hunter-gatherers played a role in the origins of human pathogens. 

Nitrogen fixation, or the process of organic compounds accessing nitrogen from the atmosphere via microorganisms, plays a key role in climate modelling. But prior estimations have long been missing key data to make accurate analysis. Carla Reis Ely of Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education shares the updated facts and figures on global nitrogen fixation. 

How intelligent is artificial intelligence? Can AI start discovering new scientific laws in the year? Keyon Vafa of Harvard University put several AI models to the test to see if they could discover Newton’s law of gravity and understand the world around us. 
 
Presenter: Roland Pease 
Producer: Imaan Moin 
Production Coordinator: Jana Bennet-Holesworth 

(Image: Black Hole, digital illustration. Credit: Aaron Horowitz via Getty Images)

Biggest black hole merger observed

The European Space Agency plans to use satellite gravity data to track weakening ocean circulation systems. Rory Bingham of the University of Bristol explains how these satellites can ‘weigh’ the Earth’s water and might help resolve whether we’re approaching the climate tipping point of a shutdown of ocean circulation in the Atlantic Ocean, something we've been following for a while. 

Scientists have been able to retrieve ancient proteins from fossilized tooth enamel in the Canadian High Arctic. Ryan Sinclair Paterson from the University of Copenhagen tells us how he can fill in the blanks of the molecular tree of life with these proteins from over 20 million years ago. 

A few weeks ago, we discussed evidence of an impact of a massive crater in north-western Australia from over 3 billion years ago. However, recent independent evidence from another team of geologists indicate that the size and age of this crater’s impact may not be what some had previously thought. Alec Brenner of Yale University talks us through his analysis of the geologic evidence. 

Finally, we rediscover a forgotten pioneer of fusion science. Mark Chadwick discusses the research done by then-graduate student Arthur Ruhlig that helped develop the hydrogen bomb and thermonuclear physics. 

[This audio has been corrected since original broadcast to amend a misattribution in the script. Our apologies.]

Presenter: Roland Pease 
Producers: Imaan Moin with Alex Mansfield 
Production Coordinator: Jana Bennett-Holesworth 

(Image: Map of North Atlantic Ocean currents, with Gulf Stream and other currents. Credit: PeterHermesFurian Via Getty Images.)

Tracking ocean circulation systems

There's a surge in cases and deaths from H5N1 bird flu in Cambodia - we hear what's the driver and how concerned we should be. Erik Karlsson, Head of Virology at the Pasteur Institute in Phnom Penh and director of the WHO’s H5 Reference Laboratory has been watching the uptick.

An interstellar interloper has been spotted entering our solar system. Most likely a comet, and possibly visible in the sky, it’s just the third such visitor we’ve ever seen. Josep Trigo of Spain’s Institute of Space Sciences (CSIC) and the Catalan Institute for Space Studies is one of many astronomers keeping his eye out.

DNA from an ancient Egyptian buried in cave 2,500 BCE, the oldest to date, tell a tale of travelling ancestors, according to research led by Adeline Morez of Liverpool John Moore’s University and published in Nature.

Also, Corey Allard of Harvard university has been looking at a particular type of sea slug. Published in the journal Cell, the work has been trying to work out how these slugs effectively nurture and manage stolen chloroplasts – stolen from ingested plant cells - within their own bodies. Artfully, they may use these “Kleptoplasts” to dodge periods of food shortage. 

Presenter: Roland Pease
Producer: Alex Mansfield
Production Coordinator: Jazz George

Photo Credit: Institut Pasteur du Cambodge

Bird flu surges in Cambodia

A spectacular new 10-year telescopic survey of the universe gets underway in Chile. Also, a project to create human chromosomes completely synthetically.

Almost three decades ago Tony Tyson (now of UC Davis) and colleagues were standing in the control room of the world’s biggest (at the time) digital astronomical camera. It was 3am when he suggested astronomers could do better. 

This week, the Vera C Rubin Observatory unveiled first images from the telescope he envisioned. Unprecedented in so many ways, expect many discoveries to come from this unique machine.

Another ambitious project known as SynHG kicks off this week, on the 25th anniversary of the publication of the first draft of the human genome, with a plan to develop the technology to potentially create a whole synthetic version. Jason Chin of MRC Laboratory of Molecular Laboratory in Cambridge and colleagues will be extending their previous work in synthetic biology to human DNA, whilst Joy Zheng of the University of Kent will be running a parallel project examining the ethical side of the objectives, and possibilities.

Presenter: Roland Pease
Producer: Alex Mansfield
Production co-ordinator: Jazz George

Photo Credit: NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory

Vera C. Rubin Observatory first images

The universe is thought to consist of 70% Dark Energy, 25% Dark Matter, and just 5% Baryonic matter which is the atoms that make up you and me. At least, that’s what the models suggest. But a well-kept secret between astronomers and cosmologists for all these years has been that they have not actually ever seen almost half of that 5% normal matter because it is thinly dispersed as gas between the galaxies and galactic clusters. This week, two studies have been published putting that right.

Satisfactory model-match #1:
Liam Connor of Harvard University with colleagues from Caltech have been using a mysterious phenomenon called Fast Radio Bursts (FBRs) to infer what the intergalactic medium is in between, and how much of it there is. 

Satisfactory model-match #2:
Konstanios Migkas of Leiden University and colleagues have been looking at the very faint x-ray signal from the intergalactic medium, removing the incidental x-ray sources such as black holes, and have managed to identify some structure - in this case a mind-bendingly huge filament of ionised gas stretching between two galactic superclusters - confirming the state of “Warm Hot Intergalactic Medium” (WHIM) as predicted for much of the universe.

Of course, there is not just the cosmological standard model (lambdaCDM) that these satisfy in science today. There is also the remarkably resilient Standard Model of particle physics. A report this week from the US National Academies recommends the US begins building the world’s next particle collider to follow the work of the LHC (and FCC) at Cern. It should, as University of Tennessee at Knoxville’s Tova Holmes tells us, collide not ordinary, stable, easy to manipulate particles like protons and electrons, but muons. 

Finally, Shana Goffredi of Occidental College in California, has found a VERY odd spider. Diving to depths in the submersible Alvin, they have found that a species of small sea-spiders, Sericosura, actually farm bacteria on their exoskeleton. Why? Because they hang around methane seeps on the ocean floor, where a specialist bacteria can metabolize methane – something the spiders themselves can’t do. Not only do the spiders then graze on the bacteria they carry around, they even pass samples of the bacteria onto their offspring by leaving bacterial lunch-boxes in their egg-sacs.

Presenter: Roland Pease
Producer: Alex Mansfield, with Sophie Ormiston
Production co-ordinator: Jasmine Cerys George

(Photo Credit: Jack Madden, IllustrisTNG, Ralf Konietzka, Liam Connor/CfA)

Not cold fusion all over again

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