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BBC Radio 4


Professor Jim Al-Khalili talks to leading scientists about their life and work, finding out what inspires and motivates them and asking what their discoveries might do for us in the future


The Life Scientific

The COP30 climate summit is taking place in the Brazilian city of Belém, a gateway to the Amazon rainforest, which continues to face widespread deforestation. We all know that our climate is changing and that we are largely responsible for this, but we can’t tackle the problem unless we understand what’s going on.

One scientist who’s done more than most to rectify this is Professor Pierre Friedlingstein. He’s a prominent climate scientist and Chair in Mathematical Modelling of the Climate System at Exeter University. His models have transformed our understanding of climate change, revealing a complex dynamical system with carbon at its centre, cycling between the atmosphere, oceans and land, to directly influence the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Pierre is actively involved in assessing the state of our climate through the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and, as director of the Global Carbon Budget, estimates the remaining amount of carbon dioxide that can be emitted before we breach our global climate targets. It’s the ultimate test of effective climate action and the latest annual update will be released at COP. 

Pierre explains how we can all play our part to reduce carbon emissions, and he practises what he preaches - he won’t be flying to COP this year so as to minimise his own carbon footprint.

Presented by Jim Al-Khalili
Produced by Beth Eastwood
Executive Producer: Alexandra Feachem
A BBC Studios Production

Pierre Friedlingstein on carbon’s pivotal role in climate change

Imagine if you were listening to an opera or a Taylor Swift concert, and as the lights in the auditorium dimmed, the music was accompanied by a rainbow of colours only you could see. Perhaps while listening to your friends talking, you simultaneously experience a smorgasbord of tastes, with different words evoking different flavours, maybe a delicious ice cream, or something as disgusting as ear wax... 
This merging of the senses is known as synaesthesia, and it’s the rich research world of neuropsychologist Professor Julia Simner. Julia runs the Multisense lab at the University of Sussex and has pioneered research into understanding how special brains process our sensory world in special ways. In the studio she tests Jim to see if he might be a synaesthete or have aphantasia, which is the inability to view images in the mind’s eye. The results are surprising.
 Julia’s discovered links to autism, and to different personality types, as well as a number of previously unknown sensory differences. 
She describes her career and her life as a series of swerves, or sliding door moments, that have led her to study the subject and the people she’s passionate about. She says that the more she looks for these unusual traits in us the more she finds.

Presenter Jim Al-Khalili
Producer Geraldine Fitzgerald
Executive Producer Alexandra Feachem

Julia Simner on tasty words and hearing colours

Caroline Smith is passionate about space rocks, whether they’re samples collected from the surface of asteroids and the Moon and hopefully Mars one day soon, or meteorites, those alien rock fragments that have survived their fiery descents through our atmosphere to land here on Earth.

She is Head of Collections and Principal Curator of Meteorites at the Natural History Museum, home to one of the finest meteorite collections in the world. Her interest in rocks began while wandering the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, as a child, picking up the ones that caught her eye and bashing them with a hammer, hoping to find treasure inside, whether it’s gold, diamonds or dinosaur fossils.

Her work today, studying rocks that have landed here on Earth or those still out there in space, is no less ambitious. She analyses their chemical composition looking for tantalising clues that might reveal how our Solar System formed, and potentially the presence of the chemical building blocks necessary for life itself.

Presented by Jim Al-Khalili
Produced by Beth Eastwood
Executive Producer: Alexandra Feachem
BBC Studios Production

Caroline Smith on meteorites and potential ancient life on Mars

From humble beginnings in his native Sri Lanka, to a more than 40 year academic career at Queen’s University Belfast, Prof. AP (Amilra Prasanna) De Silva’s research into molecular photosensors has led to a pioneering career in that’s evolved from chemistry to medical diagnostics on one hand, to information processing on the other.

Prof. De Silva challenged cultural expectations and overcame the lack of opportunities in chemistry that were available in Sri Lanka in the early 1970s. He first moved to Belfast to pursue research in photochemistry at Queen’s University. Inspired by his grandmother’s struggle with high blood pressure he engineered a unique sodium photosensor by marrying fluorescent molecules with chemical receptors. As a result of his international collaborations, a commercial, portable sensor was developed to detect salts and minerals in the blood. Its speed of analysis has since saved countless lives and improved healthcare around the world. 

AP talks to Jim Al-Khalili about his passion for engineering molecules and how his photochemical innovations have since crossed into computer science. They’ve been developed to perform molecular computations far inside the human body - where silicon microchips fear to tread. A new deeper understanding of life inside our tissues and cells beckons.

Presented by Jim Al-Khalili
Produced by Adrian Washbourne 
Executive Producer: Alexandra Feachem
A BBC Studios Production

AP De Silva on building molecular fluorescence sensors for healthcare

There are problems and tasks so hard and complicated that it would take today’s most powerful supercomputers millions of years to crack them. But in the next decade, we may well have quantum computers which could solve such problems in seconds. 

Professor Sir Peter Knight is a British pioneer in the realms of quantum optics and quantum information science. During his three decades as a researcher at Imperial College London, he has advanced our understanding of the physics which underpins how quantum computers work.

Quantum optics was a new field of physics at the start of Peter Knight’s career in the early 1970s and he tells Jim Al-Khalili about the excitement and opportunities for a young scientist at the birth of a new scientific discipline. He also talks about the UK National Quantum Technologies Programme. Since his retirement in 2010, Peter Knight has been the driving force behind this £1 billion government-funded endeavour which has positioned the UK as a world leader in the development and commercialisation of quantum computing and other revolutionary quantum inventions.

Producer: Andrew Luck-Baker 
Executive Producer: Alexandra Feachem
A BBC Studios Production

Peter Knight on quantum technologies

In July 1545, King Henry VIII watched from Southsea Castle on England's south coast as his fleet sailed out to face the French - only to witness his prized warship, the Mary Rose, sink before his eyes. 

Raised from the Solent in 1982, the ship is now the centrepiece of the Mary Rose Museum, along with thousands more artefacts that were recovered from the seabed. But keeping the 500-year-old ship and its associated Tudor relics in good condition is no small task, which is where Dr Eleanor Schofield comes in. As Director of Collections at the Mary Rose Trust and a materials engineer by training, Eleanor has spent years tackling the unique scientific challenges of conserving centuries-old wood and metal. From the United States to Portsmouth, Eleanor's research is helping ensure this iconic vessel remains 'ship-shape' for generations to come. 

In a special edition of The Life Scientific, recorded in front of an audience at the museum in Portsmouth's Historic Dockyards, Professor Jim Al-Khalili discovers how cutting-edge science is keeping history afloat.

Presented by Jim Al-Khalili
Produced by Lucy Taylor for BBC Studios

Eleanor Schofield on conserving Tudor warship the Mary Rose

"My ideas are often labelled as impossible, or useless, or both. Usually when people say that I'm on the right track."

George Church is a geneticist, molecular engineer, and one of the pioneers of modern genomics. He's also someone who makes a habit of finding solutions to the seemingly impossible.

Over the course of his career so far, George developed the first method for direct genomic sequencing, helped initiate the Human Genome Project, and founded the Personal Genome Project: making huge quantities of DNA data publicly available for research. Today, as a professor at Harvard Medical School and MIT, he’s working on some of the most headline-grabbing - and controversial - science on the planet: from the so-called "de-extinction" of woolly mammoths, to growing transplant-suitable organs in pigs, to virus-proofing humans.

When inspiration strikes, there seems to be little that will slow him down - even the fact that he has narcolepsy, the neurological disorder that causes sudden sleep attacks. In fact, as George tells Professor Jim Al-Khalili, some of his best ideas come in those moments between waking and sleep...

Presented by Jim Al-Khalili
Produced by Lucy Taylor for BBC Studios

George Church on reimagining woolly mammoths and virus-proofing humans

Movies might have us believe that bomb disposal comes down to cutting the right wire. In fact, explosive devices are complex and varied - and learning how to dispose of them safely involves intense training, as well as the ability to stay calm under pressure. 

This was the world of Dr Gareth Collett, a retired British Army Brigadier General and engineer, specialising in bomb disposal; whose 32-year military career took him around the world, including heading up major ordnance clearance projects in Iraq and Afghanistan. After retiring from the army, Gareth became a university lecturer – but following his diagnosis with bladder cancer, started researching a possible link between bomb disposal veterans and higher rates of urological cancers.

In conversation with Professor Jim Al-Khalili, Gareth discusses this ongoing research, dealing with PTSD - and why he just can't watch Oscar-winning movie The Hurt Locker...

Presented by Jim Al-Khalili
Produced by Lucy Taylor for BBC Studios

Gareth Collett on a career in bomb disposal

Many people will be familiar with Parkinson’s disease: the progressive brain disorder that causes symptoms including tremors and slower movement, leading on to serious cognitive problems. You might not know that it’s the fastest-growing neurological condition in the world. Today it affects around 11.8 million people and that’s forecast to double by 2030. 

Dr Sonia Gandhi is one of the scientists working to change that trend. As Professor of Neurology at University College London and Assistant Research Director at the Francis Crick Institute, her work involves using stem cells to build models of the human brain, helping to drive the development of drugs and other therapies for Parkinson’s patients.

Talking to Professor Jim Al-Khalili, Sonia explains why this destructive condition is on the rise - and the promising routes they're studying to find new ways to tackle it.

Presented by Jim Al-Khalili
Produced by Lucy Taylor for BBC Studios

For details of organisations that offer advice and support to anyone affected by Parkinson's Disease, please go online to bbc.co.uk/actionline.

Sonia Gandhi on building model brains to tackle Parkinson’s disease

How do you feel about snakes? What about highly venomous ones?

For Mark O’Shea, close encounters with the world’s most rare and deadly snakes are not only his profession, but his passion. 
Mark is a Professor of Herpetology - the area of zoology focusing on reptiles and amphibians - at the University of Wolverhampton.

After dropping out of college in his teens, Mark's life could have taken a very different direction; but prompted by a fascination with reptiles that started with a childhood trip to the zoo, he's gone on to have a career spanning research, international expeditions and broadcasting. He's also worked with international medical teams, studying deadly species and helping to generate antidotes for some of the world’s deadliest venoms.

In conversation with Professor Jim Al-Khalili, Mark reveals the challenges around generating antivenom for countries that need it, the pros and cons of keeping snakes as pets, and what you need to know if you ever get bitten...

Presented by Jim Al-Khalili
Produced by Lucy Taylor for BBC Studios

Mark O'Shea on close encounters with venomous snakes

It’s been estimated that humans are capable of detecting a trillion different smells. How is this possible when we have just 400 types of olfactory receptors located in the bridge of our nose? Matthew Cobb has spent many years studying maggots hoping to get to bottom of this problem. He spent several years studying the flirting rituals of fruit flies in Sheffield before moving to France to study at the world centre for fly research, not far from Paris. There are, of course, a lot of differences between maggots and humans but our olfactory systems have a lot in common.

Producer: Anna Buckley

Matthew Cobb on how we detect smells

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