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PROGRAMME INFO |
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Leading Edge brings you the latest news from the world of science. Geoff Watts celebrates discoveries as soon as they're being talked about - on the internet, in coffee rooms and bars; often before they're published in journals. And he gets to grips with not just the science, but with the controversies and conversation that surround it.
radioscience@bbc.co.uk |
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LISTEN AGAIN 30 min |
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PRESENTER |
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"If what interests you are new and exciting ideas, it's science you should be turning to. And whether it's the Human Genome Project or the origins of the Universe, Leading Edge is the place to hear about them."
Geoff Watts |
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PROGRAMME DETAILS |
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Bacteria Communicate
Antibiotic resistant bacteria are a big problem, particularly in hospitals where they can be killers. But exactly how the resistance spreads from one bacterium to others in a colony has been a mystery. Now a team of British researchers have discovered that surprisingly bacteria can send messages to their fellows to turn on their resistance genes through the air. Geoff Watts reports.
Ant Destruction
Ants get everywhere, particularly at this time of year. If you're unlucky you'll have found them in your kitchen cupboards, devouring anything sugary. There are chemical preparations that kill them off, but they're likely to do harm to other wildlife. In Leading Edge Geoff Watts reports on research that may lead to treatments that will just target the ants. This has come from biologists who have been watching how a parasitic wasp uses chemicals to trigger a civil war amongst ants. These chemicals could be exploited as an environmentally friendly method for controlling the pests.
QinetiQ 1
Gareth Mitchell reports on a world record-breaking attempt to take a manned balloon to the edge of space and the highest altitude ever recorded, sponsored by QinetiQ. The record attempt, to be known as QinetiQ 1, will witness the pilots, Andy Elson and Colin Prescot, taking a manned balloon in excess of 130,000 feet (25 miles) into the stratosphere. At peak altitude the pilots will be able to see the curvature of the earth and be floating in a virtually atmosphere-free environment. The QinetiQ 1 helium balloon that will lift them to the record will be the biggest manned balloon in history several times over and be some 400 times the size of a typical hot air balloon. At its launch, the top of the QinetiQ 1 balloon will be seven times higher than Nelson's Column and as high as the Empire State Building.
Gamma Ray Bursters
Scientists at University College London, will be takeing a state-of-the-art space telescope they have built on a special United States Air Force flight from RAF Mildenhall to NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland. Called the UVOT, this will be one of three telescopes on a special NASA orbiting space observatory which is planned for launch on a Delta II rocket next year. The observatory, called "Swift", has been specially designed to find gamma-ray bursts. These are the most explosive events in the Universe but as yet, very little is known about when and why they occur. The most distant burst has been seen in a galaxy about 12 billion light-years away this explosion went off when the Universe was very young. Scientists believe that gamma-ray bursts come from the explosions of massive stars, called hypernovae, leaving behind a black hole. Or they may occur when two exotic, very dense stars, called neutron stars, collide. One thing we do know is that if a gamma-ray burst went off in our Galaxy, it would cause mass extinction on the Earth in a matter of seconds, without warning. Scientists will use this information to find out how, where and when these cataclysmic events will occur - unlocking secrets of the history and the structure of the Universe - and telling us whether we should worry! Geoff Watts talks to Liz Puchnarewicz from the Mullard Space Science Laboratory at University College, London to find out more. |
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