Vagrant birds are those that appear in locations where they are not usually found. They might have been blown off course by a storm or have been affected by changing weather patterns due to climate change. Although a treat for birders, these visitors can also have a big impact on their new environments as Victoria Gill finds out when she heads to Burton Mere Wetlands on the Dee Estuary with Dr Alexander Lees, reader in biodiversity at Manchester Metropolitan University.
As former Prime Minister Boris Johnson gives his testimony, we hear the latest from the UK Covid-19 Public Inquiry with BBC Health Reporter Jim Reed.
A new study reveals that, contrary to a commonly-held view, the brain does not have the ability to rewire itself to compensate for the loss of, for example sight, an amputation or stroke. This is despite what most scientists believe and teach. Moreover, the assumption that it has this ability has led to all manner of erroneous treatments for amputees, stroke victims and other conditions, the study suggests.
We’re joined by the study’s authors, Professor John Krakauer from Johns Hopkins University and Professor Tamar Making of the University of Cambridge. We’ll also hear from one of Tamar’s key case studies, Kirsty Mason, an amputee from the age of 18 who advanced the scientists’ experiments exponentially.
Presenter: Victoria Gill Producers: Hannah Robins and Louise Orchard Editor: Richard Collings Production Co-ordinator: Jana Bennett-Holesworth
BBC Inside Science is produced in collaboration with the Open University.
Sex, gender and sport - the Caster Semenya case and the latest Denisovan discovery
Thought-to-speech machine, City Nature Challenge, Science of Storytelling
Notre-Dame fire, Reviving pig brains, ExoMars, Evolution of faces
Visualising a black hole, Homo luzonensis, Two ways to overcome antimicrobial resistance
Cretaceous catastrophe fossilised, LIGO and Virgo, Corals, Forensic shoeprint database
UK pollinating insect numbers, Tracking whales using barnacles, Sleep signals
Where next World Wide Web? Space rocks and worms
Rules and ethics of genome editing, Gender, sex and sport, Hog roasts at Stonehenge
A cure for HIV? Sleepy flies, Secrets of the Fukushima disaster, Science fact checking
Falling carbon and rising methane; Unsung heroes at the Crick
Mars - rovers v humans? Forests and carbon, Ethiopian bush crow
Insect decline, Gut microbiome, Geomagnetic switching
Sea Level Rise, Equine Flu, Generator Bricks, Iberian Genes
Sprinting Neanderthals, Geodynamo, Spreading Sneezes and Dying Hares
Ultima Thule, Dry January, Periodic Table
Gene-edited twins, Placenta organoids in a dish, When the last leaves drop
Mars InSight mission, Detecting dark matter, Redefining the kilogram, Bovine TB
Bovine TB and badger culling, Shrimp hoover CSI, Shark-skin and Turing
Oldest cave picture; the Anthropocene under London; a new scientist for the £50 note
Repairing potholes, Ozone hole, Internet of hives, Drugs from fingerprints
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