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.
UK's longest-running cohort study, The Brain prize, Hairy genetics
UK science and the EU, Sex of organs, Artificial colon, Gorillas call when eating
Gravitational Waves, UK Spaceport, Big Brains and Extinction Risk, Conservation in Papua New Guinea
Gravitational Waves Special
UK pollinators' food, Brain implant, Holograms, Lunar 9
Zika, Penguins, Erratum, Fossil fish
Ancient Britons' DNA, Concorde's 40th Anniversary, Giant dinosaur, New planet?
The 100,000 Genome Project, Stem cell doping, Nuclear waste, Dinosaur sex
El Nino Special
31/12/2015
New Horizons Pluto update; friendly predatory bacteria; Christmas in the lab; human ancestry
Tim Peake's mission to the ISS, Spaceman Chris Hadfield, AGU round-up, Air pollution, Human Evolution at the NHM
Flooding, Scientific modelling, Magnetoreception, Escalators
Science funding, Carbon capture storage, Graphene
Ancient farmers' genomes, Alice at Cern, Astrophysics questions
Antarctic ice sheet instability, Groundwater, Accents, Fluorescent coral
Sex-change tree, Pluto's cryovolcanoes, Sellafield's plutonium, Ant super-organisms
Grid cells and time, Boole, How your brain shapes your life
Oxygen on comet 67P; Bees and antimicrobial drugs; Reproducibility of science experiments; Reintroduction of beavers
Animal experiments, Bees and diesel, Sense Ocean, Readability of IPCC report
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