We’re on board the RSS Sir David Attenborough for the vessel’s first big science season in the Antarctic, since it launched in 2020. It’s crewed by scientists involved in Project Biopole, a 5-year mission attempting to better understand carbon cycle at the poles. Nadine Johnston, a microbiologist with the British Antarctic Survey, joins Inside Science to talk about her work on copepods; zooplankton that build up huge fat reserves over the spring and summer months, then hibernate at 3000m during winter, taking carbon with them which is then locked-up in the deep ocean for up to 600yrs! Her research is a world first in the Southern Ocean and could help improve global carbon modelling of the earth system.
Staying in the South Pole, neuroscientist John-Antoine Libourel, talks about his latest research into the surprising sleeping habits of chinstrap penguins.
And after weeks of intense earthquake activity, the volcano on the Reykjanes peninsula of south-west Iceland has erupted. Dr Evgenia Ilyinskaya, our go-to volcanologist, provides an update. Plus, a nod to the festive season, as composer and AI artist, LJ Rich, explains why Christmas music makes us feel all fuzzy.
Presenter: Victoria Gill Producers: Hannah Robins, Harrison Lewis & Louise Orchard Editor: Richard Collings Production Co-ordinator: Jana Bennett-Holesworth
BBC Inside Science is produced in collaboration with the Open University.
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
Time Travel in Science and Cinema
Ethiopian genome, Coral nutrients, The hunt for gravitational waves, Seven Brief Lessons on Physics
Write on Kew festival at Kew Gardens, Preserving global biodiversity
Listeners' Science Questions
Pluto images, Space elevator, Insect migration, Imagination app
Homo Naledi, New spacesuit, Quantum biology, A possible cure for motion sickness
El Nino, Sphagnum moss and peatlands, Inside Cern, Measuring air pollution with iPhones
20/08/2015
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