In this episode:
00:49 What caused the Universe to become fully transparent?Around 13 billion years ago, the Universe was filled with a dense ‘fog’ of neutral hydrogen that blocked certain wavelengths of light. This fog was lifted when the hydrogen was hit by radiation in a process known as reionisation, but the source of this radiation has been debated. Now, researchers have used the JWST to peer deep into the Universe’s past and found that charged particles pouring out from dwarf galaxies appear to be the the main driver for reionization. This finding could help researchers understand how some of the structures we now see in the Universe were formed.
Research article: Atek et al.
Ancient inscriptions could be the earliest example of the language that became Basque, and how researchers etched a groove… onto soap film.
Research Highlight: Ancient bronze hand’s inscription points to origins of Basque language
Research Highlight: Laser pulses engrave an unlikely surface: soap films
To combat high cholesterol, many people take statins, but because these drugs have to be taken every day researchers have been searching for alternatives. Controlling cholesterol by editing the epigenome has shown promise in lab-grown cells, but its efficacy in animals was unclear. Now, researchers have shown the approach can work in mice, and have used it to silence a gene linked to high cholesterol for a year. The mice show markedly lowered cholesterol, a result the team hope could pave the way for epigenetic therapeutics for humans.
Research Article: Cappelluti et al.
Why don’t humans and other apes have a tail? It was assumed that a change must have happened in our genomes around 25 million years ago that resulted in the loss of this flexible appendage. Now researchers believe they have pinned down a good candidate for what caused this: an insertion into a particular gene known as TBXT. The team showed the key role this gene plays by engineering mice genomes to contain a similar change, leading to animals that were tail-less. This finding could help paint a picture of the important genetic mutations that led to the evolution of humans and other apes.
Nature News: How humans lost their tails — and why the discovery took 2.5 years to publish
Research Article: Xia et al.
News and Views: A mobile DNA sequence could explain tail loss in humans and apes
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31 October 2019: An AI masters the video game StarCraft II, and measuring arthropod abundance
Podcast Extra: Detecting gravitational waves
24 October 2019: Quantum supremacy and ancient mammals
17 October 2019: Mapping childhood mortality, and evolving ‘de novo’ genes
10 October 2019: Estimating earthquake risk, and difficulties for deep-learning
Podcast Extra: Q&A with Nobel Prize winner John B Goodenough
Podcast Extra: Q&A with Nobel Prize winner Didier Queloz
03 October 2019: Leapfrogging speciation, and migrating mosquitoes
Nature PastCast, September 1963: Plate tectonics – the unifying theory of Earth sciences
26 September 2019: Mysteries of the ancient mantle, and the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy
Podcast Extra: Absurd scientific advice
Backchat: Covering Climate Now
19 September 2019: XKCD, and Extinction Rebellion
12 September 2019: Modelling early embryos, and male-dominated conferences
05 September 2019: Persistent antibiotic resistance, and modelling hot cities
Nature PastCast, August 1975: Antibodies’ ascendency to blockbuster drug status
29 August 2019: Carbon-based computing, and depleting ancient-human genomes
22 August 2019: Combating online hate speech, and identifying early fossils
15 August 2019: Atomic espionage in the Second World War, and exploring the early Universe
08 August 2019: A mindset for success, and mercury in fish
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