After the decision by the UK government last week to change the spacing between dosings of vaccine from the recommended 3 weeks to 12 weeks, immunologists around the world have been discussing with some urgency the wisdom of such a move. The FDA and the WHO are deeply sceptica, and the manufacturers have distanced themselves to some extent by cautioning not to deviate from the regime tested in last year's phase III trials. The thinking behind the move is to get more people injected with a single dose in a shorter time, and that the longer wait for the second shot is worth the risk, if it means more people receive some level of protection in the short term.
Clinical Epidemiologist Dr Deepthi Gudasani and Imunoligist Prof Danny Altmann of Imperial College describe to Marnie evidence, experience and hunch are combining in the face of the covid crisis, and quite what we know and don't know abou this nationwide experiment.
Increasingly, ecologists wanting to monitor remote areas are relying on such things as solar powered audio recorders to measure biodiversity in the sounds of the wild. But how to scrutinize years and years worth of 24 hour, multi site recordings? Sarab Sethi and colleagues have not only been leaving solar-powered Raspberry Pi recorders out in the jungles of Borneo, they've been using machine learning techniques to look out for species and biodiversity changes. You can listen to some of the Borneo work at the SAFE acoustic website (link on BBC page).
Presented by Marnie Chesterton
Produced by Alex Mansfield
Made in collaboration with the Open University
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