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BBC world service Listen now wherever you

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get your BBC podcasts Welcome

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to the podcast of

0:41

BBC Inside Science, first

0:43

broadcast on Thursday 3rd

0:45

of April 2025. Hello, I'm

0:48

Tom Whipple and coming

0:50

up this week! Why

0:52

Physics is disrupting the

0:54

world of baseball? How the geoscience

0:57

equivalent of a sonic boom might

0:59

help explain why the recent earthquake

1:01

in Myanmar was so devastating. And

1:04

science journalist Caroline Steele is here.

1:06

Like the tightly focused beam of

1:09

an extremely expensive particle accelerator, she

1:11

has been probing the week's other

1:13

science stories. What have you uncovered

1:16

for us, Caroline? So we've got

1:18

a new blood test for Alzheimer's.

1:20

We've got a potentially massive supercollider

1:22

that CERN may or may not

1:24

be building. and a new way

1:26

to identify which bees are most

1:28

hygienic. But first, currently at Hinkley

1:31

Point we are spending billions

1:33

building a nuclear power station.

1:35

It is a cathedral to

1:37

modern science. It requires mastery

1:40

of the atom itself, but

1:42

it's pricey and complicated.

1:44

Beside it on the 7-estry, every

1:46

day, several hinkly points worth of

1:48

energy goes up and down, up

1:51

and down, and isn't complicated. It

1:53

is clean, predictable, and so long

1:55

as the moon keeps in orbit,

1:57

it keeps going. Harnessing it...

2:00

doesn't require atomic physics, it requires

2:02

a wall and a turbine. It

2:04

is of course tidal energy. Would

2:06

it be a good idea to

2:08

think about using it too? Yes,

2:10

according to the 1981 Bondi Commission

2:13

that estimated it could provide 7%

2:15

of UK electricity. Another commission in

2:17

1994 agreed. There was a third

2:19

in 2007, a fourth in 2010,

2:21

and a fifth in 2017. Now,

2:23

another commission has concluded that, yes,

2:25

tidal energy is a good thing.

2:27

The chair of the Seven Estuary

2:30

Commission is Dr Andrew Garrett. Hello

2:32

Andrew. Hello. Andrew, look, this stuff

2:34

isn't a new tech. There's been

2:36

tidal mills since the Middle Ages.

2:38

Let's start at the basics. What

2:40

is tidal energy? The tidal energy

2:42

is the energy contained in the

2:44

water that's moved backwards and forwards.

2:46

by the moon and the sun.

2:49

So it's very predictable, which sets

2:51

it apart from other renewables. There's

2:53

an awful lot of it, particularly

2:55

around the UK coast and in

2:57

particular, of course, in the Seven

2:59

Estuary, where we have the second

3:01

largest title range in the whole

3:03

world. And so, well, let's talk

3:06

about the seven, because looking through

3:08

all these other commissions, they've all

3:10

looked at the seven. There's been

3:12

sort of 27 different schemes, I

3:14

think. So, why this one place?

3:16

Why is this one particular place

3:18

where we're looking? Well, it's a

3:20

sort of freak of geography, I

3:23

suppose. So the water is moving

3:25

back with some forwards, and it

3:27

actually hits a resonance in the

3:29

estuary. And I think the tidal

3:31

range is what, 14, 15 meters.

3:33

It's one of the biggest in

3:35

the world? Avonmouth is 14.5 meters,

3:37

so pretty much in Bristol, and

3:39

that's the second biggest. The biggest

3:42

is in Canada. And you recently

3:44

won the Queen Elizabeth Prize for

3:46

Engineering from the Royal Academy of

3:48

Engineering. You won it for your

3:50

work on wind turbines. Now, this

3:52

stuff is as clean as wind,

3:54

and as you alluded to, it

3:56

doesn't stop. The tides never stop.

3:59

So why aren't we doing this?

4:01

Everyone thinks it's great. I think

4:03

that the two reasons really why

4:05

nothing has happened to date, because

4:07

all the findings of all these

4:09

different commissions, the findings have been

4:11

the same, that it is feasible

4:13

and it should be done. It's

4:16

not been done for several reasons.

4:18

One is it's a huge project.

4:20

So if there were a barrage

4:22

across the seven, that would be

4:24

of the order of 30, 35

4:26

billion pounds. A small lagoon is

4:28

a couple of billion. a big

4:30

lagoon is maybe 10 billion. So

4:32

it's a lot of money. And

4:35

the other thing is that it

4:37

does impact the very special environmental

4:39

conditions in the seven. So those

4:41

two things together have been the

4:43

main obstacles, plus the fact that

4:45

previous commissions are all recommended about

4:47

which we have not. So our

4:49

findings are the same, but our

4:52

recommendations are different. A barrage would

4:54

also badly disrupt. possibly close the

4:56

ports of Bristol and South Wales.

4:58

So economics, environment and money. And

5:00

a barrage, just to be close,

5:02

a barrage you completely block off

5:04

a section of it, the tide

5:06

comes in, it goes over it

5:08

somehow, and then you slowly release

5:11

it through a turbine. Yes, a

5:13

barrage comes right across the estuary,

5:15

a lagoon goes from one point

5:17

on the coast to the same

5:19

coast, at another point. So it

5:21

doesn't block the estuary, otherwise in

5:23

principle it's the same. There's a

5:25

wall with turbines in it. The

5:28

basic principle is you trap the

5:30

water and then you let it

5:32

out through a turbine. It's actually

5:34

very conventional, pretty old-fashioned, beginning of

5:36

20th century technology. So we know

5:38

very well how to build a

5:40

marine war and the sort of

5:42

turbines that are being used are

5:45

standard turbines that are used in

5:47

big hydroplants all over the world.

5:49

So the risk associated with this

5:51

sort of development is really not

5:53

engine. of technology. It's the size

5:55

and also the length of the

5:57

construction period. The special thing that

5:59

sets it apart also is its

6:01

asset life. So the design life...

6:04

is at least 120 years. A

6:06

typical power station is 30 years,

6:08

Hinkley is 60 years, typical wind

6:10

farm 30 years. This is four

6:12

times that. And it's easy to

6:14

say 120 years, but if Queen

6:16

Victoria on her deathbed had ordered

6:18

a tidal lagoon, we would just

6:21

now. be thinking well shall we

6:23

dismantle it or not so is

6:25

that sort of scale it's not

6:27

just us who hasn't built these

6:29

things I think I think there

6:31

are two very small working schemes

6:33

in the world do you get

6:35

a sense why why the world

6:38

has been not to denigrate your

6:40

career being faffing around with wind

6:42

they have not been faffing around

6:44

with wind they've been doing a

6:46

fantastic job 38% of our electricity

6:48

last year was produced by the

6:50

wind that's not bad Well, you're

6:52

right, there are two projects. One,

6:54

La Rance in Brittany, which is

6:57

a 240 megawatt project, now produces

6:59

France's cheapest electricity. The other one,

7:01

250 as opposed to 240 megawatts,

7:03

in South Korea, about 15 years

7:05

old. You have to have a

7:07

couple of characteristics. One is an

7:09

appropriate place and the other is

7:11

a big title range. The reason

7:14

why our recommendations are different to

7:16

previous recommendations is because of the

7:18

context. We have a government goal

7:20

to double our electricity supply by

7:22

2050. It's easy to write down,

7:24

but God's making it difficult too.

7:26

actually do. At the top of

7:28

everybody's agenda now is climate change

7:30

and then energy security added to

7:33

it and predictability. So those two

7:35

sort of political criteria are different

7:37

to the past and I think

7:39

that's actually why our conclusions or

7:41

recommendations are different plus the fact

7:43

that we've taken a different approach.

7:45

We've put the environment of the

7:47

seven front and centre in our

7:50

commission. We have seven people on

7:52

the commission, two of whom are

7:54

pretty heavyweight environmentalists. So we've had

7:56

a lot of constructive tension in

7:58

the commission's discussion. And we've come

8:00

up with the approach that this

8:02

needs to be co-design. It isn't

8:04

just something that engineer produces and

8:07

planks in front of an environmentalist

8:09

and says, okay, now object. It's

8:11

something you do together. So you design

8:13

the thing together. And we followed the

8:15

same route with the commission. We had

8:17

proponents, engineers, finances. environmentalists all sitting in

8:20

the commission trying to work together to

8:22

produce something on which we could agree

8:24

and what we've agreed upon is a

8:27

lagoon it's not just a little demonstration

8:29

it's it's a significant generator of low-carbon

8:31

energy but I think the fact we've

8:33

recommended a lagoon rather than a barrage

8:36

means that something will happen now whereas

8:38

previously and I did an interview outside

8:40

the House of Parliament when we released

8:42

it you know on that famous place

8:45

where you everybody stands in the rain

8:47

and I was asked a question Why

8:49

have you done this? And I said,

8:51

well, if we had recommended a barrage,

8:53

you would be interviewing somebody in 10

8:55

years' time in the same place. They

8:58

would be presenting you with a report

9:00

saying you should build a barrage and

9:02

nothing would have happened. So all those

9:04

inquiries you talked about all had the

9:06

same findings and absolutely nothing has happened.

9:08

What we've come up with with a

9:11

different approach, different conclusions, different system of

9:13

debate is something which I believe

9:15

can actually be achieved. briefly, so

9:17

that the lagoon that you have

9:19

recommended, how much do you think

9:22

it would cost and how much

9:24

would it generate? Well, a small

9:26

lagoon would be a couple of

9:28

billion, a large lagoon would maybe

9:30

10 billion, a 10 billion one

9:32

would generate about 2% of the

9:35

UK's electricity. Thank you very much,

9:37

Dr Andrew Garrard. And the burden

9:39

wildlife conservation charity RSPB Cumbry has

9:41

also said. We welcome the Commission's

9:43

conclusions that a barrage crossing

9:46

the estuary would be environmentally

9:48

unacceptable. However, tidal lagoons also

9:50

present significant risks to nature

9:52

that have not been overcome

9:54

so far and must not

9:56

be ignored. Now, Earth scientists around

9:58

the world are tri- to understand why the

10:01

7.7 magnitude earthquake which struck Myanmar

10:03

last weekend was just so devastating.

10:05

In Myanmar itself, more than 3,000

10:07

people are confirmed dead by the

10:09

military government at the time of

10:11

broadcast. In Bangkok, more than 1,000

10:13

kilometers away, buildings collapsed. One theory

10:15

that Earth scientists are discussing is

10:17

that a seismic event called a

10:19

supershear took place, a phenomenon that's

10:21

been dubbed the earthquake equivalent of

10:23

a supersonic jet. Joining me now

10:25

to try to understand what that

10:27

exactly means is Dr. Ian Watkinson,

10:29

structural geologist at Royal Holloway University.

10:31

Welcome Ian. Good afternoon, how are

10:33

you? Good afternoon. What is a

10:35

super-shear rupture? First of all, if

10:37

you imagine the fault during an

10:39

earthquake is rupturing a little bit

10:41

like a piece of paper that

10:43

tears along its length, so it

10:45

starts at a nucleation point and

10:47

then it propagates out from that

10:49

point. And the speed of that

10:51

rupture is controlled by various faxes

10:53

along the length of the length

10:55

of the length of the fault.

10:57

particularly how straight it is. What

10:59

happens with a fault like this

11:02

segine fault in Myanmar is that

11:04

it's very straight and there seem

11:06

to be relatively few discontinuities along

11:08

it and that means that the

11:10

rupture can accelerate and propagate very

11:12

fast along its length. Let's talk

11:14

about this supersonic jet analogy so

11:16

conchord goes faster than its own

11:18

shockwave as I understand it. Is

11:20

it something like that happening here?

11:22

That's right, yeah, so Concord travels

11:24

faster than it's, then the sound

11:26

of speed can travel in air.

11:28

And so there's a kind of

11:30

a buildup of waves behind Concord,

11:32

which are then superimposed, they start

11:34

to multiply, and you get a

11:36

stronger sound wave, which is effectively

11:38

a boom when that passes, a

11:40

little bit after the plane flies

11:42

by. In the Skynforce example, what

11:44

happens is that the ruptureure passes

11:46

through, those waves are again superimposing

11:48

and amplifyingifying. behind the propagating rupture,

11:50

and as they then reach the

11:52

surface, they enhance the ground shaking

11:54

effects that would already be happening.

11:56

Is this an explanation for why

11:58

it was quite so high on

12:00

the magnitude scale or is it

12:02

a different, does it feel different,

12:04

does it behave differently as an

12:06

earthquake? Sure, yeah, it's a good

12:08

question. It does behave differently, so

12:10

you can have a large earthquake

12:12

like this that isn't super-shear, and

12:14

that would of course produce a

12:16

lot of damage. That damage would

12:19

be related to, for example, the

12:21

depth of the earthquake. Obviously, whether

12:23

people were living nearby, what the

12:25

substrate was, whether the buildings that

12:27

were nearby were built on rocks

12:29

or loose materials. But when the

12:31

supersture involved it can multiply for

12:33

any given sized earthquake the ground

12:35

shaking effects. So does this mean,

12:37

could this have caused more damage

12:39

yet in Myanmar? I think so.

12:41

So these sorts of earthquakes are

12:43

relatively unusual. The process of supersture

12:45

has been sort of identified, I

12:47

guess, since the 1990s. Maybe a

12:49

little bit before that. and there

12:51

are not many very well confirmed

12:53

supersture earthquakes. This might be one,

12:55

but it's yet to be confirmed

12:57

really. I think some of the

12:59

big factors here will be one

13:01

of the supersture possibility to the

13:03

construction style in Myanmar and whether

13:05

that led to weaknesses in the

13:07

building stock and perhaps vulnerabilities there.

13:09

The great length of the rupture,

13:11

so the rupture, even for its

13:13

size magnitude 7.7, it seems to

13:15

have propagated longer and further than

13:17

we might expect. perhaps up to

13:19

300 kilometers in length, which would

13:21

obviously have exposed more people to

13:23

that shaking. You mentioned that we're

13:25

not sure if it is this

13:27

sort of earthquake. Is the political

13:29

situation in the country making it

13:31

harder to actually understand what's been

13:34

going on? It is. So there

13:36

seems on the ground, of course,

13:38

in Miyamahu attempting to work on

13:40

this and try and understand some

13:42

of the detail. A lot of

13:44

work can be done remotely using

13:46

satellite imagery, for example looking at

13:48

the difference between satellite images taken

13:50

before... and after the earthquake. There

13:52

are seismic arrays around the world

13:54

that can be used. Obviously the

13:56

waves that are produced at the

13:58

focus depth below the epicenter radiates

14:00

out from that point and they

14:02

can... received by seismometers around the

14:04

world. And the information that those

14:06

seismometers produce can be used to

14:08

try and understand whether this was

14:10

really a super sheer rupture. Thank

14:12

you very much. That is Ian

14:14

Watkinson, Structural Geologist at Royal Holloway

14:16

University. I'm

14:21

Zing Singh and I'm Simon Jack and together

14:23

we host Good Bad billionaire the podcast

14:25

exploring the lies of some of the

14:27

world's richest people in the new season We're

14:29

setting our sights on some big names. Yep

14:31

LeBron James and Martha Stewart to name just

14:34

a few and as always Simon and I

14:36

are trying to decide whether we think they're

14:38

good bad or just another billionaire that's

14:40

good bad billionaire from the BBC

14:43

world service Listen now wherever you get

14:45

your BBC podcasts You're

14:51

listening to Inside Science on BBC Radio

14:54

4. I am Tom Whipple. A quick

14:56

reminder that in two weeks' time on

14:58

the programme we're giving you the opportunity

15:00

to get your science questions answered by

15:03

actual scientists. We've had some excellent ones

15:05

already, but it's not too late to

15:07

send yours in for our panel. You

15:10

can email them to BBC Inside Science

15:12

or on Word at BBC.co. UK. depending

15:14

on what team they are fans of.

15:17

The New York Yankees matched a major

15:19

league baseball record in their opening three

15:21

games of the season by scoring 15

15:23

home runs, which for cricketers is like

15:26

a six but bigger. Why the Crossness?

15:28

Well, because they did so using a

15:30

new kind of bat called a torpedo

15:33

bat and it is engineered to hit

15:35

harder. For those who support the Yankees,

15:37

this is marvellous. For those who don't,

15:39

the accusation is that this is just

15:42

not cricket, or whatever the baseball version

15:44

is. Here to tell us more is

15:46

Steve Haek, Professor of Sports Engineering at

15:49

Sheffield Hallam University. Hi Steve, first of

15:51

all, tell us... the bat if I

15:53

saw one of these alongside a normal

15:56

bat what would look different to me?

15:58

To be honest to the uninitiated you

16:00

might not notice the difference immediately but

16:02

A baseball bat in American parlance is

16:05

just a piece of lumber. It's basically

16:07

a single piece of wood. You stick

16:09

it in a lathe and you start

16:12

machining it down. So at the end

16:14

it's just a cylinder and then it

16:16

tapers down to a handle until it

16:18

ends up with a kind of a

16:21

bit of a knob on the end

16:23

so that your hand doesn't fall off

16:25

when you swing it. So this new

16:28

torpedo bat, it's slightly different than at

16:30

the end rather than be a cylinder,

16:32

is slightly tapered towards the end, a

16:35

bit like a ten-pin and ten-pin bowling.

16:37

So it seems to have a fatter

16:39

middle and a slightly narrower end to

16:41

it. And why? What's it doing? Well,

16:44

the science behind it is about a

16:46

thing called the sweet spot. You have

16:48

these on cricket bats, on tennis rackets,

16:51

on baseball bats, anything that you're going

16:53

to hit a ball with, you'll have

16:55

this sweet spot. And really, basically, it's

16:57

the center of percussion. It's the place

17:00

on the bats that when you hit

17:02

it, you get very little sense at

17:04

the hand of any large forces. Now

17:07

this is actually at the center of

17:09

mass, so if you can hit the

17:11

ball at the center of mass, that's

17:14

where it feels very good. And that's

17:16

where you get the largest transfer of

17:18

momentum from the bat to the ball.

17:20

And what they've done is they manipulated

17:23

the shape by bringing the mass down

17:25

towards the center of the bat where

17:27

you seem to hit the ball. So

17:30

you've got more mass behind the ball

17:32

and the ball probably goes a little

17:34

bit farther. And presumably, I mean, they

17:36

have rules about bats, I guess, and

17:39

I'm guessing this doesn't break them. Yeah,

17:41

yeah, the rule, the rule is very

17:43

minimal, actually. I've got it in front

17:46

of me here, so it shall be

17:48

smooth, around stick, not more than 2.6

17:50

inches in diameter, and no more than

17:53

42 inches in length, and it should

17:55

be 1. solid piece of wood. So

17:57

it's pretty minimal, so as long as

17:59

it's not too long and it's not

18:02

too wide, then that's it. You can

18:04

do whatever shape you like. And I

18:06

think what's surprising is that they've not

18:09

tried this before. I was going to

18:11

say, I mean, there's billions of

18:13

dollars in baseball. We've all heard of

18:15

the money ball thing where they're hiring

18:17

statisticians to get very marginal gains. It

18:19

is astonishing. If this genuinely is making

18:21

a difference that nobody thought, hang on,

18:23

what about the bit that hits the

18:25

bit that hits the ball. Yeah, I mean

18:28

the idea's been around a while. And

18:30

I think one of the things you

18:32

have is, you know, you've got these

18:34

professional baseball players, they get paid millions

18:36

of dollars per year, and they have

18:38

their favorite bats, they have their kind

18:41

of swing style, and the bats are

18:43

probably customized for them, particular way to

18:45

particular balance point, etc. So if they're

18:47

going to change anything, they've really got

18:49

to make sure they get it right.

18:51

And, you know, and professional sports people

18:54

are quite superstitious. So any change can

18:56

be quite psychologically damaging if they're not

18:58

careful. I'm talking more generally, I mean

19:00

this is far from the first time

19:02

that a new technology has turned up

19:04

in an old sport, we've had those

19:06

bouncy running shoes, the night vapor flies,

19:08

we had those shark skin soups briefly

19:10

for swimmers. Going back further, I think,

19:12

you know, just the introduction of the

19:14

starting blocks in the hundred meters made

19:16

a different. So when is technology good

19:19

and when is it bad? And why aren't

19:21

we all just doing it naked like

19:23

the Greeks and just sort of sticking

19:25

with a proper scientific baseline? Yes, that's

19:28

true. That's true. So most ruling

19:30

bodies like technology, but just not

19:32

too much of it. And so

19:34

you mentioned the shark skin suits

19:36

back in... you know, the 2000s.

19:39

These suits were created where we

19:41

went from the 1980s where it

19:43

really was minimal sports wear, minimal

19:45

swimsuit where these kind of tiny

19:47

speedos, which the smallest things ever.

19:50

And I think the manufacturers realize

19:52

that actually you could get them,

19:54

if you made them bigger, that

19:56

you could reduce drag, you

19:58

can improve performance. performance would

20:01

increase rapidly in the 2000s up to

20:03

about 2009 at the Rome World Championships

20:05

when 23 records were broken and that

20:07

was just far too many because then

20:10

people going whoa hang on is it

20:12

the swimmer or is it the suit

20:14

and what we want it to be

20:17

is we want it to be the

20:19

swimmer now the ruling bodies then banned

20:21

those suits. So we have some old

20:23

records that are still yet to be

20:26

beaten. And what they should perhaps have

20:28

done, and just said, well, okay, we've

20:30

made the decision to allow the suits,

20:32

we'll just let them continue to be

20:35

used. And what would have happened, as

20:37

has happened in many, sports, you end

20:39

up with this equilibrium. The increase in

20:41

performance would have dropped off until it

20:44

would have just leveled out, because everyone

20:46

would have had the same suits, because

20:48

everyone would have had the same suits.

20:50

Thank you very much Steve Hake Professor

20:53

of Sports Engineering. Thank you. So Caroline

20:55

Steele has joined me in the studio

20:57

to run through the science news stories

21:00

of the week. Caroline how are you

21:02

at baseball? My hand-eye coordination is terrible,

21:04

but I want to give one of

21:06

these torpedo bats a go and see

21:09

if I'm any better. Yeah, maybe, who

21:11

knows? First up, let's talk about another

21:13

controversy, not a sporting one, but a

21:15

science one, about particle physicists getting across

21:18

this time, which is probably more traditional

21:20

ground for us. So earlier this week,

21:22

CERN released a feasibility study for a

21:24

13 billion pound future circular collider that

21:27

would open in 2070. So the large

21:29

hadron collider which is there now is

21:31

set to shut down in 2040. So

21:34

this could be the future plan. Four

21:36

committees are going to review these plans

21:38

and if it's given the green light,

21:40

construction will start in five years in

21:43

2030. So pretty soon. Give a sentence

21:45

of the scale. So large hadron collider.

21:47

really big hole in the ground with

21:49

lots of magnets. 27 kilometers round. 27

21:52

kilometers. So yeah, pretty big, but this

21:54

would be 91 kilometers in. So that's

21:56

about three times bigger than the large

21:58

Hadron Collider. It would still be smashing

22:01

protons together, which is what the large

22:03

Hadron Collider does now, but they would

22:05

have eight times the energy. So hopefully

22:07

they would be making new potentially bigger

22:10

particles. But the tech to reach these

22:12

sort of super high energies isn't actually

22:14

there yet. So. what would happen is

22:17

the tunnel would be built first, then

22:19

a simpler machine would be put in

22:21

at around 2045 which would collide electrons

22:23

and their antimatter counterparts positrons together which

22:26

would hopefully give us more information about

22:28

the Higgs boson which is a particle

22:30

that CERN discovered in 2012 using the

22:32

large hadron collider. Yeah, I spoke to

22:35

some particle physicists about this this week

22:37

and one of them said, look, we

22:39

found the Higgs boson in 2012, that

22:41

was brilliant. What they wanted afterwards was

22:44

to find something they couldn't explain, essentially,

22:46

they, they, we've got the standard model

22:48

of particle physics and it's brilliant, but

22:50

we know it cannot be true. And

22:53

they wanted to find new stuff and

22:55

they've been running and running and basically

22:57

they found nothing unexpected. So the plan

23:00

is to just... keep going but more

23:02

so. Yeah the 2012 discovery was huge

23:04

but there hasn't been something sort of

23:06

equally notable and exciting since then and

23:09

you know some physicists are sort of

23:11

saying there isn't enough evidence that these

23:13

higher energy collisions would produce enough new,

23:15

interesting, more massive particles. So yeah, it

23:18

is a lot of money for something

23:20

that may or may not help us

23:22

better understand the fundamentals of our universe.

23:24

And what is it they want to

23:27

find? What would be the sort of

23:29

dream where in 2017 they say, ha,

23:31

we told you so, does it a

23:34

great-grandson of whoever set it up? I

23:36

think there's sort of two areas it's

23:38

trying to focus on. still the Higgs

23:40

boson because that is actually lighter than

23:43

it was expected to be. It sort

23:45

of thought maybe there's a heavier counterpart

23:47

which could be discovered by this larger

23:49

collider. Also we know dark matter exists

23:52

because when you look out at the

23:54

universe there's sort of evidence of... invisible

23:56

matter pulling things towards it but we

23:58

haven't seen it on sort of a

24:01

small particle scale so if we could

24:03

see evidence of dark matter that would

24:05

be pretty cool as well cool well

24:07

we'll watch it and I hope they

24:10

get their lovely tunnel what do you

24:12

have next for us so There's a

24:14

really interesting paper that's been published in

24:17

Nature Medicine where researchers have developed a

24:19

blood test for Alzheimer's and it doesn't

24:21

just diagnose Alzheimer's it can tell you

24:23

how far the disease has progressed in

24:26

terms of symptoms and that's not something

24:28

we have at the moment. There are

24:30

diagnostic blood tests but they don't really

24:32

tell you about progression. that's quite exciting.

24:35

It could be used to basically match

24:37

patients up to the best treatment because

24:39

different treatments are better for different stages

24:41

of the disease and also excitingly it

24:44

could track the performance of new drugs

24:46

in trials because it's sort of very

24:48

accurate at telling exactly how the disease

24:51

is progressing. It feels like we're in

24:53

the middle of a revolution in blood

24:55

tests because before you say it's very

24:57

very expensive things and now we've it

25:00

looks like we're getting all manner of...

25:02

cheap and easier ways to trick what's

25:04

going on. Whenever I write about this,

25:06

I get these perfectly reasonable questions in

25:09

the comments where people say, well, I

25:11

don't want to know. What's the point

25:13

of this? What's the justification for knowing?

25:15

I guess it can help you make

25:18

more informed decisions about your treatment. So

25:20

say you're someone who's experiencing symptoms of

25:22

Alzheimer's, there are various medications and treatments

25:24

that you could take or use. and

25:27

knowing exactly which treatment is likely to

25:29

give you the best outcome I think

25:31

is really useful information and this blood

25:34

test could help you make that decision

25:36

partly by telling you how progressed your

25:38

diseases and also by matching you to

25:40

the best medication or treatment. Yeah, I

25:43

think when I speak to scientists about

25:45

this they also make the point that

25:47

until now there's been a bit of

25:49

a vicious circle in that there's no

25:52

way of properly detecting it early in

25:54

the population, which means it's really hard

25:56

to develop the drugs to treat it

25:58

early. without the drugs there's no justification

26:01

for getting the thing to detect it

26:03

early so they have to break this

26:05

somehow. Yeah it's really difficult because the

26:07

changes in your brain can happen decades

26:09

before you even get any symptoms and

26:11

with one of the sort of more

26:13

readily available blood tests at the moment

26:16

they're looking for signs of this plaque

26:18

in the brain of a protein called

26:20

amyloid beta and the really difficult thing

26:22

about that is you can have that

26:24

plaque in your brain and never go

26:26

on to develop Alzheimer's so it's just

26:28

it's very difficult. We've got time for

26:30

one more from your pick of

26:32

the science journals this week and

26:34

this is about tricking bees to see

26:36

how hygienic they are, which is what

26:38

my mum used to do for me.

26:41

Tell me for it. beekeepers in

26:43

the United States last year lost

26:45

more than 55% of managed colonies

26:47

and it's largely down to diseases

26:49

and a new paper published in

26:51

the Frontiers of B Science which

26:53

I think is a very cute

26:56

sounding journal has had a look

26:58

at a new method which involves

27:00

a chemical spray that can help

27:02

select the best colonies to breed

27:04

to create more disease resistant. colonies

27:06

in the future. So inside say

27:08

a honey bee hive you have

27:11

these little hexagonal holes where the queen

27:13

bee will go in and lay an

27:15

egg in each hole and then as

27:17

the eggs hatch nurse bees go and feed

27:19

the developing pupae and eventually they sort

27:21

of cap over these holes to protect

27:23

the developing bees until they mature into

27:25

adults. Now if these developing bees get

27:28

sick or die, they give off a

27:30

pheromone, they give off a chemical that

27:32

these nurse bees pick up on and

27:34

then they pull the developing bee out

27:37

to protect the rest of the colony

27:39

from the disease. And this is good,

27:41

we want B euthanasia, that's good. B

27:43

is killing each other when they're sick.

27:46

Exactly, that's something that bee keeps are

27:48

looking for. That is great bee behavior.

27:50

One way of trying to sort of

27:52

work out which colonies do that best,

27:54

which beekeepers and scientists have done in

27:56

the past, is to pour liquid nitrogen

27:58

on part of the high, some of

28:00

these developing bees and then see

28:02

how good the nurse bees are

28:05

at going in and removing the

28:07

dead bees. But this paper has

28:09

had a look at a new

28:11

method that basically sprays part of

28:13

the hive with a synthetic chemical

28:16

that mimics the ferretive that mimics

28:18

the pheromone that's given off by

28:20

a diseased or dying. And then

28:22

you have a look and see

28:24

how the nurse bees respond. perform

28:27

better when it comes to diseases.

28:29

So you can basically use this

28:31

spray to work out which colonies

28:33

are better at coping with disease

28:35

and then selectively breed them in

28:38

the future. So you can make

28:40

superheogenic bees who ruthlessly deal with

28:42

their weak and sick. Thank you

28:44

very much Caroline and thank you

28:46

to all my guest this week,

28:49

Dr Andrew Garrett, Dr Ian Watkinson

28:51

and Professor Steve Haek. I'm Tom

28:53

Whipple and that's all for this

28:55

week. Our email address is BBC

28:57

Inside Science or One Word at

29:00

bbc.co.uk and do remember to keep

29:02

those science questions coming in. Next

29:04

week Marney Chesterton will be at

29:06

the helm and I'm going to

29:08

be working on my baseball swing.

29:11

You've been listening to BBC Inside

29:13

Science with me, Tom Whipple, Science

29:15

Editor at the Times. The producers

29:17

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Jonathan Blackwell. Technical production was by

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