Discovery

Explorations in the world of science.

World Service,1460 episodes

Episodes

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Killing Insects: The Rights and Wrongs
Killing Insects for Conservation
Killing insects in the name of research upsets some people. How do scientists justify it?
11 Jun 2018,26 mins
Killing Insects: The Rights and Wrongs
Do Insects Feel Pain?
Do insects experience pain and suffering?
18 Jun 2018,26 mins
What’s the Tiniest Dinosaur?
And how do bats differentiate their own echolocation signals?
04 Jun 2018,26 mins
Can Anything Travel Faster Than Light?
Plus, how can we measure the age of the Universe?
28 May 2018,26 mins
Why Do We Dream?
And are machines better than humans when it comes to recognising faces?
21 May 2018,26 mins
Can We Use Chemistry to Bake the Perfect Cake?
And what makes something sharp?
14 May 2018,26 mins
Why Do Some Songs Get Stuck in Your Head?
And why do I get so many static shocks?
07 May 2018,26 mins
Crossing Divides
The Cooperative Species
Why human cooperation fails online
23 Apr 2018,26 mins
Crossing Divides
Behaving Better Online
Gaia Vince meets the scientists studying our built in human behaviour
30 Apr 2018,26 mins
Bringing Schrodinger's Cat to Life
Roland Pease meets the quantum scientists hoping to bring Schrodinger's cat to life
16 Apr 2018,26 mins
Science Stories: Series 5
Barbara McLintock
Philip Ball tells the story of US geneticist and 1983 Nobel prize winner Barbara McLintock
09 Apr 2018,26 mins
Science Stories: Series 5
D'Arcy Thompson
A man who put maths into biology and saw physics in shells, seeds and bees 100 years ago
02 Apr 2018,26 mins
The Far Future
What fragments of our civilisation will persist 10,000 years in the future?
26 Mar 2018,26 mins
Killing Insects for Conservation
Killing insects in the name of research upsets some people. How do scientists justify it?
19 Mar 2018,26 mins
Why We Cut Men
Across the world, 1 in 3 men are circumcised. Mary-Ann Ochota investigates why we cut men
19 Mar 2018,26 mins
The Power of Sloth
Lucy Cooke discovers the joy of sloth and sloths and the benefits of being really slow.
19 Feb 2018,26 mins
The Anatomy of Pain
Seeing Pain
Why do some people feel more pain than others and what happens in the brain during surgery
22 Jan 2018,26 mins
The Anatomy of Pain
Knowing Pain
Phantom limb pain, babies’ pain, people without pain, help understand the nature of pain.
29 Jan 2018,26 mins
The Anatomy of Pain
Controlling Pain
How do brains control pain? Irene Tracey asks can we distance ourselves from agony
05 Feb 2018,26 mins
The Anatomy of Pain
Pain of Torture
Does knowing that someone is inflicting pain on you deliberately make the pain worse?
12 Feb 2018,26 mins
Science Stories: Series 4
Alcuin of York
Philip Ball dives into the Dark Ages to reveal the author of the river crossing riddle
18 Dec 2017,26 mins
Science Stories: Series 4
Maria Merian
How a 13-year old girl mapped metamorphosis in the 1600s. Naomi Alderman presents
25 Dec 2017,26 mins
Science Stories: Series 4
Lise Meitner
How physicist Lise Meitner unlocked the science of the atom bomb that cost Hitler dearly
08 Jan 2018,26 mins
Science Stories: Series 4
Humphry Davy
The story of how Humphry Davy discovered laughing gas in 1799.
15 Jan 2018,26 mins
The Day the Earth Moved
How scientists learned the earth’s crust is made up of shifting plates.
01 Jan 2018,26 mins
Cheating the Atmosphere
Dodgy emissions data could fatally undermine the Paris Climate Agreement
11 Dec 2017,26 mins
Better Brains
New hope for incurable neurodegenerative conditions such as dementia
04 Dec 2017,26 mins
What would happen if you fell into a black hole?
Plus, could we make a sonic weapon?
27 Nov 2017,26 mins
What will happen when the Earth’s poles swap?
And why do planets spin?
20 Nov 2017,26 mins
Why can’t we remember being a baby?
Plus, could a party balloon reach space?
13 Nov 2017,26 mins