Month: December 2012

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More or Less: Behind the Stats - WS MoreOrLess: What is “rare”?

This week: What is ?rare?? When we say something is rare what do we mean? Lightning strikes which typically kill three people a year in the UK are often described as rare but how do we square that with a condition like motor neurone disease which is also described as rare yet kills 1500 people a year in the UK. Also we speak to Nassim Taleb about his book Anti-fragile.

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Start the Week - Science Special

On Start the Week Andrew Marr talks to Peter Wothers about modern day alchemy, as we enter a new era of chemistry. In the past some scientists dismissed the vast majority of the human genome as 'junk DNA', Ewan Birney argues for renaming it 'enigmatic DNA'. And curiosity gets the better of Sanjeev Gupta as he explores the terrain on Mars. But science doesn't have all the answers as Helen Bynum charts the history of tuberculosis, from the medieval period to the present day, and looks at how this killer disease continues to spread and evolve. Producer: Katy Hickman.