The pandemic showed Africa at the back of the global queue when it came to vaccines. That should never happen again if plans being debated in Cape Town this week go ahead. Roland talks to Seanette Wilson of South Africa's Biovac.
Also in the programme: life finds a way on plastic floating in the ocean; Greenland rock dust as a global fertiliser; and designing proteins from scratch.
Image Credit: Robert Bonet/NurPhoto via Getty Images
Presenter: Roland Pease
Producer: Roland Pease
Assistant Producer: Sophie Ormiston
Intense fighting has continued in Sudan, casting doubt over whether the rival military factions will commit to a 24-hour the humanitarian truce. We hear from the vice-president of the Doctors’ Union on the targeting of hospitals, and the inability to treat the injured.
Plus, the leader of Tunisia's opposition Ennahda Party has been detained, and the authorities have banned meetings at all of its offices.
And the ruling Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement (CPDM) celebrates sweeping the board in the recent senatorial elections, but what will that mean for democracy in the country?
Presenter: Bola Mosuro
Producer: Patricia Whitehorne
We focus on Sudan where fighting has rocked the capital and other cities since Saturday, in bloody clashes which have left nearly 100 dead.
The forces of General Fatah Al Burhan, commander in chief of the army, and his rival, General Mohamed Hamndan Dagalo, head of the Rapid Support Forces are talking tough. Will either heed ceasefire calls coming from the UN and African and international bodies?
We hear from activists on the ground who say they only have food for one more day, and foreign students forced out of their hostels by the fighting.
Those stories in this podcast presented by Bola Mosuro.
What are the actual chances of finding alien life? The idea of meeting an extra-terrestrial has ignited imaginations for hundreds of years, and it has also inspired real science: the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence - or Seti - is an organisation that brings together researchers across the world in pursuit of distant life forms. This same dream is on the mind of listener Andrew in Yorkshire in the UK, who has been looking into the sheer size of the universe, and wants to know: how many stars are there in existence, how many planets, and how many planets that could harbour life?
Presenter Marnie Chesterton sets off on a space odyssey to answer these questions. She starts at Jodrell Bank Observatory in Cheshire, where University of Manchester astrophysicist Eamonn Kerins tells her the number of stars in the universe, and explains the Drake Equation - the mathematical formula that underpins SETI’s work. It is a series of seven numbers that combine to give you the probability of making contact with an alien civilisation. The next step after stars is the number of planets; Michelle Kunimoto of MIT, who works on Nasa’s TESS mission, explains the transit technique for finding distant worlds. Supposedly anyone can learn to use this technique, so Michelle puts Marnie to a test of her planet-hunting prowess.
Distant planets are a huge leap forward - but not all of them will be hospitable to life. Eamonn breaks down how scientists define a habitable planet, as well as how to determine habitability using telescope observations. Marnie speaks to Mary Angelie Alagao from the National Astronomical Research Institute of Thailand about a cutting-edge piece of optical kit designed to block out the light from stars so you can take direct images of the planets next to them. Finally, it is time to put everything together and get some actual numbers for listener Andrew - as well ask how long it could take to find proof of alien life.
Presenter: Marnie Chesterton
Producer: Phil Sansom
Production Coordinator: Jonathan Harris
(Photo credit: Mark Garlick/Science Photo Library/Getty Images)
H5N1, a highly pathogenic avian flu is racing across the world, and has infected multiple species, including wild and farmed birds, and mammals from cats to sea lions. What can be done to control it? Roland Pease talks to global experts about the dangers to animal and human health, and about the measures to bring the outbreak under control.
Producer: Roland Pease
Assistant producer: Sophie Ormiston
(Photo: A government worker examines chicks for signs of bird flu infection at a poultry farm in Darul Imarah in Indonesia's Aceh province. Credit: Chaideer Mahyuddin)
Fears over the fate of 400 people stranded off the coast of Malta after they fled from Libya.
Also, thousands of Ethiopians take part in huge protests in Gonder, Betchena and Gojam in Amhara to denounce plans by the Federal government to disband the Amhara special forces.
And the strange case of convicted South African rapist and muderer Thabo Bester who's been extradited from Tanzania.
These stories and more in this podcast presented by Bola Mosuro.
Compared to the entirety of human existence, our history of flying in aeroplanes is very short indeed. So what does this fast form of travel do to bodies that have evolved for land-based living? That's what listener Sofia wants to know after working as a flight attendant for over a decade.
What effect does working at 35,000 feet have on one's health? How disruptive to your circadian rhythms is hopping across ten time zones in less than 24 hours? What's happening in our stomachs if a crisp packet blows up to the point of popping as the cabin pressure changes? And why do we feel so darn dehydrated when we get off a plane?
Host Caroline Steel not only talks to the experts about everything from swollen ankles to what we should eat and drink on planes, she also records her own journey from London to Australia. She does just about everything wrong along the way, but the experts sort her out with some top tips for her next long-haul flight on how to avoid blood clots and even, how to avoid jet lag all together!
While in Australia, Caroline also visits a sleep lab where researchers can simulate jet lag to learn how to improve flight safety and the wellbeing of flight attendants and pilots.
Join Caroline on her journey as CrowdScience takes to the skies to find out what frequent flyers need to know when it comes cosmic ionising radiation and what we can all do to make that next flight a little more pleasant.
Produced by Sam Baker for the BBC World Service.
Featuring:
Tony Schiemer, Senior Aviation Medical Officer, Royal Australian Air Force
Eileen McNeely, Executive Director, SHINE at Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health
Tracey Sletten, Senior Lecturer, Turner Inst for Brain & Mental Health, Monash University
Chasing tornados in the American mid-West – scientists are trying to learn the maximum from the tornado outbreaks currently in America. Professor Karen Kosiba calls us from a radar truck studying the storms, and Professor John Allen explains the energy powering them.
From the weather of today to the skies of 800 years ago... Dr Sébastien Guillet reveals how lunar observations by medieval monks are helping untangle the connection between historic eruptions and climate.
Finally, we go back even further in time to the Bronze Age with Professor Elisa Guerra-Doce – to find out what drugs our ancestors were into.
Image credit: Getty Images / Michael B. Thomas
Producer: Roland Pease
Assistant Producer: Sophie Ormiston
Presenter Harriett Gilbert and readers around the world talk to acclaimed American author Paul Theroux about his bestselling travel book Deep South.
After fifty years crossing the globe, seeking adventure and stories to tell about places far from home, Theroux travels deep into the heart of his native country and discovers a land as profoundly foreign as anything he has previously experienced abroad. He finds in the deep south a place of contradiction, full of unforgettable characters, landscapes, music, and sense of community, but also some of the nation’s worst schools, housing, and unemployment rates.
On four road trips across four seasons, wending along rural highways, Theroux visits small-town churches and gun shows, meets mayors and social workers, writers and reverends. The spectre of racism and the history slavery is never far away, but more often than not Theroux is met with the warmest of welcomes and a willingness to engage in deep and wide-ranging conversations.
(Picture: Paul Theroux. Photo credit: Steve McCurry.)
