As someone who dislikes crowds, listener Graham is curious about them. Crowds gather in all sorts of places, from train stations and football matches, to religious events and protest marches. But is there a science behind how they move and behave? To find out, Anand Jagatia speaks to some actual crowd scientists.
He learns about the psychology of social identity, which influences everything from how close we stand to others to how we react in emergencies. He visits the Athens marathon, and hears about the algorithm that predicts how 50,000 runners will move through a city on race day. And he explores research into the science of riots, which explains why some peaceful crowds turn violent.
Presented and produced by Anand Jagatia
Contributors:
Dr Anne Templeton, University of Edinburgh
Marcel Altenburg, Manchester Metropolitan University
Prof John Drury, University of Sussex
Archive: BBC News
Image: Crowd from above. Creidt: Getty Images
Nasa's JWST space telescope has unpicked the chemical contents and state of the atmosphere of planet WASP-39b 700 light years away. Astronomer Hannah Wakeford explains.
Meteorologist Laura Wilcox warns that atmospheric haze over China and South Asia is masking some of the effects of global warming.
Loss of memory and other mental changes during pregnancy have been traced to structural changes in the brain, possibly due to hormone effects. Neuroscientist Elseline Hoekszema speculates.
Improving lab coats - every scientist has a lab coat, but how many have one actually fits? Founder of Genius Lab Gear Derek Miller explains the problem and how he's trying to fix it.
Producer: Roland Pease
Assistant producer: Sophie Ormiston
(Photo: View of Earth from space. Credit: Melissa Weiss/Center for Astrophysics/Harvard and Smithsonian)
Since the Covid-19 pandemic began, scientists studying the virus have become targets of online harassment, and more recently, death threats. Roland speaks to Dr Angela Rasmussen, virologist at the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization at the University of Saskatchewan, about her experiences.
Spyros Lytras, PhD candidate at the University of Glasgow, talks Roland through the evolutionary history of the virus that causes Covid-19 and how there isn’t just one ancestor, but several.
Anti-Asian sentiment has seen a big increase since the pandemic. Dr Qian He, Postdoctoral Research Associate at Princeton University, looked into how US-China relations have influenced how Americans view Chinese today.
And we hear from scientists on board the RRS Discovery, which is currently located near St Helena and Ascension Island, surveying the health of the surrounding ocean. On board documentary filmmaker Lawrence Eagling talks to Shona Murray, pelagic ecologist from the University of Western Australia, and Gareth Flint, mechanical engineer at British Antarctic Survey, about their work and findings.
Why don’t we fall out of bed when we’re asleep? That’s the question that’s been keeping CrowdScience listener Isaac in Ghana awake, and presenter Alex Lathbridge is determined to settle down with some experts and find an answer.
Once our sleep experts are bedded in, we’ll also be wondering why some people laugh in their sleep, why others snore and how some people can remember their dreams.
And Alex takes a trip to the zoo to meet some animals that have very different sleep patterns to humans. It’s his dream assignment.
Why don’t we fall out of bed when we’re asleep? That’s the question that’s been keeping CrowdScience listener Isaac in Ghana awake, so presenter Alex Lathbridge snuggles up with some experts to find the answer.
We get a lot of emails about sleep, so we’ve gathered together some of our favourite questions and put them to academics working on the science of snoozing.
We’re wondering why some people laugh in their sleep, why some people remember their dreams and not others, and why we need to sleep at all - can’t we just rest?
Our slumber scholars tell us about how our bodies continue to gather information while we’re asleep, how the tired brain is more likely to remember negative experiences, how we mimic other people in our sleep, and how sleep makes you more attractive to other people.
And Alex takes a trip to the zzzzoo to meet some animals that have very different sleep patterns to humans. It’s his dream assignment.
Contributors:
Vanessa Hill, University of Central Queensland
Professor Russell Foster, University of Oxford
Mark Kenward, Drusillas Zoo Park
Presented by Alex Lathbridge
Produced by Ben Motley for the BBC World Service
[Image: Man Falling into bed. Credit: Getty Images]
Since the Covid-19 pandemic began, scientists studying the virus have become targets of online harassment, and more recently, death threats. Roland speaks to Dr Angela Rasmussen, virologist at the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization at the University of Saskatchewan, about her experiences.
Spyros Lytras, PhD candidate at the University of Glasgow, talks Roland through the evolutionary history of the virus that causes Covid-19 and how there isn’t just one ancestor, but several.
Anti-Asian sentiment has seen a big increase since the pandemic. Dr Qian He, Postdoctoral Research Associate at Princeton University, looked into how US-China relations have influenced how Americans view Chinese today.
And we hear from scientists on board the RRS Discovery, which is currently located near St Helena and Ascension Island, surveying the health of the surrounding ocean. On board, documentary film-maker Lawrence Eagling, talks to Shona Murray, pelagic ecologist from the University of Western Australia, and Gareth Flint, mechanical engineer at British Antarctic Survey, about their work and findings.
(Photo: A scientist stands behind testing kits and checks his phone. Credit: Getty Images)
Producer: Roland Pease
Assistant producer: Sophie Ormiston
Researchers have identified which neurons, when electrically stimulated, can restore the ability to walk in paralysed patients. Professor Jocelyne Bloch, Associate Professor at the Université de Lausanne, tells Roland how the technology works.
Astronomers have discovered the closest black hole to Earth. Researchers led by Kareem El-Badry, astrophysicist at Harvard University, identified the celestial body when they spotted a Sun-like star orbiting a dark, dense object.
The origins of eels have been mystifying scientists for centuries. Though the Sargasso Sea has been their presumed breeding place for 100 years, there has been no direct evidence of their migration – until now. Ros Wright, Senior Fisheries Technical Specialist at the Environment Agency, shares how researchers finally pinned down these slippery creatures.
This week, a new report from the UN Environment Programme reveals that carbon dioxide emissions from building operations have reached an all-time high. Insaf Ben Othmane, architect and co-author of the report, talks through the risks and opportunities this poses for Africa and why there is still hope for the future.
After learning how long it will take the Earth's ice sheets to melt in the previous episode, we continue our journey in Greenland. As world leaders gather in Egypt for the annual UN climate conference, listener Johan isn't too optimistic about governments' ability to curb greenhouse gas emissions and get a handle on climate change. So from his coastal perch in Denmark, he's asked where we should live when the poles have melted away and coastlines creep inland.
Along with the help of BBC correspondents around the world, Marnie Chesterton scours the globe for the best option for listener Johan's new home. From high-up, cold desert regions to manmade islands, Marnie's on a mission to find a climate-proof destination. But as we hear from climate scientists, we might not be the only ones on the move, and waters aren't going to rise evenly around the world. Can Marnie find a place to go, away from the expanding seas?
(Image: Patient with complete spinal cord injury (left) and incomplete spinal cord injury (right) walking in Lausanne. Credit: Jimmy Ravier/NeuroRestore)
After learning how long it will take the Earth's ice sheets to melt in the previous episode, we continue our journey in Greenland. As world leaders gather in Egypt for the annual UN climate conference, listener Johan isn't too optimistic about governments' ability to curb greenhouse gas emissions and get a handle on climate change. So from his coastal perch in Denmark, he has asked where we should live when the poles have melted away and coastlines creep inland.
Along with the help of BBC correspondents around the world, Marnie Chesterton scours the
globe for the best option for listener Johan's new home.
BBC Mundo reporter Rafael Rojas takes us to a manmade island off Colombia's Caribbean coast to see how we might be able to live with the seas. Meanwhile, reporter Furkan Khan takes us into the high, cold desert region of Ladakh to see if heading for the hills might be the answer.
As Marnie searches for a climate-proof destination, she speaks to conservation biogeographer Matt Fitzpatrick, from the Appalachian Laboratory at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science. He's made a map that shows what towns and cities will feel like in 60 years and where you should visit in order to get a preview of your home's future climate. But Matt also tells us that we might not be the only ones on the move.
And as climate scientist Ruth Mottram from the Danish Meteorological Institute tells us, waters are not going to rise evenly around the world. So can Marnie find a place to go, away from the expanding seas?
Additional contributors:
Alexander Atencio, environmental sustainability teacher, Santa Cruz del Islote, Colombia
Sebastian Martinez, local leader, Santa Cruz del Islote, Colombia
Professor Mohammad Din, Ladakh Environment and Health Organisation
Ellen and Carl Fiederickson, teacher and sheep farmers, Qassiarsuk, Greenland
Conflicting reports on how a prominent Pakistani journalist died in Kenya. Kenyan police say he was shot. Islamabad says he was tortured as well. Who was he? And why was he in Nairobi?
Also, the Somali government has shut down hundreds of social media accounts propagating the ideas of the militant group Al Shabaab.
Plus, we'll hear how people in Cairo are dealing with toxic levels of air pollution.
These stories and more in this podcast with Audrey Brown.
