It's a topic that's taboo in many cultures, yet it's also something nearly every woman experiences – on average upwards of 400 times throughout her life: menstruation.
Responding to a flood of questions from our CrowdScience listeners, Marnie Chesterton seeks to unpack how periods affect women physically, mentally and societally.
Why did humans evolve to have periods when fewer than two percent of mammals share our experience of menstrual cycles? Is it really a good use of our limited energy reserves? What can the little Egyptian spiny mouse teach us about PMS symptoms? We hear why periods may reduce the number of faulty embryos that implant and how more menstrual cycles may even increase our chances of developing certain types of cancer.
Finally, as the number of periods a woman has over the course of her life has more than quadrupled since the pre-industrial era, Marnie asks: Do we really still need to have them?
Contributors:
Dr Nadia Bellofiore, Hudson Institute of Medical Research at Monash University
Dr Deena Emera, Buck Institute
Lameck Kiula, Jambo for Development
Sally King, Menstrual Matters & King's College London
Dr Diana Mansour, New Croft Centre & Newcastle University
Presented by Marnie Chesterton
Produced by Sam Baker and Melanie Brown for the BBC World Service
Researchers map where the riskiest areas are for viruses to jump from bats into humans. Also, synthetic bacteria with unnatural DNA, and the origin of the humble watermelon.
David Hayman of Massey University in NZ and colleagues have published in the journal Nature Food a study highlighting areas of the world where zoonotic transmission of coronaviruses are most likely to occur between humans and bats of the type most suspected of being the origin of the current SARS CoV2 virus. There are a lot of hotspots combining fragmented forest, livestock farming, human habitation, and populations of horseshoe bats. It is, as he says, just part of the evidence suggesting a natural origin in the areas of northern south-east Asia and southern China.
Jason Chin, Wes Robertson and team at the Laboratory of Molecular Biology have been tinkering with their work on synthetic organisms. By rewriting the dictionary of DNA itself, their new molecular alphabet is able to encode far more elaborate and innovative functions than even nature has ever produced. Publishing this week in the journal Science, their latest bacterium is even capable of being completely immune to viral infection. But as they describe, this could be just the start of what the new technology could deliver in terms of new materials and medicines.
Meanwhile, Susanne Renner has been tracking down some of human beings’ earliest genetic engineering. The selection and breeding of various fruits to produce sweet, sweet watermelon was long suspected to have originated in Africa, the question was where and when? Using a combination of genetic sequencing, ancient Egyptian art, and early modern paintings, she describes to Roland how what we now know as Sudan likely played a part in the story.
(Image: Horseshoe bat Credit: Getty Images)
Presented by Roland Pease
Produced by Alex Mansfield
The latest Nyiragongo eruption was not entirely unexpected, the volcano’s lava lake inside the crater had been building up for years. Local volcanologists say it was only a matter of time before an eruption occurred. The big concern was where the flank of the volcano would be breached as the city of Goma rests under the volcano and there are potential fissures even within the town.
However there are still questions over the effectiveness of seismic monitoring in the area, North Kivu. The Goma observatory has been unable to carry out this work due to a lack of funding. And monitoring is further complicated by the region’s long running civil war, with rebel groups often camped around the volcano.
We hear from Dario Tadesco and Cindy Ebinger. Who have both been monitoring developments.
Cyclone Yass was the second Cyclone to hit India within a week. Are these events becoming more common and are they related to rises in global temperatures? Climatologist Roxy Koll has been monitoring the situation.
Greenland’s pristine glaciers might not be so pristine. Jemma Wadham from Bristol university and her team have found unexpectedly high levels of Mercury in meltwaters - similar to those from industrial pollution. They say research now needs to focus on the impact for wildlife and people in the Arctic region.
And the elusive Sowerby’s beaked Whale doesn’t travel very much despite pockets of the species being found across the Atlantic. Kerri Smith has been researching this species, which is rarely seen alive. Using samples from whales beached or caught accidentally she was able to build up a picture of their distribution.
As millions more of us move to live in densely populated cities, we almost inevitably face living in closer proximity to our neighbours. Neighbour noise can certainly be a source of annoyance – but could it even be damaging to our health?
Increasing evidence suggests that unwanted noise can cause sleep deprivation, distraction and annoyance, as presenter Anand Jagatia finds out. He discovers that noise annoyance has a small but significant impact on our wider health – including our cardiovascular system – but that annoyance is not necessarily down to sound alone. Factors such as perception of the neighbourhood and relationships with our neighbours also play a part.
CrowdScience has examined living with unwanted noises before, and we revisit our trip to the acoustics lab at the University of Salford in Manchester, UK. Here, we meet the researchers and engineers investigating the best ways to make our homes more pleasant for our ears whilst still maintaining the ‘buzz’ of city life.
As millions more of us move to live in densely populated cities, we almost inevitably face living in closer proximity to our neighbours. Neighbour noise can certainly be a source of annoyance – but could it even be damaging to our health?
Increasing evidence suggests that unwanted noise can cause sleep deprivation, distraction and annoyance, as presenter Anand Jagatia finds out. He discovers that noise annoyance has a small but significant impact on our wider health – including our cardiovascular system – but that annoyance is not necessarily down to sound alone. Factors such as perception of the neighbourhood and relationships with our neighbours also play a part.
CrowdScience has examined living with unwanted noises before, and we revisit our trip to the acoustics lab at the University of Salford in Manchester, UK. Here, we meet the researchers and engineers investigating the best ways to make our homes more pleasant for our ears whilst still maintaining the ‘buzz’ of city life.
Contributors:
Contributors:
Professor Charlotte Clark, St George’s University of London
Professor Trevor Cox, University of Salford Manchester
Professor Bill Davies, University of Salford Manchester
Dr Mags Adams, University of Central Lancashire (formerly University of Salford Manchester, at time of recording)
Produced by Jen Whyntie and presented by Anand Jagatia for the BBC World Service.
The latest Nyiragongo eruption was not entirely unexpected, the volcano’s lava lake inside the crater had been building up for years. Local volcanologists say it was only a matter of time before an eruption occurred. The big concern was where the flank of the volcano would be breached as the city of Goma rests under the volcano and there are potential fissures even within the town.
However there are still questions over the effectiveness of seismic monitoring in the area, North Kivu. The Goma observatory has been unable to carry out this work due to a lack of funding. And monitoring is further complicated by the region’s long running civil war, with rebel groups often camped around the volcano.
We hear from Dario Tadesco and Cindy Ebinger. Who have both been monitoring developments.
Cyclone Yass was the second Cyclone to hit India within a week. Are these events becoming more common and are they related to rises in global temperatures? Climatologist Roxy Koll has been monitoring the situation.
Greenland’s pristine glaciers might not be so pristine. Jemma Wadham from Bristol university and her team have found unexpectedly high levels of Mercury in meltwaters - similar to those from industrial pollution. They say research now needs to focus on the impact for wildlife and people in the Arctic region.
And the elusive Sowerby’s beaked Whale doesn’t travel very much despite pockets of the species being found across the Atlantic. Kerri Smith has been researching this species, which is rarely seen alive. Using samples from whales beached or caught accidentally she was able to build up a picture of their distribution.
A brain-computer interface allows a severely paralysed patient not only to move and use a robotic arm, but also to feel the sensations as the mechanical hand clasps objects . We hear from Jennifer Collinger at Pittsburgh University’s Rehab Neural Engineering Labs. And Nathan Copeland, who has been controlling the robotic arm with his thoughts via a series of brain implants.
Ralph Baric of the University of North Carolina tells us about the development of a multi-component vaccine that would be effective not just against the current coronavirus outbreak and its variants, but also future outbreaks from SARS-like coronaviruses that we don’t even know about yet.
Blood clots, thromboses, have been a problem for a small number of people following Covid vaccination Paul Knöbl, and a team of medics in Vienna have worked out the link between vaccination and clot development. They now have a method to treat such clots – so they should not be fatal.
And how did fungi and plants come to live together? Symbiotic relationships between the two are a key component of the evolution of life. Melanie Rich of the University of Toulouse has been looking at the present day genetic markers which allowed plants and fungi to help each other as they first colonised land millions of years ago.
Also...You are a star. Literally.
You are a carbon-based life form and those atoms of carbon in the molecules that make up your cells were formed by a nuclear fusion reaction at the heart of long dead stars. That goes for the oxygen in your lungs too. And the red blood cells that carry that oxygen to your tissues? They contain haemoglobin, and nestled at the heart of each molecule is an element (iron) formed by a supernova - the fiery explosion at the death of a star. Your body is a walking, thinking museum of some of the most violent events in the universe.
This, as CrowdScience host Marnie Chesterton discovers, isn’t as special as it sounds. All of the stuff on the earth - the elements that make clouds and mountains and mobile phones – they all have an origin story. CrowdScience tells that story, starting with the big bang and ending with physicists, creating new elements in the lab. Find out the age of the elements and the distance they have travelled to make their current home on earth.
(Image: Artificial tactile perception allows the brain-computer interface user to transfer objects with a
robotic arm at twice the speed of doing it without the feedback.
Credit: UPMC/Pitt Health Sciences Media Relations)
You are a star. Literally.
You are a carbon-based life form and those atoms of carbon in the molecules that make up your cells were formed by a nuclear fusion reaction at the heart of long dead stars. That goes for the oxygen in your lungs too. And the red blood cells that carry that oxygen to your tissues? They contain haemoglobin, and nestled at the heart of each molecule is an element (iron) formed by a supernova - the fiery explosion at the death of a star. Your body is a walking, thinking museum of some of the most violent events in the universe.
This, as CrowdScience host Marnie Chesterton discovers, isn’t as special as it sounds. All of the stuff on the earth - the elements that make clouds and mountains and mobile phones – they all have an origin story. CrowdScience tells that story, starting with the big bang and ending with physicists, creating new elements in the lab. Find out the age of the elements and the distance they have travelled to make their current home on earth.
Interviewees:
Dr Dorota Grabowska, Professor Andrea Sella, Dr Chris Pearson, Dr Jacklyn Gates
A brain-computer interface allows a severely paralysed patient not only to move and use a robotic arm, but also to feel the sensations as the mechanical hand clasps objects . We hear from Jennifer Collinger at Pittsburgh University’s Rehab Neural Engineering Labs. And Nathan Copeland, who has been controlling the robotic arm with his thoughts via a series of brain implants.
Ralph Baric of the University of North Carolina tells us about the development of a multi-component vaccine that would be effective not just against the current coronavirus outbreak and its variants, but also future outbreaks from SARS-like coronaviruses that we don’t even know about yet.
Blood clots, thromboses, have been a problem for a small number of people following Covid vaccination Paul Knöbl, and a team of medics in Vienna have worked out the link between vaccination and clot development. They now have a method to treat such clots – so they should not be fatal.
And how did fungi and plants come to live together? Symbiotic relationships between the two are a key component of the evolution of life. Melanie Rich of the University of Toulouse has been looking at the present day genetic markers which allowed plants and fungi to help each other as they first colonised land millions of years ago.
(Image: Artificial tactile perception allows the brain-computer interface user to transfer objects with a
robotic arm at twice the speed of doing it without the feedback.
Credit: UPMC/Pitt Health Sciences Media Relations)
We wouldn’t drink dirty water so why do we put up with polluted air? Researchers are calling for a major rethink on our attitude to air quality. Professor Lidia Morawska, from the Queensland University of Technology, says attention to air quality during the Covid pandemic has shown how levels of airborne disease can be reduced.
Sam Wilson from the UK Medical Research Council, University of Glasgow Centre for Virus Research has been investigating genetic mechanisms associated with susceptibility to Covid infection. His team has identified a molecule that detects SARS-COV-2 when it starts to replicate in our cells. However, not all humans have this protective mechanism, which may help explain why some people become very ill with Covid and others have little if any symptoms.
Many Europeans lack this protective molecule, whereas the vast majority of Africans have it. The difference can be seen in cell cultures. However, the lack of diversity in the cells used in experiments worldwide can be a serious problem when looking at genetic differences as Samara Linton reports.
Nuclear material buried beneath the doomed Chernobyl nuclear power plant is becoming more active
Neil Hyatt Professor of Nuclear Materials Chemistry at Sheffield University says it’s a small increase but needs to be monitored.
And There are over 400,000 species of plant on earth, they’re on every continent including Antarctica. But humans only regularly eat about 200 species globally, with the vast majority of our nutrition coming from just three species. Many of the fruits, leaves and tubers that other plants grow are packed full of toxins that are poisonous to us, and would make us very ill if we ate them. But could we take out the poisons and create new, edible crops? That’s what CrowdScience listener Marija wants to know.
Crowdscience dives into this topic, and uncovers the that many crops are poisonous, and why so few plants are eaten globally. Host Anand Jagatia finds that even the modern scientific processes of crop breeding are very slow. But science can now engineer plants at the genetic level by adding, silencing or removing specific genes. This ‘genetic modification’ is hugely controversial but can be highly effective.
Anand finds a man who has spent decades making cotton seeds edible by removing the poisons they naturally produce in their seeds. This GM crop could help fend-off starvation. But sometimes introducing poisons can be as important as removing them, as we find in the genetically modified ‘BT eggplants’ in Bangladesh. The new gene makes the vegetable toxic to a major insect pest, so they are much easier to grow.
But GM crops are not the perfect solution. They have problems of gene escape, can increase the use of environmentally damaging herbicide, and can be open to monopolisation. In some countries, particularly in Europe, GM crops are hugely controversial. Anand finds out whether these concerns stand up to science and looks at the counterpoint in developing countries in Africa, South Asia and elsewhere, where local farmers like Patience Koku in Nigeria have little time for some of the concerns around GM, particularly as they see poor harvests, poverty and starvation as the more pressing problems.
There are over 400,000 species of plant on earth, they’re on every continent including Antarctica. But humans only regularly eat about 200 species globally, with the vast majority of our nutrition coming from just three species. Many of the fruits, leaves and tubers that other plants grow are packed full of toxins that are poisonous to us, and would make us very ill if we ate them. But could we take out the poisons and create new, edible crops? That’s what CrowdScience listener Marija wants to know.
Crowdscience dives into this topic, and uncovers the that many crops are poisonous, and why so few plants are eaten globally. Host Anand Jagatia finds that even the modern scientific processes of crop breeding are very slow. But science can now engineer plants at the genetic level by adding, silencing or removing specific genes. This ‘genetic modification’ is hugely controversial but can be highly effective.
Anand finds a man who has spent decades making cotton seeds edible by removing the poisons they naturally produce in their seeds. This GM crop could help fend-off starvation. But sometimes introducing poisons can be as important as removing them, as we find in the genetically modified ‘BT eggplants’ in Bangladesh. The new gene makes the vegetable toxic to a major insect pest, so they are much easier to grow.
But GM crops are not the perfect solution. They have problems of gene escape, can increase the use of environmentally damaging herbicide, and can be open to monopolisation. In some countries, particularly in Europe, GM crops are hugely controversial. Anand finds out whether these concerns stand up to science and looks at the counterpoint in developing countries in Africa, South Asia and elsewhere, where local farmers like Patience Koku in Nigeria have little time for some of the concerns around GM, particularly as they see poor harvests, poverty and starvation as the more pressing problems.
Contributors:
Professor Sandra Knapp, The Natural History Museum in London
Professor Julie King, Nottingham University
Professor Keerti Rathore, Texas A&M University
Dr Yousuf Akhond, Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute
Professor Matthew Cobb, University of Manchester
Patience Koku, Nigerian Farmer and member of the Global Farmer’s Network
Alliance for Science
Produced by Rory Galloway and presented by Anand Jagatia for the BBC World Service.
Image: Farmer with Fruits. Credit: Arif Hossain, Farming Future Bangladesh.
