CrowdScience - The Edge of Space

What do scientists think is outside our universe? Asks Rebecca Standridge from San Francisco in the US.

It’s a question which goes right to the limits of human understanding.

We look for the answer using balloons, bubbles and the world’s oldest radio telescope.

If you have a question about science that you'd like us to investigate email crowdscience@bbc.co.uk.

Photo: Lovell telescope Jodrell Bank

World Book Club - Crime and Punishment

Russian writer Dostoyevsky’s haunting classic thriller, Crime and Punishment, is celebrating its 150th birthday this year.

Consumed by the idea of his own special destiny, Rashkolnikov is drawn to commit a terrible crime. In the aftermath, he is dogged by madness, guilt and a calculating detective, and a feverish cat-and-mouse game unfolds.

Speaking on behalf of the novel are acclaimed Russian writer Boris Akunin and Russian scholar Dr Sarah Young who will be discussing this timeless Russian classic with the audience in the room at Pushkin House and around the world.

The three extracts of the book were taken from Oliver Ready’s translation by Penguin Books.

A special edition of World Book Club this month at London’s elegant Pushkin House, the UK capital’s Russian cultural hub.

This month, as part of the BBC’s Love to Read Campaign, presenter Harriett Gilbert is picking her favourite novel to discuss.

(Photo credit: Alexander Aksakov, Getty Images)

CrowdScience - Electricity from Lightning

Is it possible to get power from lightning? This was the first CrowdScience question posed by listener John Emochu in Kampala, Uganda.

Presenter Marnie Chesterton goes hunting for the answer at a lightning lab in Cardiff, Wales. What is a lightning lab? And how was she able to make a tiny – but very loud – lightning bolt? Marnie also discovers humanity's early history with lightning, how aeroplanes are protected from lightning strikes, and where the greatest number of thunderstorms occur in the world.

With contributions from John Emochu, Rhys Phillips, Chris Stone, Rachel Albrecht, Shaaron Jimenez and Manu Haddad.

Picture: Photograph of lightning from the US Environmental Protection Agency. Credit: Eric Vance, EPA

50 Things That Made the Modern Economy - Diesel Engine

Rudolf Diesel died in mysterious circumstances before he was able to capitalise on his extraordinary invention: the eponymous engine that powers much of the world today. Before Diesel invented his engine in 1892, as Tim Harford explains, the industrial landscape was very different. Urban transport depended on horses and steam supplied power for trains and factories. Incredibly, Diesel’s first attempt at a working engine was more than twice as efficient as other engines which ran on petrol and gas, and he continued to improve it. Indeed, it wasn’t long before it became the backbone of the industrial revolution; used in trains, power stations, factories and container ships. Producer: Ben Crighton Editors: Richard Knight and Richard Vadon (Image: Stamp depicting Rudolf Diesel, Credit: Boris15/Shutterstock)

World Book Club - Anne Enright – The Gathering

This month World Book Club talks to the acclaimed Irish writer Anne Enright about her poignant Booker Prize-winning novel The Gathering.

In it Veronica, one of the nine surviving Hegarty siblings, is bringing her brother Liam home to Dublin to bury. He walked to his death in the sea in Brighton, his brain muddled by drink, his pockets filled with stones.

As the Hegarty clan gathers to mourn at Liam’s funeral Veronica retraces the troubled history and the murky family secrets that have festered over the years and brought tragedy in their wake. A novel about love, death and the darkness of thwarted desire The Gathering has won admirers the world over.

World Book Club - DBC Pierre – Vernon God Little

Harriett Gilbert talks to the hugely acclaimed writer DBC Pierre about his best-selling first novel Vernon God Little. An absurdly humorous look at the misadventures of a Texas teen named Vernon Little whose best friend has just killed 16 of their classmates and himself. In the wake of the tragedy, the townspeople seek both answers and vengeance; because Vernon was the killer's closest friend, he becomes the focus of their fury.

Hailed by the critics and lauded by readers for its riotous and scathing portrayal of America in an age of trial by media, materialism, and violence, Vernon God Little was an international sensation when it was first published in 2003 and awarded the prestigious Man Booker Prize.

(Photo: DBC Pierre outside BBC Old Broadcasting House)