Science In Action BBC World Service

The highly pathogenic strain of bird flu, H5N1, has arrived on the continent. Australian bird specialist Megan Dewar, from the Federation University of Australia, has led a mission aboard the research ship the Australis.
Science in Action remembers physicist Peter Higgs 60 years after his Nobel prize winning theory of the Higgs particle.
The unfolding scandal of manipulated data behind claims of incredible room-temperature superconductivity. Science writer Dan Garisto has seen the details in a Rochester University internal investigation.
And the alga – single-celled seaweed – with superpowers. As well as capturing carbon from CO2 in the atmosphere, like other plants, this one can directly capture nitrogen too, essential for life, but which few organisms can do for themselves. We hear from the marine scientist who has revealed this evolutionary trick.
Presenter: Roland Pease
Producer: Jonathan Blackwell
Production Coordinator: Jana Bennett-Holesworth
(Image: KAPPA-FLU team selecting skua carcasses for post-mortem examination. Credit: Ben Wallis)

A powerful earthquake hit Taiwan on Wednesday morning, but thanks to the country’s early warning system and engineering-preparedness, there was little destruction and few deaths. Seismologist Ross Stein, CEO of earthquake consultancy Temblor, Inc., shares his analysis.

The highly pathogenic bird flu H5N1 has been detected in cattle in the US and in a cattle handler in Texas. To learn more about this special animal-to-human transmission, Roland speaks to virologist Richard Webby of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Tennessee and Director of the World Health Organization Collaborating Center for Studies on the Ecology of Influenza in Animals.

French Space Institute Supaero in Toulouse is collaborating with Japan’s space agency JAXA to send and land a rover on Phobos, one of Mars’ tiny moons. Roland travels to the University of Toulouse to learn more about building this wheeled Rover from Supaero’s Naomi Murdoch.
Transitioning to a clean energy future requires mining materials like rare earth minerals, but how will this impact our environment? Jessi Junker of the ecology charity ReWild explains her research and concerns for great apes as mining for these materials expands in Africa.
Presenter: Roland Pease
Producers: Roland Pease, Ella Hubber, Jonathan Blackwell
Researcher: Imaan Moin
Production Coordinator: Jana Bennett-Holesworth
(Photo: Damaged building caused by the earthquake in Hualien on April 4, 2024. Credit: SAM YEH/AFP via Getty Images)

3000 light years from Earth, a white dwarf star called T Coronae Borealis is on the brink of a “once-in-a-lifetime” explosion. Astrophysicist Bradley Schaefer is enthusiastic about the bright star set to appear in the night sky in the coming months.
Professor Irving Weissman has been researching ways to restore youth using mouse models for decades. He has sewn old and young mice together to join their circulatory systems and has found that giving old mice blood from younger mice reverses some signs of ageing. In his group’s paper, the use of an antibody-based therapy has been shown to restore a declining immune system in ageing mice. Not quite the fountain of youth but potentially a key step in halting many age-related diseases. Roland gets the details from Irving and first-author Dr Jason Ross.
And, in the small town of Cabrières in Southern France, producer Ella Hubber goes on the hunt for some 480-million-year-old fossils with part-time fossil prospectors Eric and Sylvie Monceret. Their latest excavation site is a gold mine of rare, soft-bodied fossils from the period during a time when this part of France was underwater. And at the South Pole.
Presenter: Roland Pease
Producer: Ella Hubber
(Photo: Illustration of the northern springtime constellations of Lyra, Hercules, Corona Borealis, and Bootes. Credit: Alan Dyer/Stocktrek Images)

The last great "out of Arica" movement of our ancestors swept out of the northeast of the continent 74,000 years ago. Archaeologist John Kappelman of the University of Texas brings us an update to this complex tale in the form of animal carcasses.
We take a trip to Oxford to meet some of postgraduate researcher Ally Morton-Hayward's archive of preserved brains. Not only is Ally shining a light on these underappreciated brains, she is also using them to unlock a rich treasure-trove of information about our ancestors and how they were preserved.
How do you develop and promote a vaccine against a widespread but neglected parasite? Maria Elena Bottazzi from Baylor College of Medicine is in India promoting their latest development in creating a hookworm vaccine that works against these life-limiting childhood parasites.
And, is the Chandra X-Ray Observatory at risk? In a decision that has shocked astronomers, the functioning telescope is on the chopping block because of NASA budget cuts. We hear from Belinda Wilkes of Bristol University about Chandra’s impressive history and why it should keep going.
Presenter/producer: Roland Pease
Researcher: Katie Tomsett
Production co-ordinator: Jana Bennett-Holesworth
(Image: Sunset in savannah of Africa. Credit: Anton Petrus via Getty Images)

After a twelve-month set of climate records driven by global warming it is time to take stock of how we’re impacting the planet as a species.
Coral biologist Kate Quigley, of the Minderoo Foundation and James Cook University, dives into the 8th mass bleaching event at the Great Barrier Reef. We explore how deadly heat stress continues to threaten this underwater paradise and induce mass sickness in the corals that call it home.

Heading onto land we reunite with Mike Flannigan, Professor of Fire Science at Thompson Rivers University, after a record-breaking Canadian forest fire season in 2023 we ask if conditions are set for a repeat.
And what about the human cost of these climbing temperatures? In the future 800 million outdoor workers in the tropics may be exposed to intolerable heat stress. However, Yuta Masuda, director of science at the Paul G Allen Family Foundation, advises that options for individual action may be limited for workers to protect themselves.
One of the driving forces behind a record year of global warming is the now waning El Niño system. With its counterpart, La Niña, due to pick up in 2024, we ask NOAA oceanographer Mike McPhaden what to expect from this transition and if we are headed for a turbulent hurricane season.

Presenter/producer: Roland Pease
Researcher: Katie Tomsett
Production co-ordinator: Jana Bennett-Holesworth
(Photo: The McDougall Creek wildfire burns in the hills West Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada, on 17 August, 2023. Credit: Darren Hull/ AFP)

Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope think they have seen the glow from the first generation of stars after the Big Bang. Newton Kavli Fellow Hannah Übler discusses.
The Anthropocene is meant to mean the latest geological era in which humanity is shaping the rocks and environment of our planet. But an unexpected vote by a commission has declined the idea of making this an official definition. Roland hears from one of its leading proponents, geologist Jan Zalasiewicz, about what happened and why it matters.
And, new research indicates that bumblebees can show each other how to solve puzzles too complex for them to learn on their own. Professor Lars Chittka put these clever insects to the test and found that they could learn through social interaction. How exactly did the experiment work, and what does this mean for our understanding of social insects? Reporter Hannah Fisher visits the bee lab at Queen Mary University in London.
Plus, the subterranean South American snake, or rather snake-like amphibian, that feeds its hatchlings milk from specially evolved glands. Brazilian biologist Carlos Jared explains more about this species’ nurturing behaviour.
Presenter: Roland Pease
Producer: Roland Pease
Production Coordinator: Jana Bennett-Holesworth
(Photo: A portion of the GOODS-North field of galaxies, highlighting the galaxy GN-z11, which is seen at a time just 430 million years after the Big Bang. Credit: Nasa/ESA/CSA/B. Robertson (UC Santa Cruz), B. Johnson (CfA), S. Tacchella (Cambridge), M. Rieke (University of Arizona), D. Eisenstein (CfA))