Science In Action BBC World Service

With mice being the latest species to carry the disease, pandemic expert Rick Bright calls for stronger counter measures. “It’s like PTSD from February 2020” he says. The authorities in the USA are responding too slow to the spread of H5N1 bird flu through its dairy farms – even mice are carrying the virus now, and not enough is known of how it is evolving and whether humans are threatened. He talks Roland through the complex political and public health issues.
Child sacrifices in the Mayan empire a thousand years ago have been confirmed with DNA evidence from bones recovered in the 1960s from an underground pit. Some victims were twins, possibly indicating a brutal ritualistic re-enactment of an ancient myth involving divine twins. Geneticist Rodrigo Barquera describes the analysis.
Mature orchids perform a unique form of offspring-care, feeding tiny seedlings with nutrients via networks of thread-like fungal hyphae in the soil, according to experiments conducted at Sheffield University. Mycologist Katie Field has been delving into this underground sustenance network.
Geoscientists at the edge of the Arctic ocean are looking for ancient clues to the stability of the Atlantic circulation that brings critical warmth to Europe and the northern hemisphere. Could past changes help unravel the influence of global warming? Roland talks to Renata Lucchi in the control room of Research Vessel JOIDES Resolution.
Presenter: Roland Pease
Producer: Alex Mansfield
Production Co-ordinator: Jana Bennett-Holesworth
(Image: Mouse sitting on grain. Credit: SAEED KHAN/Getty Images)

The ‘origami’ superpowers of a single-celled pond hunter, it hunts by launching a neck-like proboscis that can extend more than 30 times its body length. Manu Prakash of Stanford University reveals the amazing mathematical mechanisms of the protist, Lacrymaria olor.
It’s a microbe-eat-microbe world out there, with bacteria waging constant war against each other. It’s by dipping into their ever-evolving chemical arsenal that we keep our pharmacies supplied with the antibiotics we use to fight infectious bacteria - and computer biologist Luis Coelho of Queensland University of Technology has turned to genetics and AI to speed up the search for novel compounds.
Research from Elana Hobkirk at Durham University has found that the process of domestication and selective breeding has limited the ability of domestic dogs to use facial expressions to convey emotions as effectively as their wolf ancestors. Whilst we may be easily manipulated by the ‘puppy eyes’ of our pet dogs, they are no longer able to display the same range of emotions that wolves can, who need strong visual communication to maintain their packs.
Who discovered the first black hole? Science writer Marcus Chown tells us about the discovery of Cygnus X-1 discovered by Paul Murdin and Louise Webster in 1971.
And 100 years ago this week, Indian physicist Satyendra Nath Bose posted his revolutionary paper to Albert Einstein, which went on to influence quantum mechanics, low-temperature physics, atomic physics, and the physics of the particles that shape the Universe. Physicist Ajoy Ghatak and presenter Roland Pease discuss the story of the man who had the word ‘boson’ coined to memorialise him in the late 1920s.
Presenter: Roland Pease
Producer: Jonathan Blackwell
Production Coordinator: Jana Bennett-Holesworth

AI is already being used in every branch of science, and will become more and more a feature of future breakthroughs. But with its power to find subtle patterns in massive data sets comes a concern about how we will know when to trust its outcomes, and how to rely on its predictions. Science in Action talks to Alison Noble who just completed a Royal Society report on trust in scientific AI.
With highly pathogenic bird flu infecting around 70 dairy herds across 10 states in the USA, including a herd of alpacas, we get an update from health journalist Helen Branswell of StatNews on the latest science and efforts to get on top of the infection.
Also, from the pioneers of the mRNA vaccines that helped turn around the COVID pandemic, an experimental version that could be rolled out rapidly if the bird flu does cross worryingly into people. University of Pennsylvania’s Scott Hensley described how it works, and how promising it looks.
Science in Action also hears how Europe’s new EarthCARE satellite, equipped to peer deep inside clouds, will tackle one of the biggest unknowns in the science of global warming.
Presenter: Roland Pease
Producer: Jonathan Blackwell

Fentanyl is a powerful morphine substitute, but it is also incredibly addictive – millions struggle with weaning themselves off it. And of the 600,000 drug deaths worldwide each year, the World Health Organisation estimates 80% are due to opioids in general, with synthetic opioids like fentanyl being a growing part of the problem. New work with genetically manipulated mice suggests that fentanyl affects two parts of the brain, one associated with the high, but also another that regulates fear. This knowledge could aid in the development of treatments to reduce addiction to the opioid.
Early developers: Long before a developing implants into a mother's uterus, in fact as the fertilised egg divides for the first time into a pair of cells, which line becomes the future baby and which will become the 'life support' system of the placenta has been decided. Embryologist Magdalena Zernicka-Goetz explains why this early unfolding of the genetic programme is important, and why it's taken so long to discover it.
Getting through pregnancy is only the first step in a person’s life. Surviving childhood, particularly for our old stone age ancestors, was the next challenge. And a new study looking at children’s teeth found at ancient archaeological sites gives clues as to why our ancestors fared better than the neanderthals around them during the last ice age.
Supersense: twitching hairs on some caterpillars turn out to be early-warning sensors feeling the electric field of an approaching wasp, giving the potential prey precious moments to hide or escape death. Biophysicist Daniel Robert explains the challenge of seeing the electric world of insect hunters and hunted.
Presenter: Roland Pease
Producer: Jonathan Blackwell
Production co-ordinator: Jana Bennett-Holesworth
(Image: Fentanyl. Credit: Isaac Lee via Getty Images.)

They were the best northern and southern lights in decades, but why? And what’s next? We hear from astrophysicist Steph Yardley about the solar maximum, geomagnetic storms and atmospheric spectaculars.
Also, the impossible heatwave in the Philippines made possible by global warming – the analysis of a continent-spanning climate extreme by the World Weather Attribution collaboration.
Getting close up to raging tornadoes in order to fill in the big gaps that remain in the science of their development.
And the tale of the lizard’s tail, and how it could lead to safer buildings in the future.
(Photo: The aurora borealis, also known as the 'northern lights’, are seen over The Roaches near Leek, Staffordshire, Britain, May 10, 2024. Credit: Carl Recine/Reuters)
Presenter: Roland Pease
Producer: Jonathan Blackwell

Could future blood transfusions be made safer by mixing in a new bacterial enzyme? Every year 118 million blood donations need to be carefully sorted to ensure the correct blood types go to the right patients. Prof Martin Olsson, of Lund University in Sweden, and colleagues in Denmark have published a study that suggests an enzyme made by bacteria in our gut could edit our blood cells to effectively convert type A, B and AB to type O. This would be a step towards a universal blood type that could be given to any patient.
Papua New Guinea’s Naomi Longa is a “Sea Woman of Melanesia”. She works to train local women from the Kimbe Bay region of the Coral Triangle to dive, snorkel, navigate and use AI to monitor the coral reefs there. She is winner of this year’s Whitley Award, and tells us why it is socially and scientifically useful to get locals - specifically females - involved in conservation efforts there.
Data scientist and roboticist Prof Daniele Rus of MIT has been using Machine Learning to decipher structure in a vast swath of Sperm Whale song data from Dominica. They have discovered a set of patterns and rules of context that seem to govern the way sperm whales structure their distinctive sets of clicks. The next step? See if we can decode any semantic content…
Also, 200 years after Beethoven’s 9th symphony premiered, science says its composer couldn’t hold a beat. A cautionary tale of the hubris of genetic data miners, Laura Wesseldijk describes to Roland how she and her collaborators designed the paradoxical study to point out the limitations of finding any sort of “musical genius” genes with contemporary techniques.
Presenter: Roland Pease
Producer: Alex Mansfield
Production Coordinator: Jana Bennett-Holesworth
(Image: Two Sperm Whales, Caribbean Sea, Dominica. Credit: Reinhard Dirscherl via Getty Images)