Podcast: Discovery

The tiny sap-sucking aphid, at just a few millimetres long, is the scourge of many gardeners and crop-growers worldwide, spreading astonishingly rapidly and inflicting huge damage as it seeks to outwit many host plants’ natural defences. With insights and guidance from aphid expert George Seddon-Roberts at the John Innes Centre, Norwich, some delicate dissecting tools, and a state of the art microscope, Professor Ben Garrod and Dr Jess French delve inside this herbivorous insect to unravel the anatomy and physiology that’s secured its extraordinary reproductive success, whilst offering new clues as to how we could curtail its damaging impact in the future.Co-Presenters: Ben Garrod and Jess French
Executive Producer: Adrian Washbourne
Producer: Ella Hubber
Editor: Martin Smith
Production Co-ordinator: Jana Bennett-Holesworth

Brian Cox presents a tribute to Richard Feynman, widely regarded as the most influential physicist since Einstein.

Dr Adam Hart explores the remarkable properties of honey, from its basic chemistry to the biological processes that create it.

We not only live in the atmosphere, we live because of it. It is a transformer and a protector, though ultimately also a poison.

Medical sleuths in West Africa make startling discoveries that could change child health care worldwide.

Explorations in the world of science.

Explorations in the world of science.

Medical sleuths in West Africa make startling discoveries that could change child health care worldwide.

Explorations in the world of science.

Kevin Fong examines the equation that seeks to answer one of the most profound questions in science: Are we alone in the cosmos?

A second series of public events on the role of science in society, from the BBC World Service with the Wellcome Collection.

We not only live in the atmosphere, we live because of it. It is a transformer and a protector, though ultimately also a poison.

Does the head really rule the heart as modern science would tell us? Tim Healey asks if the heart plays a role in our emotions.

Explorations in the world of science.

Jason Palmer explores the past, present and future of Seti. In the second programme he looks at what sort of signal might ET send us, and how might we respond?Jason talks to Seti's co-founder Frank Drake as well as its current active researchers, including Seth Shostak, Jill Tartar and Doug Vakoch.

An increasing understanding of genetics has uncovered new targets for antiviral drug treatments. Although still in the very early stages, scientists say they may be able to develop drug treatments which can be used against a range of viruses. At present antiviral drugs are very specific, usually attacking just one virus. However the research which Kevin Fong examines in this edition of Discovery suggests 'broad spectrum antivirals', drugs capable of curing all viral infections from the common cold to HIV, may be with us in a few years time. Such drugs could revolutionise medicine dealing a blow to viruses in much the same way as the invention of antibiotics did to bacterial infections over the last century.

Explorations in the world of science.

Nanoparticles are all around us. What effect could they be having on our environment?

Explorations in the world of science.

Explorations in the world of science.