India's Ancient Science

Rediscovering influential Indian ideas on mathematics, metallurgy and engineering

• 26 mins

Indian Science – The Colonial Legacy

How did British imperialism affect India’s scientific development?

• 26 mins

SOS Snail

Helen Scales reports on the international rescue mission to save the Partula snail

• 26 mins

Sydney Brenner: A Revolutionary Biologist

Sydney Brenner talks about his part in the DNA revolution between the 1950s and 1980s

• 26 mins

How much of my body is bacteria?

Plus, why do we have different blood types?

• 26 mins

How do cats find their way home?

Plus, why do we itch and should we scratch?

• 26 mins

Why can’t we remember being a baby?

Plus, could a party balloon reach space?

• 26 mins

Why can’t we remember being a baby?

Plus, could a party balloon reach space?

• 26 mins

What will happen when the Earth’s poles swap?

And why do planets spin?

• 26 mins

What would happen if you fell into a black hole?

Plus, could we make a sonic weapon?

• 26 mins

Better Brains

New hope for incurable neurodegenerative conditions such as dementia

• 26 mins

Cheating the Atmosphere

Dodgy emissions data could fatally undermine the Paris Climate Agreement

• 26 mins

The Day the Earth Moved

How scientists learned the earth’s crust is made up of shifting plates.

• 26 mins

Science Stories: Series 4

Alcuin of York

Philip Ball dives into the Dark Ages to reveal the author of the river crossing riddle

• 26 mins

Science Stories: Series 4

Maria Merian

How a 13-year old girl mapped metamorphosis in the 1600s. Naomi Alderman presents

• 26 mins

Science Stories: Series 4

Lise Meitner

How physicist Lise Meitner unlocked the science of the atom bomb that cost Hitler dearly

• 26 mins

Science Stories: Series 4

Humphry Davy

The story of how Humphry Davy discovered laughing gas in 1799.

• 26 mins

The Anatomy of Pain

Seeing Pain

Why do some people feel more pain than others and what happens in the brain during surgery

• 26 mins

The Anatomy of Pain

Knowing Pain

Phantom limb pain, babies’ pain, people without pain, help understand the nature of pain.

• 26 mins

The Anatomy of Pain

Controlling Pain

How do brains control pain? Irene Tracey asks can we distance ourselves from agony

• 26 mins

The Anatomy of Pain

Pain of Torture

Does knowing that someone is inflicting pain on you deliberately make the pain worse?

• 26 mins

The Power of Sloth

Lucy Cooke discovers the joy of sloth and sloths and the benefits of being really slow.

• 26 mins

Why We Cut Men

Across the world, 1 in 3 men are circumcised. Mary-Ann Ochota investigates why we cut men

• 26 mins

Killing Insects for Conservation

Killing insects in the name of research upsets some people. How do scientists justify it?

• 26 mins

The Far Future

What fragments of our civilisation will persist 10,000 years in the future?

• 26 mins

Science Stories: Series 5

D'Arcy Thompson

A man who put maths into biology and saw physics in shells, seeds and bees 100 years ago

• 26 mins

Science Stories: Series 5

Barbara McLintock

Philip Ball tells the story of US geneticist and 1983 Nobel prize winner Barbara McLintock

• 26 mins

Bringing Schrodinger's Cat to Life

Roland Pease meets the quantum scientists hoping to bring Schrodinger's cat to life

• 26 mins

Crossing Divides

The Cooperative Species

Why human cooperation fails online

• 26 mins

Crossing Divides

Behaving Better Online

Gaia Vince meets the scientists studying our built in human behaviour

• 26 mins