A recent study on how to get rid of microplastics in water sparked presenter Marnie Chesterton’s curiosity. When she turns on the tap in her kitchen each day, what comes out is drinkable, clean water. But where did it come from, and what’s in it? Dr Stewart Husband from Sheffield University answers this and more, including listener questions from around the UK. Is water sterile? Should I use a filter? And why does my water smell like chlorine?
Also, 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.
And finally, more than 20 million years ago, our branch of the tree of life lost its tail. At that point in time, apes split from another animal group, monkeys. Now, geneticist Dr Bo Xia at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard thinks he may have found the specific mutation that took our tails. Marnie speaks with evolutionary biologist Dr Tom Stubbs from the Open University about why being tail-less could be beneficial. What would a hypothetical parallel universe look like where humans roam the earth, tails intact? And what would these tails look like?
Presenter: Marnie Chesterton Producers: Louise Orchard, Florian Bohr, Jonathan Blackwell, Imaan Moin Editor: Martin Smith Production Co-ordinator: Jana Bennett-Holesworth
BBC Inside Science is produced in collaboration with the Open University.
Coronavirus variants and vaccines, climate change resistant coffee, dare to repair and how to get rid of moths
Blood clots, grieving and the emotion of screams
Disobedient particles, noisy gorillas, sharks and fictional languages
Science funding cuts; Mice get Covid-19; Native oyster reintroductions
Halfway to net zero; hydrogen as a fuel; Fagradalsfjall, Iceland’s active volcano
Human embryo research and ethics; sperm whale social learning; Antikythera mechanism
China's green growth plan
Blue carbon; inside Little Foot's skull; reading locked letters
Good COP Bad COP, Shotgun Lead Persistence, and Featherdown Adaptation
Nasa's Perseverance - will it pay off? And spotting likely hosts for future pandemics.
Meeting Mars, Melting Ice, Ozone on the Mend Again, and A Sea Cacophany
Putting a number on biodiversity
Next Gen Covid Vaccines; Man's Oldest Bestest Friend; Bilingual Brain Development
Vaccine Hesitancy and Ethnicity; The Joy of catnip; Lake Heatwaves
UK Science post Brexit; GMOs vs Gene Editing regulation; Identical Twins That Aren't Indentical
Vaccine Dosing and Biodiversity Soundscape Monitoring
Brian Cox and Alice Roberts on a decade of extraordinary science
Space Rocks, Aquatic Dinosaurs and Global Temperatures; 2020 science reviewed
Covid mutation; On the facial expression of emotions; A mystery object
Future risk planning; Millennium Seed Bank; Urban trees
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