The Gulf Stream, also known as the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), is essential to stable global climate, and the reason we have moderate temperatures in Northern Europe. Now, a new modelling study suggests that this circulation could, at some point, be at a tipping point and collapse. We hear from one of the minds behind the model, post-doctoral researcher René van Westen from Utrecht University. But how likely is it that this will actually happen in the real world? Presenter Victoria Gill speaks to Jonathan Bamber who cautions that a gulf stream collapse is not imminent, and that it may just weaken slowly over time. Every summer in the Hudson Bay, on the Eastern side of Arctic Canada, the sea ice melts and the region’s polar bears head inland. But that ice-free season is getting longer, depriving the bears of that frozen platform that they use to pounce on their favourite prey – seals. So what do the bears do all summer? Research Wildlife Biologist Karyn Rode shares how she and her colleagues put a collar with video cameras on 20 polar bears, and what it revealed about their lives.
Is CERN finally going to get a gigantic new particle accelerator? Almost exactly one decade ago, Roland Pease reported from Switzerland about the very first meeting about the successor of the Large Hadron Collider which was used to discover the Higgs Boson. Now there’s an update to the story. Roland is back to tell Vic how far along CERN is with their plans, and how much more time and money it will take to build the Future Circular Collider.
Lovers of certain famous, creamy French cheeses could be in for a bit of a shock. Camembert and Brie are facing extinction as we know them! The Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) in Paris has stated that, over the last 100 years, the food and farming industry has placed too much pressure on the production of these types of cheeses. Now, the fungus traditionally used to grow the famous, fluffy white rinds has been cloned to a point where the lack of diversity in its genetic makeup means it can no longer be reproduced. Turophiles must learn to appreciate more diversity of tastes, colours and textures to protect the cheeses’ future.
Presenter: Victoria Gill Producers: Florian Bohr, Louise Orchard, Alice Lipscombe-Southwell Editor: Martin Smith Production Co-ordinator: Jana Bennett-Holesworth
BBC Inside Science is produced in collaboration with the Open University.
Forensic science provision, optimal garden watering strategy, and a mystery knee bone
Sex, gender and sport - the Caster Semenya case and the latest Denisovan discovery
Thought-to-speech machine, City Nature Challenge, Science of Storytelling
Notre-Dame fire, Reviving pig brains, ExoMars, Evolution of faces
Visualising a black hole, Homo luzonensis, Two ways to overcome antimicrobial resistance
Cretaceous catastrophe fossilised, LIGO and Virgo, Corals, Forensic shoeprint database
UK pollinating insect numbers, Tracking whales using barnacles, Sleep signals
Where next World Wide Web? Space rocks and worms
Rules and ethics of genome editing, Gender, sex and sport, Hog roasts at Stonehenge
A cure for HIV? Sleepy flies, Secrets of the Fukushima disaster, Science fact checking
Falling carbon and rising methane; Unsung heroes at the Crick
Mars - rovers v humans? Forests and carbon, Ethiopian bush crow
Insect decline, Gut microbiome, Geomagnetic switching
Sea Level Rise, Equine Flu, Generator Bricks, Iberian Genes
Sprinting Neanderthals, Geodynamo, Spreading Sneezes and Dying Hares
Ultima Thule, Dry January, Periodic Table
Gene-edited twins, Placenta organoids in a dish, When the last leaves drop
Mars InSight mission, Detecting dark matter, Redefining the kilogram, Bovine TB
Bovine TB and badger culling, Shrimp hoover CSI, Shark-skin and Turing
Oldest cave picture; the Anthropocene under London; a new scientist for the £50 note
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