Switzerland has submitted a proposal to create a United Nations expert group on solar geoengineering to inform governments and stakeholders. The idea was discussed at the UN Environment Assembly in Nairobi, Kenya, this week. Professor Aarti Gupta shares how, after tense negotiations, the different member states could not agree, and the proposal was withdrawn. Why is solar geoengineering a controversial issue? How would dimming the sun even work? And should we consider it a genuine option in our fight against climate change? Dr Pete Irvine and Professor Joanna Haigh join presenter Marnie Chesterton in the studio to discuss.
Animal welfare charities have been celebrating a ban on donkey skin trade, agreed to this month by 55 African countries. This will make it illegal to slaughter donkeys for their skin across the continent, where around two thirds of the world’s 53 million donkeys live. Victoria Gill tells Marnie that the demand for the animals' skins is fuelled by the popularity of an ancient Chinese medicine called Ejiao, believed to have health-enhancing and youth-preserving properties and traditionally made from donkey hides.
Lastly, Dr Jess Wade, physicist and science communicator at Imperial College London, discusses Breaking Through: My Life in Science. It’s the memoir of Nobel Prize-winning biochemist Dr Katalin Karikó, whose passion and dedication to mRNA research led to the development of the life-changing COVID mRNA vaccines.
Presenter: Marnie Chesterton Producers: Florian Bohr, Louise Orchard Assistant Producer: Imaan Moin Editor: Martin Smith Production Co-ordinator: Jana Bennett-Holesworth
BBC Inside Science is produced in collaboration with the Open University.
Coronavirus - new variants
Fracking Science
Science collaborations – with Russia
Is the James Webb Space Telescope too good?
Ancient Amputation
Dealing with drought
Return of the ozone hole
A Possible Sequel to the Dinosaur Armageddon
Amplified Arctic Amplification and Microclot Clues to Post-Viral Disease
Shaun The Sheep Jumps Over The Moon, Bronze Age Kissing and PPE Rubbish
Heatwave: the consequences
Multiverses, melting glaciers and what you can tell from the noise of someone peeing
Deep Space and the Deep Sea - 40 years of the International Whaling Moratorium.
Robotic Thumbs, Mending Bones with Magnets, and the State of Science this Summer
10 Years of the Higgs Boson
Engineering Around Mercury, Science Festivals, and The Rise of The Mammals
Inside Sentience
Miscounting Carbon, EU Funding Stalemate, and How to Make a Royal Hologram
A Reign of Science
Monkeypox, Pompeii aDNA, and Elephant Mourning Videos
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
The Briefing Room
Science Weekly
FT News Briefing
Science Vs
Economist Podcasts