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Material World

Factual: Science & Nature

Science programme reporting on developments across the disciplines

Science programme reporting on developments across the disciplines. Each week, scientists describe their work, conveying the excitement they feel for their research projects

Material World: 13/12/2012

13/12/2012

BBC Radio 4 - Material World, 13/12/2012

Science cash prizes, science in The Hobbit, and solving an archaeological hoax.

Quentin Cooper asks if the $3 million prize awarded to CERN scientists is really fair. Plus science in the home of Hobbits, the future of computing and solving the Piltdown man.

Earlier this week, Steven Hawking was awarded 3 million dollars for his contribution to theoretical physics. 7 scientific leaders at CERN received the same amount between them. We look at the impact of awarding such prizes. While they create headlines for the scientists involved - do they help promote the science and are they fair, given the collaborative nature of contemporary scientific research?

We also look at the mystery of Piltdown man. Once thought of as the missing link between ancient apes and humans this Sussex fossil was exposed as a fake more than 50 years ago. The mixture of human, orang-utan and chimpanzee parts is the subject of a new scientific investigation using modern techniques including DNA analysis. Researchers hope to solve the mystery of who produced the hoax and why.

Also on the programme we speak to mathematicians who may have found a way of making computers process information thousands of times faster than they do now. 

And we discuss the 'science of Middle earth' how far the fantasy of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings and Hobbit stories accurately reflect science.

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13/12/2012

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