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Factual: Science & Nature

Factual: Science & Nature: Science & Technology

A weekly programme looking at the science that's changing our world.

A weekly programme that illuminates the mysteries and challenges the controversies behind the science that's changing our world.

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Inside Science

BBC Inside Science: Universal flu vaccine; Science games; AllTrials; Penguin camera

15/08/2013

Universal flu vaccine; Science games; AllTrials; Penguin camera

BBC Radio 4 - BBC Inside Science, Universal flu vaccine; Science games; AllTrials; Penguin camera

Search for a universal flu vaccine, and the scientists using online games for research.

Dr Adam Rutherford explores the research that is transforming our world, including the search for a universal flu vaccine, and the scientists using online games for research.

Influenza causes up to five million cases of severe illness and half a million deaths globally every year. Yet, as Adam Rutherford finds out, our current vaccination strategy is a seasonal game of chance, based on guessing the strain that will appear next. Research published this week in Science Translational Medicine, by a team from Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, offers hope for a universal flu vaccine, based on newly discovered antibodies.

Earlier this week, a game to help combat ash dieback was launched on Facebook, called Fraxinus. Reporter Gaia Vince looks at the growing trend for using games to solve scientific problems. Is this new way of gathering and analysing data changing the way science is done?

Currently half of all clinical trials are not published worldwide. Adam talks to Ben Goldacre, author of Bad Pharma, about his new campaign 'AllTrials', which aims to change that.

Finally this week, physicist Peter Barham shows us his instrument - a spy camera system that he's designed to recognise penguins.

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BBC Inside Science

Universal flu vaccine; Science games; AllTrials; Penguin camera

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