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BBC Inside Science: Mice & Men; Fuel from CO2; fRMI; Insect calls

01/05/2014

Mice & Men; Fuel from CO2; fRMI; Insect calls

BBC Radio 4 - BBC Inside Science, Mice & Men; Fuel from CO2; fRMI; Insect calls

How can you get jet fuel from thin air? Just add water, carbon dioxide and sunlight.

Dr Adam Rutherford unpicks new research into making jet fuel from concentrated sunlight, water and carbon dioxide.

A recent paper demonstrated that mice show elevated stress levels in the presence of male hormones. What implications does this have for future mouse research? Adam Rutherford heads to University College London to speak to Dr Clare Stanford, who works with mice and men.

How do you get jet fuel from thin air? Just add water, carbon dioxide and a large amount of concentrated sunlight. A team from the European Solar Jet Project has, for the first time, proved that you can make 'green' or carbon neutral paraffin, the hydrocarbon used in jet fuel. It's feasible; the next step is to try and make this process commercially viable.

Neuroscience is a fast growing and popular field, so naturally there are an abundance of stories reported in the press often illustrated with a beautiful picture of the brain. But despite the advances, when an area of the brain 'lights up" it does not tell us as much as we'd like about the inner workings of the mind. Adam Rutherford speaks to neuroscientists to get to the bottom of what brain imaging can be useful for and when over-interpretation is an issue.

Our resident zoologist Dr Tim Cockerill recently found himself filming animals deep in the jungles of Borneo. Before he left, we gave him an audio recorder to see what he could discover about the animal communities there, just by listening to them. It seems you can set your watch by some of their calls.

Producer: Marnie Chesterton.

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