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Unexpected Elements

Factual: Science & Nature

Factual: Science & Nature: Science & Technology

The news you know, the science you don’t.

The news you know, the science you don’t. Unexpected Elements looks beyond everyday narratives to discover a goldmine of scientific stories and connections from around the globe. From Afronauts, to why we argue, to a deep dive on animal lifespans: see the world in a new way.

The Science Hour

Unexpected Elements: Paralysed man walks again

Darek-ParallelBars-Oct2014.jpg

25/10/2014

Paralysed man walks again

BBC World Service - Unexpected Elements, Paralysed man walks again

Paralysed man walks again after cell transplant

A paralysed man walks again after pioneering cell transplant, the latest science on the Ebola outbreak and why The Hobbit skeleton is still baffling scientists 10 years on.

Spinal Cord Repair
A paralysed man with a severed spinal cord, Darek Fidyka, can walk again after undergoing pioneering therapy in Poland.  A world first carried out by surgeons in Poland in along with scientists in London, this treatment saw cells from the nose transplanted into Darek Fidyka’s spine.  The researchers used special cells from the nose that we use to smell that have the ability to be continually renewed because they are damaged every time we smell and odour-transmitting molecules come into contact with them.  This property made them an ideal candidate for cells to help repair the nerves in the spine which can’t re-grow.  Dr Pawel Tabakow, the lead neurosurgeon at the Wroclaw University Hospital where the patient was treated, talks to Science in Action about carrying out this treatment for the first time in humans, and Professor John Haycock of the University of Sheffield in the UK comments.  

Hominids and Height 
We like making observations because they help us answer scientific questions. But sometimes, a new discovery creates more problems than it solves.Like the skeleton that was unearthed in 2003 on the island of Flores, in Indonesia. It was lauded as a great new find, something that could help us to understand where humans’ came from and how our population evolved and thrived around the world. So Lucie Green went to take a look at it, to find out what all the fuss is about


Languages at risk
There are around 7,000 languages spoken on the planet today, and many of these are at risk, with a real fear that in the future we may lose many of them if they're not used. In New Zealand, remote sensor technology and a powerful algorithm are helping save the iconic flightless bird the Kiwi.  Simon Morton reports that the same home-grown technology is now being used to preserve New Zealand's indigenous language, Maori.

Sound of the sun
Our Sun vibrates with a complex pattern of acoustic waves, much like a ringing bell. It hints at the fact that the life-giving star at the centre of our solar system is a lot more complex than a mass of incandescent gas. It’s more than a gigantic nuclear furnace. Scientists are coming to realise just how complicated this yellow G5 dwarf star really is. Last week a series of reports in the journal Science covered the latest results from the IRIS satellite – a mission to study, not the sound of the Sun, but the energy of the Sun.

Brian Cox
Professor Brian Cox of Manchester University describes how he gave up appearing on Top of the Pops to study quarks, quasars and quantum mechanics.

Ebola vaccine
Scientists are also working hard to develop a successful Ebola vaccine. Dr Adrian Hill from the Jenner Institute at the University of Oxford explains the timeline for these vaccines. The trials themselves don’t take long but to assess whether the immunity lasts they have to continue testing for several months.

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