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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.

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Unexpected Elements: Could There Be a Ninth Planet?

Discussion & Talk

Could There Be a Ninth Planet?

23/01/2016 GMT

BBC World Service - Unexpected Elements, Could There Be a Ninth Planet?

Tantalising evidence of an undiscovered ninth planet on the edge of our solar system

Planet Nine; Farming in Space; New Bird Species in India; The Europeana Sounds Project; Global Fish Catches Under-Reported; Scotland’s Dolphins; Concorde's 40th Anniversary

American astronomers say they have strong evidence that there is a ninth planet in our Solar System orbiting far beyond even the dwarf world Pluto.  The team, from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), has no direct observations to confirm its presence just yet.  Rather, the scientists make the claim based on the way other far-flung objects are seen to move.  But if proven, the putative planet would have ten times the mass of Earth.  The Caltech astronomers have a vague idea where it ought to be on the sky, and their work is sure to fire a campaign to try to track it down.

Space Farming
Scientists at the University of Arizona are trying to mimic conditions in Space and grow fruit and vegetables.  Professor Robert Furfaro, Director of Space Systems Engineering at the University of Arizona, is the Technical Principal Investigator and shows Jack Stewart around a cylindrical plastic greenhouse with some beautiful green crops growing inside under artificial light.

New Bird Species in India
Scientists have described a new species of bird in northern India and China, called the Himalayan forest thrush.  During fieldwork in the mountains, researchers noticed that thrushes in the forests sang much more musically than those on the rocky peaks.  They then discovered physical and genetic differences as well, and have now declared the known "plain-backed thrush" to be two distinct species.  The mountain-dwelling variety has been re-christened the "alpine thrush".

The Europeana Sounds Project
The Europeana Sounds project gathers sound files (speech, radio programmes, environmental sounds) to make them more widely available. One way of doing this is to release them under Creative Commons licenses, uploading them to Wikimedia and holding editathons where participants learn how to add these audio files to Wikipedia pages.  Julia Lorke reports.

Global Fish Catches Under-Reported
Estimates of global fish catches over the past sixty years have been vastly underestimated, according to a new study in the journal Nature Communications.  In certain cases it was found that previous estimates may have been over 50% too low.  Scientists at the University of British Columbia, along with many collaborators across the world, found this out by using an approach called ‘catch reconstruction’ where they use local knowledge to fill in missing gaps in global data sets.  Professor Daniel Pauly, one of the lead authors of the paper, talks to Jack Stewart about the findings and the reliability of the available data.

Scotland’s Dolphins
The chilly waters of north-east Scotland are home to the world’s most northerly group of bottlenose dolphins. They are protected by EU conservation laws and despite being a small population, appear to be thriving.  Euan McIlwraith heads out into the Moray Firth on a research boat to discover how photo-ID techniques are used to record the dolphins’ movements around the coast.

Concorde's 40th Anniversary
Concorde flew its first commercial flight on the 21st January 1976. To mark its 40th birthday, Concorde engineer Dr Christopher ‘Kit’ Mitchell and Concorde pilot David Rowland talk to Adam Rutherford about the extraordinary aeroplane's scientific and engineering legacy.


(Photo caption: Artist's rendering of distant view from "Planet Nine" back towards the sun © Hurt/Caltech/IPAC/Handout via Reuters)


The Science Hour was presented by Jack Stewart with comments from BBC Science reporter Jonathan Webb


Producer: Alex Mansfield

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