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

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BBC Inside Science: UK's longest-running cohort study, The Brain prize, Hairy genetics

03/03/2016

UK's longest-running cohort study, The Brain prize, Hairy genetics

BBC Radio 4 - BBC Inside Science, UK's longest-running cohort study, The Brain prize, Hairy genetics

Babies from the longest-running cohort study turn 70 this month.

Babies from the longest-running cohort study turn 70 this month. Adam unpicks the findings from their lifetimes under the scientific gaze.

This week is birthday time for the 3000-strong group of 70 year olds who might qualify for the title of longest-serving science guinea pigs. Participants in The National Survey for Health and Development cohort study have been closely monitored since their birth in 1946. Joining Adam Rutherford to discuss how this and other similar studies have influenced our lives, and what data we should collect on today's babies, are the Head of the National Survey for Health and Development at MRC's Unit for Lifelong Health and Ageing at University College London, Professor Diana Kuh, and Professor Debbie Lawlor, programme lead at the Medical Research Council's epidemiology unit at Bristol University.


A team of British team has picked up £1 million from The Brain Prize, which is issued by a Danish Charity annually. Tim Bliss, Graham Collingridge and Richard Morris have won for their work on how memories are formed. BBC science reporter Jonathan Webb is a former neuroscientist and brings us up-to-date with the latest thinking on how we remember.

Finally, grey hair and mono-brows have been all over the news this week with some follicular genetics. A team from UCL assessed the hair types of several thousand Latin Americans and cross-referenced this with their genomes to see what bits of DNA are associated with those characteristics. They found a set of gene variants - or alleles - some known to us, some new, that appear to be part of the reason we have straight hair or curly, bushy brows or mono-brows. Dr Kaustubh Adhikari from UCL is the lead author on the study.


Producer: Jen Whyntie.

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