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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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BBC Inside Science: Northern white rhino preservation, Deep sea earthquake detection, Twitter's rare Heuchera discovery, Human roars

05/07/2018

Northern white rhino preservation, Deep sea earthquake detection, Twitter's rare Heuchera discovery, Human roars

BBC Radio 4 - BBC Inside Science, Northern white rhino preservation, Deep sea earthquake detection, Twitter's rare Heuchera discovery, Human roars

Preserving white rhino, deep sea earthquake detection, Twitter's plant find, human roars.

Could new assisted reproductive techniques help to preserve the northern white rhino? And the accidental discovery that deep sea communication cables could monitor earthquakes.

The northern white rhinoceros is the world's most endangered mammal. The death earlier this year of the last male of this rhino subspecies leaves just two females as its only living members. New research out this week has adopted new techniques in reproductive medicine as a last ditch attempt to preserve these animals. Thomas Hildebrandt from Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research and Terri Roth, Director of Conservation Research at Cincinnati Zoo, discuss the ambition, and how realistic this approach is in future animal conservation.

Earthquakes are scientifically measured with seismometers, but few are present on the sea floor, where earthquakes that can cause tsunamis originate. But could communication cables traversing the oceans fill in the gaps? Giuseppi Marra from the National Physical Laboratory in Teddington, discusses his accidental discovery that fibre-optic cables might be registering the earth's vibrations. 

For the first time in the annals of science, a tweet was the key reference in a paper reporting on a discovery that a rare wild variety of the gardener's favourite - Heuchera, thought to be limited to a few rocky outcrops in Virginia - is actually abundantly present 100km away. It's all come about because of a picture shared on Twitter. Reporter Roland Pease retraces the tale of the tweets with the key players.

Can the size of a roar be used to accurately determine physical strength?' Or can a roar deceive, and make you sound tougher than you actually are? That's what Jordan Raine from the University of Sussex decided to find out, not with lions or tigers or bears but in us.

Producer Adrian Washbourne.

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BBC Inside Science

Northern white rhino preservation, Deep sea earthquake detection, Twitter's rare Heuchera discovery, Human roars

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