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BBC Inside Science: Out of Africa, Predicting future heatwaves, Virtual reality molecules, Life in the dark

12/07/2018

Out of Africa, Predicting future heatwaves, Virtual reality molecules, Life in the dark

BBC Radio 4 - BBC Inside Science, Out of Africa, Predicting future heatwaves, Virtual reality molecules, Life in the dark

Out of Africa, predicting future heatwaves, virtual reality molecules, life in the dark.

Adam Rutherford examines a new stone tool discovery thought to be the earliest known evidence of humans outside Africa. And why has the current heatwave persisted?

Scientists have found the earliest known evidence of a human presence outside Africa. A set of 96 stone tools has been found in the mountains of south-east China, which is the furthest afield this type of tool has been located. The scientists who found them have put the date of these tools at 2.1 million years old, which is at least 300,000 years earlier than the current evidence for early human presence outside of Africa. John Kappelman, a paleoanthropologist at the University of Texas, discusses how we're now moving beyond a Eurocentric view of human evolution in Eurasia.

Much of northern Europe has been experiencing a heatwave - notable for its intensity and duration. It's caused by "atmosphere blocking". Can we predict when these blocks will come and how long they will last? Adam Rutherford talks to Jana Sillmann, director of the Centre for International Climate Research in Oslo, Norway, author of a new study that has modelled 40 years' worth of heatwaves and blocking, and looked to the end of the century in attempting to predict blocking patterns as the climate changes.

How can researchers get to grips with the shape of molecules in the digital world? Chemists have for years used ball and stick representations of the shapes their molecules come in. But when they publish, they have to flatten it all down onto a 2D a piece of paper losing crucial information. Bristol University's David Glowacki has put the power of virtual reality into the hands of the molecular magicians. Inside Science's Roland Pease went to his virtual lab, to see atoms dance in a molecular space odyssey.

Given that half the world is in the dark half of the time, and the depths of the oceans are perpetually hidden from sunlight, there's lot of darkness to explore. For those of us drawn to the shadows, a new exhibition at the Natural History Museum in London does exactly that. Geoff Boxhall, professor of invertebrate biology, gives Adam Rutherford a tour of Life in the Dark. 

Producer Adrian Washbourne.

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Out of Africa, Predicting future heatwaves, Virtual reality molecules, Life in the dark

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