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BBC Inside Science: Parker solar probe, Diversity in the lab, Royal Society book prize, Arctic circle weather

02/08/2018

Parker solar probe, Diversity in the lab, Royal Society book prize, Arctic circle weather

BBC Radio 4 - BBC Inside Science, Parker solar probe, Diversity in the lab, Royal Society book prize, Arctic circle weather

Parker solar probe, Diversity in the lab, Royal Society book prize, Arctic circle weather.

The Parker solar probe soon launches for the closest mission ever to the sun. Plus, we meet the scientists who are making a real difference to equality and diversity in the lab.

The sun still has many mysterious properties. The Parker Solar Probe, launched next week will be the closest a spacecraft has ever flown to our star. It's a mission that's been on the drawing board for decades which space scientists have only dreamt of. It will fly into the mysterious solar corona, where so much of the action at 3 million degrees centigrade takes place. Nicola Fox from Johns Hopkins University is the Parker Probe Project Scientist. Adam Rutherford speaks to her from Cape Canaveral, where they are making the final adjustments for the most ambitious journey ever, to the Sun.

We meet two scientists who are making a real difference in promoting diversity and equality in the lab. Physicist Jess Wade has been chipping away at this issue, most recently in a heroic project to write up a Wikipedia entry for a scientist who is also a woman every day for the last 270 days and counting. Emma Chapman is an astrophysicist, and last month won the prestigious Royal Society Athena Prize for her work in driving policy changes about sexual harassment at universities.

Today the shortlist of the most prestigious of the literary prizes for the sciences was announced - the Royal Society Insight Investment Science Book Prize. This is the 31st prize, and previous winners are a who's who in truly great science writing. Frances Ashcroft, Professor of Physiology at Oxford is the chair of the judges and discusses the books they have selected.

Physicist Helen Czerski and 40 colleagues are now aboard the Oden, a Swedish icebreaker and scientific research vessel that set sail earlier this week. They are en route to spend a month anchored to arctic sea ice to elucidate the mysterious behaviour of arctic weather. Before she set off she gave Adam Rutherford a preview of the research trip.

Producer Adrian Washbourne.

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