BBC Inside Science

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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: Science superpower?

Science superpower?

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The government’s strategy for the future of science and technology

The government has launched a new 10-point plan designed, it said to “cement the UK’s place as a global science and technology superpower”. We speak with Sir Paul Nurse, director of the Francis Crick Institute, for his take on the government's plan and the findings of his own review of the UK’s research landscape.  

 In 1963, in a now famous speech at the Labour Party conference in Scarborough, Labour leader and soon to be Prime Minister Harold Wilson promised a new Britain would be forged in the “white heat" of a "scientific revolution".  Nick Thomas Symonds, Labour MP and political biographer, discusses how that idea was put into action. 

Scientists in Bristol have published a detailed "future flood map" of Britain - simulating the impacts of flooding as climate change takes its toll.  Paul Bates from Bristol University explains how the new flood risk maps give a level of detail that could help people to plan and adapt.  Vic Gill visits the Calder Valley in West Yorkshire, a place that’s suffered repeated flooding in recent years, where the community is taking matters into its own hands. 

New fossil findings from China have led scientists to re-evaluate their classification of tiny tentacled sea creatures from half a billion years ago and declare that they are in fact seaweeds says Martin Smith, a paleobiologist from The University of Durham.  And this re-classification isn't unusual, fossils are constantly re-examined in light of new evidence and insights. Susie Maidment a paleobiologist at the Natural History Museum takes us through some of her favourite contentious fossils.  

Presenter: Victoria Gill  
Producers: Julian Siddle and Emily Bird  
BBC Inside Science is produced in collaboration with the Open University

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

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