Nuclear Waste; Exoplanets; BBC time and pips, Synthetic Biology Olympics

BBC Inside Science

BBC

Technology, Science

4.5 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 24 October 2013

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Britain's legacy of nuclear waste dates back 60 plus years and a long term solution to deal with it hasn't yet been found. After this week's announcement that the UK will have a new nuclear power station, Hinkley C in Somerset, Dr Adam Rutherford asks Professor Sue Ion, former Director of Technology at British Nuclear Fuels and Chair of the European Commission's Science and Technology Committee, Euratom, how much extra waste this new plant will add to the radioactive stockpile.

Eighteen years ago the first planet outside of our solar system was discovered, "51 Pegasi b". This week the tally of exoplanets passed one thousand, and as astronomer Dr Stuart Clark tells Adam, an earth twin isn't part of the planetary list.....yet.

Show Us Your Instrument: Public Astronomer Dr Marek Kukula introduces the original Six Pip Masterclock at the Greenwich Observatory. This clock was used in the 1920s to send the time signals down a telephone line to the BBC, for transmission to the whole country over the radio. That's not the case now, and Adam goes down into the basement of Broadcasting House in London in search of the atomic clock that's now used to generate the Greenwich Time Signal and the famous BBC pips.

iGEM is a global biology competition that allows students to build their own organisms. The UK has two teams going to the grand final next week. Adam goes to meet the team from Imperial College London, who have made a bacterium which produces plastic.

Producer: Fiona Hill.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Just before this BBC podcast gets underway, here's something you may not know.
0:04.7	My name's Linda Davies and I Commission Podcasts for BBC Sounds.
0:08.5	As you'd expect, at the BBC we make podcasts of the very highest quality featuring the most knowledgeable experts and genuinely engaging voices.
0:18.0	What you may not know is that the BBC makes podcasts about all kinds of things like pop stars,
0:24.6	poltergeist, cricket, and conspiracy theories and that's just a few examples.
0:29.7	If you'd like to discover something a little bit unexpected, find your next podcast over at BBC Sounds.
0:36.0	Hello you, this is the BBC Inside Science Podcast and I'm Adam Rutherford, terms and conditions, and a joke about fractals at BBC.co.
0:43.7	UK slash radio for does anyone actually read them go on you go and read them now
0:48.3	we're exploring strange new worlds today as our tally of exoplanets tops a thousand. I visit the
0:54.5	crack team of undergraduate synthetic biologists who are using genetically
0:58.4	modified bacteria to turn your rubbish into plastic and you'll get to hear them for real at the top of the
1:04.4	hour as we say in radio land but earlier today I visited the atomic clock that
1:09.2	supplies the most iconic of Radio 4 sounds, the Pips.
1:14.0	Hello, we're exploring strange new worlds today as our tally on exoplanets tops a thousand.
1:20.2	I visit the crack team of undergraduate synthetic biologists who are using genetically modified bacteria to turn your rubbish into plastic.
1:28.5	And you'll get to hear them for real at the top of the hour as we say in radio land but earlier today I visited
1:34.5	the atomic clock that supplies the most iconic of Radio 4 sounds the Pips.
1:39.7	But first on Monday Ed Davy Secretary of State for Energy and Climate
1:44.1	changed, announced a deal with the French Energy Company EDF to build a new
1:48.8	nuclear power station at Hinkley Point in Somerset.
1:51.8	The agreement today is a demonstration of the government's commitment to a new fleet of nuclear power
1:57.1	stations, to replace those due to close, and to protect Britain's future energy security.
	...

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