BBC Inside Science Folgen

Has one of the biggest problems in biology been solved by AI? Dr Alex Lathbridge brings you the week in science.This week google's Deep Mind team presented results of their latest efforts at cracking the 50 year old problem of Protein Folding. AlphaFold has built on previous success at predicting the 3D structures of biological proteins from just knowing the sequence of amino acids of which it is made. It is a computational problem that thousands of researchers around the world have been trying to solve for decades. There are millions of different proteins doing all the work in living cells, but simply knowing what their constituent chemicals are is not enough to understand how they are shaped, and therefore how they work. Scientists are optimistic that solving the problem will herald a new era in medicine, agriculture and even sustainable recycling. Prof John Moult, founding chair of CASP - the international body that monitors progress in the field, tells of the remarkable breakthrough being discussed this week.Whilst China is trying to bring back samples of the moon this week, a much longer-lived space mission to an asteroid hopes this weekend to return samples of the earliest bits of the solar system to earth. Hyabusa 2 will complete a 6 year mission, Japanese scientists hope, this weekend when a small package of asteroid sample drops into the atmosphere above Australia on Sunday morning.And as students across the UK prepare to make their ways home for the holidays, GP Margaret McCartney and Kavita Vedhara of Nottingham University discuss some of the challenges of fast mass covid testing and false negatives.Presented by Alex Lathbridge Produced by Alex Mansfield and Melanie Brown.

Last weekend a joint European-US satellite blasted into space to begin its mission - monitoring the oceans back here on earth. Sentinel 6 Michael Freilich is one of a long line of satellites and has a striking design – appearing like a bright gold farmyard barn with a big pitched roof. Anand Jagatia speaks to Dr Ralph Cordey at Airbus Space and Defence about the latest design iteration and the technology on-board. Oceanographer Professor Penny Holiday from the National Oceanography Centre explains how Sentinel 6’s readings will enhance understanding of sea-level rises and give more detail about the currents in our oceans.We journey back to the cosmic ‘Dark Ages’, a period of time that we know hardly anything about. Dr Emma Chapman is an astrophysicist at Imperial College London who has written a book ‘First Light: Switching on Stars at the Dawn of Time’ to throw light on this illusive chapter in the history of our universe. How close are scientists to finding the first stars?With ambitious new government targets to end the sale of petrol and diesel cars by 2030 how ready are electric cars to fill the gap? One key area many companies are trying to improve are the batteries powering electric vehicles. Peter Bruce, professor of materials science from Oxford University and chief scientist at the Faraday Institution has been working on rechargeable lithium ion energy storage since the 1990s. He speaks with Anand about the current limitations and the most recent developments in battery research and development.Presented by Anand Jagatia Produced by Melanie Brown

Earlier this month, the government rolled out a pilot in Liverpool for ‘Operation Moonshot’, their proposal to spend £100 billion pounds to regularly test the entire UK population for SARS CoV 2. Anand Jagatia speaks to screening expert Dr Angela Raffle and medical test evaluator Professor Jon Deeks from the University of Birmingham. They share their concerns about the scheme and the benefits it may bring.A year ago, BBC Inside Science helped launch the Big Compost Experiment, a citizen science project run by a team at UCL. They asked the public to get involved by providing information about the matter that’s rotting in compost piles around the UK. What do people think about biodegradable plastics and what actually happens to them – do they break down like they are supposed to? Anand finds out about the results so far .from Mark Miodownik, one of the creators of this project, We travel back in time to 66 million years ago, when a massive meteorite smacked into the Gulf of Mexico bringing the reign of the dinosaurs to a cataclysmic conclusion. It was also the beginning of a new chapter in the history of life on Earth. The impact may have caused an apocalypse of earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions and the darkness of a nuclear winter; but it may also have created a haven for new life forms to emerge. Roland Pease has been talking to two geologists, David Kring and Tim Bralower, who have found evidence for the return of life in the crater after the carnage of the meteorite strike.Presented by Anand Jagatia Produced by Melanie Brown