The Life Scientific Folgen

Professor John Pickett's research into GM crops was at the centre of a public debate last month. His experimental work has engineered insect alarm systems into wheat, so that the plants give off chemicals which repel greenflies or aphids. Activists known as "Take the Flour Back" had threatened to destroy field trials, but the day passed peacefully.Professor Pickett's research for over 30 years has been based on using insect pheromones (the chemical messengers the insects send to one another) and understanding how plants are able to attract or push crop pests away. A pioneering technique he's developed known as push pull means that farmers in Africa have been able to improve their yields simply by planting what are known as companion crops that repel pests and trap crops which entice the insects. So if this approach is so successful is there really a need for GM versions?

Jim al-Khalili talks to the former chief scientific advisor, Robert May about restoring public trust in science in the wake of the BSE crisis and at the height of the anti-GM campaigns of the mid-nineties. If he were a species of plant, Bob May says he would be the "weedy type", moving as he has into new fields of science and proliferating rapidly, rather than a more established, specialised variety. He has applied mathematics first to physics, then ecology and, most recently, to banking. Producer: Anna Buckley.

Jim Al-Khalili meets neuroscientist Barbara Sahakian. Neurotransmitters are chemicals in the brain which effect our memory and understanding, and neuropharmacology is the study of drugs which can be used in conditions like Alzheimer's disease or depression. But can new treatments improve the performance of surgeons or pilots and could they even be used to make us more entrepreneurial?