Last summer saw intense heatwaves across the world. And already this year, global air, surface and sea temperatures have hit the highest levels on record. China, India and the US are currently experiencing heatwaves. In June, the UK’s Met Office released a health warning because of the high temperatures. In this episode Gaia Vince investigates what causes heatwaves and how hotter weather impacts our health. She finds out how we can prepare ourselves as the temperatures rise. Gaia is joined by Peter Stott at the Met Office Centre for Climate Prediction, who reveals more about the forecast and what causes heatwaves. She also speaks to Bob Ward, policy director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate and the Environment, who gives us the lowdown on the UK’s heat health warning system and says what the future could look like if we continue to miss climate targets. In addition, Dann Mitchell, professor of climate science at the University of Bristol, discusses the health impacts of extreme heat. Guillermo Rein, professor of fire science at Imperial College London, explains what sparks wildfires and how they spread. Elsewhere, Germany has launched a high-tech heat health warning system to warn people when the temperatures are rocketing. Gaia speaks to Andreas Matzarakis, from Albert Ludwig University in Freiburg, who developed the system. Presenter: Gaia Vince Producer: Harrison Lewis Content Producer: Alice Lipscombe-Southwell Assistant Producer: Robbie Wojciechowski Editor: Richard Collings

Scientists, conservationists and other researchers are using audio soundscapes in innovative ways to record the natural world in rich detail and help develop strategies to preserve it. Gaia Vince visits the Dear Earth exhibition at London’s Southbank Centre where she interacts with the ‘Tell It To The Birds’ artwork by Jenny Kendler. This piece transforms spoken word into birdsong, which Jenny hopes will help raise awareness of threatened species. She is joined by Dr Patricia Brekke from the Zoological Society of London who reveals more about the threats faced by birds. We then visit the Knepp Estate to meet ecologist Penny Green, who reveals more about the value of audio for her work. Gaia then speaks to Dr Alice Eldridge, an acoustics expert from the University of Sussex, who has spearheaded the Wilding Radio project at the Knepp Estate in Sussex. She was curious to find out whether the sounds in the environment would change following the introduction of beavers to the estate. In collaboration with arts cooperative Soundcamp, she built high-quality, solar-powered equipment to continuously broadcast the soundscape from above and below the water. While we can record animals which we currently share the world with, what about those that have been lost forever? Cheryl Tipp, the British Library’s curator of wildlife and environmental sounds, looks after the library’s audio collection of more than 250,000 species and habitat recordings. She shares the heartbreaking tale of a now-extinct bird and explains why sound is such a valuable resource. Finally, Dr Tim Lamont, a marine biologist from Lancaster University, tells us why a degraded coral reef sounds different from a healthy one. He explains how broadcasting the sounds of a healthy reef can help attract more marine wildlife to an area. Presenter: Gaia Vince Producer: Hannah Fisher Content Producer: Alice Lipscombe-Southwell Editor: Richard Collings

On Tuesday, the United Nations reported that the breach of the Nova Kakhovka dam on the Dnipro River in Ukraine will impact heavily on global food security, causing a rise in food prices and leaving many without access to clean drinking water. Nine days after the disaster Gaia looks to the future alongside Kira Rudyk, Ukrainian MP who is also leader of the opposition party Golos and Laura Wellesley, senior research fellow in the Environment and Society Programme at Chatham House. Earlier this week the three-year inquiry into COVID began, seeking ‘to examine the UK’s response to and impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and learn lessons for the future.’ Eyes are on the inquiry from many angles. Inside Science looks at what scientists hope to contribute and learn from it, with author and broadcaster Philip Ball. Also, a spike in North Atlantic sea temperatures has sparked concern among scientists. Richard Betts, head of climate impacts at the Met Office, talks through the factors that have coincided to form the anomaly. Presenter: Gaia Vince Producer: Harrison Lewis Assistant producer: Robbie Wojciechowski Editor: Richard Collings

For World Ocean Day, Gaia Vince finds out how the planet’s seas could help us to generate clean power, capture CO2 and feed the world. Gaia is joined in the studio by science journalist and marine biologist Olive Heffernan. She dives into the controversy regarding the potential of mining in deep oceans and discusses whether the seas could become the location for Industrial Revolution 2.0. We’re used to seeing seaweed wrapped around our sushi rolls but it’s so much more than that. As well as being a tasty addition to what we eat, seaweed plays a vital role in absorbing CO2. Gaia speaks to Vincent Doumeizel, a senior adviser on oceans to the UN Global Compact; he’s also the food programme director at the UK-based charity Lloyd’s Register Foundation. He’s confident that seaweed could enable us to sustainably feed a growing global population in the coming decades. Phytoplankton – microscopic species of algae that exist on the surface of the sea – also absorb huge amounts of carbon from the atmosphere. Sir David King, founder and chair of the Climate Crisis Advisory Group and former chief scientific adviser to the UK Government has the radical idea that artificial whale poo could boost phytoplankton growth, leading to an increase in fish stocks and, consequently, improved biodiversity in the oceans. He tells Gaia about his project and the potential it has for carbon capture. When we think of energy generation from the oceans, we tend to think of offshore technology such as wind turbines. But what about generating electricity using the water itself? Gaia speaks to Eco Wave Power’s Inna Braverman who reveals how her project harnesses the power of the waves by attaching to existing coastal structures such as piers and jetties, to provide a source of clean, renewable energy. Presenter: Gaia Vince Producer: Hannah Fisher Content Producer: Alice Lipscombe-Southwell Editor: Richard Collings

In the headlines this week eminent tech experts and public figures signed an open letter that read “Mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war.” One of the signatories was Geoffrey Hinton, the so-called ‘godfather of AI’. He’s become so concerned about the risks associated with artificial intelligence that he recently decided to quit his job at Google, where he had worked for more than a decade. But are these concerns justified, or is it overblown scaremongering? And should we start prepping for a Terminator-style takeover? To get the answers, presenter Gareth Mitchell is joined by computational linguist Prof Emily M. Bender from the University of Washington along with Dr Stephen Cave, Director at the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence (CFI). Next up, we hear from Prof Carl Sayer at UCL, along with Dr Cicely Marshall and Dr Matthew Wilkinson from the University of Cambridge, to dig into the science behind wildflower meadows and whether they can boost biodiversity and even help ease climate change. Finally, have you heard about Balto the sled dog? He was part of a life-saving mission in the 1920s and now he has the chance to be a hero once more. His DNA has been studied by the Zoonomia project, which is using databases of genomes from hundreds of mammals to build a better picture of evolution. This data could then be used help identify those animals that are at the greatest risk of extinction. Presenter: Gareth Mitchell Producer: Harrison Lewis Content Producers: Ella Hubber and Alice Lipscombe-Southwell Editor: Richard Collings

This week, we hear from the University of Florida’s Dr David Duffy. He heads up a team of researchers who are studying sea turtles. In order to track the animals and their diseases, the scientists devised a method of collecting fragments of DNA from tanks at the university’s turtle hospital, as well as from sand and water in the local environment. While they found plenty of turtle DNA, they were surprised to uncover large amounts of high-quality human eDNA. Duffy tells us all about the study and his surprising findings, but also highlights the ethical problems this could raise. We are then joined by Dr Matt Clark from the Natural History Museum, and Sir Jonathan Montgomery from University College London, to discuss the ins and outs of eDNA – how it can be beneficial for conservation, forensics and healthcare, but could also be problematic from a privacy perspective. Muriel Rabone and Dr Adrian Glover from the Natural History Museum have compiled an extensive checklist of all the species present in the remote Clarion-Clipperton Zone, which is an area twice the size of India, five kilometres deep in the Pacific Ocean. While you might expect this part of the sea to be devoid of life, the organisms that live there are surprisingly diverse, and we still know little about them. But the region is also chock-full of in-demand rare-earth metals. And we are joined by Dr Katie King to talk over some of her favourite science stories of the week, followed up by Helen Keen, who gets the kettle on to reveal more about the surprising physics behind a cup of coffee. Milk and two sugars for us, please. Presenter: Gareth Mitchell Producer: Hannah Fisher Content Producer: Alice Lipscombe-Southwell

The Royal Society is the oldest scientific academy in the world. Since being established in 1660, it has painstakingly archived thousands of papers, letters, manuscripts and illustrations from some of science’s most enquiring minds. In this episode, Victoria Gill takes a trip to the society to pore over some of the most intriguing artefacts within its vaults. While there, she finds out more about the formation of the Royal Society and how science has been shaped over the centuries. Along the way, she considers the role of women in science, and asks whether their contributions have been historically overlooked. She is joined by the Royal Society’s Louisiane Ferlier and Keith Moore, along with Prof Uta Frith, a Royal Society Fellow and psychologist, and Dr Stephen Webster, a senior lecturer in science communication at Imperial College London. As part of its Science in the Making project, the Royal Society is currently digitising all of its collections, for everyone to browse through and enjoy. You can find out more on the Royal Society website. Presenter: Victoria Gill Producers: Harrison Lewis, Hannah Fisher Content Producer: Alice Lipscombe-Southwell

Natural disasters such as earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanoes and hurricanes all have the power to cause deadly destruction. One event can lead to another, causing a chain reaction of devastation that can take years to rebuild from. But do all natural events have to turn into a disaster? Is there anything we can do to mitigate their impacts? Gaia Vince speaks to Anastasios Sextos, Professor of Earthquake Engineering at the University of Bristol to find out how we can engineer buildings to withstand earthquakes, and Bruce Malamud, Executive Director of the Institute of Hazard Risk and Resilience at Durham University, to learn how we can build models to forecast the risk of a natural disaster occurring. Lucy Easthope is a leading advisor on emergency planning and disaster recovery and a Professor in Hazard and Risk at Durham University. She joins Gaia in the studio to discuss her experience of being one of the first responders to disasters and how in fact, the way they unfold is more predictable than we might think. Ilan Kelman, Professor of Disasters and Health at UCL, also joins them to discuss the importance of social resilience, long-term planning and effective alert communication in managing and mitigating the aftermath of these events. Presenter: Gaia Vince Producer: Hannah Fisher

In 2020, the UK government committed to protecting at least 30% of land and sea for nature by 2030. Step seven years into the future with Gaia. The UK has achieved its biodiversity goal, but what does wild Britain look like? Richard Benwell, CEO of wildlife and Countryside Link, Meredith Whitten, a researcher and urban environment planner at LSE, Hugo Tagholm, CEO of Oceana and George Monbiot, an environmental writer whose book Regenesis explores sustainable agriculture, describe this radical new world. Presenter: Gaia Vince Producer: Harrison Lewis

James Watson and Francis Crick, who detailed the double-helix structure of DNA in 1953, are perhaps two of the most iconic scientists of the 20th Century. Yet the story of how they made their incredible discovery is perhaps equally famous, with a notorious narrative suggesting that they only identified the structure after taking the work of Rosalind Franklin and using it without her permission. Now, 70 years after the discovery of DNA’s structure, it is perhaps time to rewrite the tale. New evidence has now been unearthed, in the form of an overlooked news article and an unpublished letter, that shows that Franklin was truly an equal contributor to the discovery, and Watson and Crick were not as malicious as previously assumed. Together with Matthew Cobb of the University of Manchester, Nathaniel Comfort from Johns Hopkins University, and Angela Creager of Princeton University, Gaia Vince discusses this tantalising tale and finds out more about how this discovery could bring a whole new twist to the story of DNA. Presenter: Gaia Vince Producer: Harrison Lewis Assistant Producer: Jonathan Blackwell

Whilst the globe struggles to shift to green sustainable energy sources, one industry has its sights set solely on the stars. Space X just launched the biggest rocket the world’s ever seen, and it won’t be their last even if it did end its test flight with a bang. As we enter a new golden age of space travel, Vic asks Associate Professor in Physical Geography Dr Eloise Marais if we are paying enough attention to the environmental impacts posed by a rapidly growing space industry. Have viruses, bacteria, and microorganisms influenced humanity more than we know? Author of new book, Pathogenesis: How Germs Made History, Dr Jonathan Kennedy discusses how germs and disease have shaped human evolution, history and culture and what we can learn from the COVID pandemic. And from unconventional life in space to psychoactive spinning apes, Vic and BBC Climate Reporter Georgina Rannard bring you the best scientific stories from the past couple of weeks. Presenter: Victoria Gill Producer: Harrison Lewis Content Producer: Ella Hubber BBC Inside Science is produced in collaboration with the Open University.

When was the last time you had to use your negotiating skills? Did you walk away satisfied? This week junior doctors are half way through their 4 day walkout, with senior NHS figures suggesting the cancellation of between 250,000 and 350,000 appointments/operations. Victoria Gill is preparing to debate her way through the science of disagreement and identify what qualities make for the perfect negotiator. Associate Professor Sunny Lee, Deputy Director of Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion at University College London helps guide Victoria through the basic building blocks that help resolve conflict, with expert commentary from Camilla Born peeking behind the curtain of COP26, and finally negotiating with elephants? Dr Josh Plotnik at City University of New York suggests that some animals may be actively seeking out conflict with humans. Presenter: Victoria Gill Producer: Harrison Lewis

In this special edition of Inside Science, Vic Gill prepares to rummage through our rubbish, to peek behind the curtain of the UK's recycling habits and see how well prepared we are as a nation to further our efforts of sustainable waste management. Presenter: Vic Gill Producer: Emily Bird

Far away and not enough, those are criticisms of the government’s latest net zero initiative – a plan to reduce emissions . We ask Jim Watson Professor of Energy Policy and Director of the UCL Institute for Sustainable Resources for his assessment. And there’s money to be made from private health testing, the growth of Covid testing has been followed by an upsurge in private screening for cancer in particular, but how useful is it really? BBC Health correspondent Matthew Hill takes a look. Every cell in out body carries an electrical charge. In her new book, We Are Electric: The New Science of Our Body’s Electrome, Sally Adee discusses how this facet might be harnessed for the detection of illnesses, medical treatments and whether it will allow us to develop hidden powers. The World Wood Web is a concept showing how trees communicate with each other through an underground fungal network. The idea was first proposed by Suzanne Simard, Now professor of Forest Ecology at the University of British Columbia, who tells us how she came up with the concept and about her work on the hidden relationships of trees.

Data collated from swab samples taken in Wuhan’s market in the early days of the Covid pandemic suggest animals sold in the market were carrying the virus at the time. It’s the strongest evidence yet for an intermediate species – one which passed the virus on to humans after becoming infected by bats carrying the virus. Dr Florence Debarre from the Institute of ecology and environmental sciences, in Paris and Professor Eddie Holmes from Sydney University discuss the findings. Beethoven’s genome has been reconstructed from samples of his hair. It reveals some of his medical history, but also unexpected findings on his paternity. We discuss the ethics of such genetic analysis with Tom Booth who studies ancient DNA at the Francis Crick institute. And microbes may help us survive and thrive in space according to Astrobiologist Rosa Santomartino, not only that but their recycling capabilities could also help us on earth

Researchers from London’s Francis Crick Institute have found a type of artificial sweetener is able to dampen down immune system responses - at least in mice. Karen Vousden and Fabio Zani tell us about the implications. And Ronan McCarthy from Brunel University has found a range of different artificial sweeteners have antibacterial properties. We discuss the connections between these two areas of research and the prospect of developing drug treatments from artificial sweeteners. Penny Johnes from Bristol University discusses the use of phosphorus in agriculture, it’s a key component of fertilisers, but global supplies may run out in a few years, despite this overuse of phosphorus in agriculture is also creating problems. And Chat GPT has had a makeover, a new version of the chatbot was rolled out this week. Chatbots seem to be getting a lot of press at the moment, but are they really something we will all be using in the future? Technologist and composer LJ Rich who works with the UN on artificial intelligence gives us her analysis. BBC Inside Science is produced in collaboration with the Open University.

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

Science writer Philip Ball has followed the relationship between government and its scientific advisors throughout the pandemic. He discusses the role of scientific advisors in the light of conflicting information following the leak of a number of former Health Minister Matt Hancock’s WhatsApp messages. Phil tells us why he believes greater transpearency is needed around the advice offered to government. The head of the US FBI has suggested the Covid 19 pandemic may have been started through a leak from a laboratory. No evidence has been offered. The ‘lab leak ‘ theory is the counter idea to Covid having a natural origin. We hear from three scientists who have been to China to investigate different aspects of the virus origins story. Journalist and microbiologist Jane Qui visited the Wuhan Institute of Virology – the lab at the centre of the lab leak theory. Marion Koopmans from Erasmus University in Rotterdam was a member of the WHO mission to China to investigate the origins of Covid 19. And Eddie Holmes from the University of Sydney visited the market in Wuhan, the epicentre of the outbreak. Besides inflating party balloons helium gas has a vast range of industrial uses, particularly as a coolant. There’s a world shortage, and helium is only extracted with fossil fuels such as coal and methane gas. Earth scientist Anran Cheng at the University of Oxford has developed a method to look for helium deposits without the fossil fuel connection. And ever wondered how heavy all the animals in the world might be ? We have the answer thanks to Ron Milo and Lior Greenspoon from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel. BBC Inside Science is produced in partnership with the Open University. Presenter: Victoria Gill Producer: Julian Siddle

Sea ice coverage hit a recording-breaking low in the Antarctic this week, but what does this mean for the rest of the world? Why is the region so difficult to predict? And what could further changes in climate mean for the South Pole? Often the Arctic dominates conversations around polar warming but this week, with the help of climate modelling expert Tamsin Edwards, Kings College London, we’ll be tackling these questions and more. We’ll hear from British Antarctic Survey researcher Nadia Frontier, a marine biologist spending the summer at Rothera research base in the Antarctic. We join her as she traverses snow and ice to study the inhabitants of Adelaide island and the surrounding waters. Rachel Tilling from the Cryospheric Sciences Lab at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center helps us explore the continent from a different vantage point, explaining her work using satellite data to understand sea ice thickness. And climate reporter Georgina Rannard takes us through an artistic interpretation of polar sounds, Dr Geraint Rhys Whittaker uses underwater microphones to capture the impact of human activity on polar wildlife. Presenter: Victoria Gill Producers: Julian Siddle and Emily Bird BBC Inside Science is produced in collaboration with The Open University.

Chinese biophysicist He Jiankui caused international outrage when in 2018 when he used the gene-editing tool known as CRISPR Cas-9 to edit the genomes of two human embryos. That experiment, described by the Chinese Academy of Science and Technology described as ‘abominable’, resulted in the birth of twin girls. The experiment also landed Dr He in prison for three years. Now, out of prison and working for a company in Beijing that proclaims to offer “affordable gene therapy” – He Jiankui has been speaking in public. At an open bioethics event at the University of Kent last weekend, organisers invited the scientist to present his research and to face questions about his past experiments and his future plans. We spoke to event organiser Dr Joy Zhang about the reaction to event and to Professor Robin Lovell-Badge at the Crick Institute about the implications of CRISPR-CAS9 technology. A Hippo butchery site reveals that distant human ancestors have been using stone tools far longer than researchers previously thought. This archaeological site in Kenya revealed that ancient hominins Paranthropus have probably been using stone tools to prepare food and weapons since 2.9 million years ago. Professor Tom Plummer at Queens College, City University of New York take us through the discovery and what it reveals about hominin evolution. A study released this week reveals just how much of a burden sons are on killer whale mothers. Michael Wiess, research director at the centre for whale research, fills us in on their findings which are a product of nearly 40 years studying the southern resident Orca population. This long-term Whale census project began in the 70s, championed by researcher Ken Balcomb, who was passionate about understanding and protecting killer whales and who sadly passed away late last year. We hear from Ken and his team out on the water studying the southern residents, more of which can be found in BBC Radio 4 documentary The Whale Menopause. Presenter: Victoria Gill Producer: Emily Bird BBC Inside Science is made in collaboration with the Open University