Free Radicals

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the evolution of lungs and of the first breaths, which can be traced back 400 million years to when animal life spread from rock pools and swamps onto land, as some fish found an evolutionary advantage in getting their oxygen from air rather than w ...  Show more

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the decisive role of one of the great 20th Century physicists in solving the question of nuclear fission. It is said that Meitner (1878-1968) made this breakthrough over Christmas 1938 while she was sitting on a log in Sweden during a snowy walk wi ...  Show more

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the power-packs within cells in all complex life on Earth. Inside each cell of every complex organism there are structures known as mitochondria. The 19th century scientists who first observed them thought they were bacteria which had somehow invad ...  Show more

In the 1990s we thought we’d identified the root cause of aging: nasty molecules called free radicals that wreaked havoc on our cells. Even better, we’d figured out how to counteract them with loads of antioxidants. Then science started raising questions.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss an atomic particle that's become inseparable from modernity. JJ Thomson discovered the electron 125 years ago, so revealing that atoms, supposedly the smallest things, were made of even smaller things. He pictured them inside an atomic ball like a ...  Show more

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the evolution and role of Circadian Rhythms, the so-called body clock that influences an organism's daily cycle of physical, behavioural and mental changes. The rhythms are generated within organisms and also in response to external stimuli, ma ...  Show more