Red blood cells’ surprising immune function

News of an Australian library book finally finding its way home 150 years after it was borrowed has the Unexpected Elements team thinking about things that get forgotten, filed away or simply turn up much later than expected.We start with the story of a meteorite from Mars that s ...  Show more

As Europe experiences its first total solar eclipse in almost 30 years this week, Unexpected Elements investigates the surprising science that emerges when sunlight is blocked out. We travel to the forests of Italy, where we investigate whether trees can communicate their eclipse ...  Show more

Tens of thousands of lives could be saved each year if hospitals had more blood. So scientists are racing to understand how this living fluid does what it does in order to one day grow it from scratch. Guest: Nicola Twilley, New Yorker contributor and host of Gastropod. For show ...  Show more

In the past 18 months we have heard lots about the human immune system, as we all learn about how our bodies fight off Covid-19 and how the vaccine helps protect us. But this got listener John, in Alberta, Canada, thinking about how trees and plants respond to diseases and thr ...

It’s the sort of plot you would expect from a classic sci-fi movie; what if there are viruses trapped deep in Antarctic ice that could wreak havoc on humans?

Crowdscience presenter Alex Lathbridge puts on warm gloves and meets the scientists venturing into the icy wilds ...

The Immune SystemBrian Cox and Robin Ince are joined by comedian Shappi Khorsandi, Prof Dan Davis and Prof Steve Jones to look at our amazingly complex and clever immune system. They look at how the human body fights disease, and why it has been so little understood until now. Fe ...  Show more