Forever chemicals

Perhaps it’s the biggest question science has left to answer, how did life begin? Now, molecular biologists in Cambridge university have discovered tiny molecules of RNA which they say might provide some clues. Science journalist and author Philip Ball explains what we know and w ...  Show more

A small but mighty problem: what to do with the radioactive waste we have already made? Professor Clare Corkhill from the University of Bristol gives us the run down on how radioactive waste is created. In Onkalo Finland, Victoria Gill visits the first national facility able to p ...  Show more

#170

So is there any hope of destroying forever chemicals? Once we've made these super resilient molecules, can we finally figure out how to unmake them? And if so, how? Well the good news is yes, they can be destroyed, and the methods are fascina ...

#169

Time for some action. This week on our "forever chemicals" aka PFAS series, get ready to talk about what we can do about PFAS. Can we get rid of them? Can we filter them? Destroy them? Once and for all? Let's find out.

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In the decade since the genome editing capabilities of CRISPR-Cas9 emerged, research into novel medicines has boomed – but alongside progress comes new ethical considerations. Controversy erupted in 2018, when Chinese scientist He Jiankui created the first babies with edited geno ...  Show more

Philip Ball tells the science story of German chemist Friedrich Wöhler’s creation of urea, an organic substance previously thought only to be produced by living creatures. Yet in 1828 Wöhler created urea from decidedly non-living substances. It was exciting because the accidental ...  Show more