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COP21
It is the 21st Conference of the Parties, the annual meeting of nations to agree on action to avoid climate change. As reporters and ministers begin to arrive in France, we take a look at the challenges facing them this time.

CERN’s ALICE Experiment
Adam Rutherford visits CERN in Geneva, to see ALICE (A Large Ion Collision Experiment). ALICE is designed to investigate one of the four fundamental forces in the Universe. The strong nuclear force is the most powerful, but only over a very short distance. It is what holds quarks together, and quarks stuck together in the right conformation make neutrons and protons. Protons and neutrons stuck together plus electrons make up atoms, which is what everything is made of.

Einstein at 100
Einstein’s general theory of relativity turned 100 this week. Scientists around the world celebrated the landmark leaving many of the rest of us, as usual, to wonder quite what the theory is. Toby Wiseman from Imperial College London offers a beginner’s guide to the theory.

Future of Biodiversity
"I'm determined to prove botany is not the 'Cinderella of science'". That is what Professor Kathy Willis, director of Science at the Royal Botanic Garden in Kew, London, told the Independent in 2014. In the two years since she took on the job she has been faced with a reduction in government funding. So, Kathy Willis has been rethinking the science that is to be done by the staff of the Gardens and has been criticised for her decisions. But as well as leading this transformation, Kathy has a distinguished academic career in biodiversity. She is currently a professor at Oxford University and, during her research career, she has studied plants and their environments all over the world, from the New Forest, when she was a student in Southampton, to the Galapagos Islands where she studied the impact of the removal of the giant tortoises on the vegetation there.

Tardigrade Genome
Tardigrade pretty much defines ‘diverse’. It is a rare beast that can survive at temperatures nearly down to zero, by that absolute zero - as cold as it gets in the Universe. And it is a rare beast also that can handle being dried out, going for a whole decade without water. Tardigrades, also known as water bears are about a tenth of a millimetre in size, they are tiny but so often full of big surprises for researchers. This week new research states that the animals get big chunks of their DNA from other animals.

Tarantula’s Eight Ways to Blue
Scientists looking at the genetic history of the Blue colouring in several species of tarantula have concluded that it evolved separately in history, maybe as often as eight discrete occasions. But quite why these strange repeated instances of convergent evolution occurred is far from clear.

Ultrasound Captures Rat Brain in Microscopic 3D
Scientists in France have developed an ultrasound technique that can rapidly build up a 3D view of a network of blood vessels, in microscopic detail. They used it to scan the blood vessels throughout the brain of a live rat. Within a few years, the researchers say their system could reach the clinic and help with cancer and stroke diagnosis. For the procedure, published in Nature, the rat was injected with millions of very tiny bubbles, which reflect sound waves much better than blood vessels.

(Photo caption: The Eiffel Tower is partially covered by an early morning fog in Paris, France, as the capital will host COP21 © Reuters/Philippe Wojazer)

The Science Hour was presented by Gareth Mitchell with comments from ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Science Reporter Dr Jonathan Webb

Producer: Alex Mansfield