成人快手

A few decades ago, when you drove down a country road anywhere in Europe, your car windscreen would get splattered with the squashed bodies of flying insects. It is known as the 'windscreen phenomenon'. But now, there seem to be far fewer flying insects than there used to be. Scientists have long suspected that insects are in dramatic decline, but new evidence confirms this. Roland Pease talks to Dave Goulson from the University of Sussex in the UK who has been involved in the study.

Around a quarter of survivors of the Ebola outbreak that started back in 2014 in West Africa have developed eye problems, including uveitis and cataracts. Dr Jessica Shantha and Dr Steven Yeh, both assistant professors of ophthalmology at Emory University in Atlanta US talked to Claudia Hammond about how they have been studying and treating the conditions.

It smells awful, and is banned in many public places, but to many Southeast Asians its creamy flesh is delicious. Why is there such a dichotomy between the smell and taste of the 'King of Fruit'? New genetic analysis may hold the answers and may even help technologists to engineer the smell out of the durian. Bobbie Lakhera reports.

The speed and ease of precise infection diagnosis could be transformed by synthetic biologists at Imperial College, London. Paul Freemont tells Adam Rutherford about a simple DNA biosensor that turns green in the presence of a pneumonia-causing bacterium that is a particular problem for people with Cystic Fibrosis. He adds that the technology is adaptable to any kind of bacteria and may also aid efforts to curb the spread of antibiotic resistance.

The microbiome, our personal mixture of bacteria and other microbes, varies a lot between individuals and still no one knows what鈥檚 ideal. Greg Gloor, Professor of Biochemistry at Western University in Canada and colleagues have been studying 1000 people in China from the age of three to over a hundred, including an impressive two hundred over 95 year olds. Could their microbiome hold the secrets to a long and healthy life?

When dogs know you are looking at them, they ramp up the expressiveness of their faces. Marnie Chesterton visits the Dog Cognition Centre at the University of Portsmouth to talk to the researchers who made this discovery, and to meet Jimmy the Staffy.

In the quest for a good storyline and lots of action, Hollywood does not always get its science right. The science of geophysics can get mangled in the plot. But rather than worrying about this and getting angry and shouting at the screen, top geophysicist Seth Stein, at Northwestern University, tells Roland Pease that pointing out scientific errors can be a great way to engage students in the subject.

(Picture caption: Bee on cornflower, Eifel, Germany 漏 Getty Images)

The Science Hour was presented by Claudia Hammond with comments from Nature podcast editor, Kerri Smith

Producer: Katy Takatsuki

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