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Engineering a Plastic-Eating Enzyme

Engineering a plastic-eating enzyme; Malaria crisis; Bajou diving people; Beds from mattresses; Bringing Schrodinger's cat to life; The Double Helix

Two years ago Japanese scientists discovered a type of bacteria which has evolved to feed on PET plastic - the material from which fizzy drink bottles are made. It was isolated at a local recycling centre. An international team has now characterised the structure of the plastic-degrading enzyme and accidentally improved its efficiency. Adam Rutherford spoke to Professor John McGeehan of the University of Portmouth who led the team and talks about where the discovery may lead.

Bill Gates Pledges Billions to Fight Malaria
The Microsoft founder and philanthropist, Bill Gates, has announced new funding from his foundation and other donors to try to halve the number of deaths from malaria. Mr Gates said that the money would be used to improve the bed-nets that help to combat the spread of the disease and to provide digital tools to enable much better targeting of where the nets are needed. He spoke to ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ’s John Humphrys.

The Bajou Diving People
The Bajou people can dive for several minutes at a time, hunting for food for their families. Now scientists’ writing in the journal Cell, have found that they can do this because their spleen is approximately 50% larger than in non-divers. This adaptation allows the divers to release more oxygen carrying red blood cells from the spleen when under water. Roland Pease spoke to the first author Melissa Ilardo who was inspired to look into the basis of their skills having witnessed the Bajau at work.

Beds from Mattresses
Roland Pease visits the greenhouses at the University of Sheffield in the UK, where PhD student Harry Wright and Professor of Physical Chemistry, Tony Ryan are turning old mattresses into bedding material for plants – they are also testing them in a Jordanian refugee camp.

Bringing Schrodinger's Cat to Life
Schrodinger's cat is the one that is famously alive and dead. At the same time. Impossible! Roland Pease meets the quantum scientists hoping to bring one to life in the laboratory. Not a real cat, to be fair. But large biomolecules, viruses, even bacteria, that can exhibit the quantum duality parodied in the paradox first described by one of the fathers of quantum physics. Because if they succeed, they may learn something about the interface between the quantum world, and the human world we live in.

The Double Helix
Fifty years after its 1968 publication, Adam Rutherford speaks to biologist and historian Matthew Cobb and science writer Angela Saini to discuss the place of James Watson's compelling and controversial memoir in the annals of popular science writing. His account of the discovery of the DNA's structure was unlike any science book that had come before. Does it stand the test of time and what of its blatantly sexist treatment of the gifted X-ray crystallographer Rosalind Franklin? Her work was crucial to Crick and Watson's 1953 model of the DNA molecule.

(Picture caption: Labourer sorting out plastic bottles for recycling © Fred Dufour/AFP/Getty Images)

The Science Hour was presented by Roland Pease with comments from science journalist and editor at the Economist Jason Palmer

Producer: Adrian Washbourne

50 minutes

Last on

Sun 22 Apr 2018 03:06GMT

Broadcast

  • Sun 22 Apr 2018 03:06GMT

Podcast