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Hiroshima radiation, Anthropocene, Bonobo noises, Physicist Henry Moseley

Science news with Adam Rutherford, including discussion on the radiation effects after Hiroshima, and whether the first atomic bomb tests started the Anthropocene.

In the 70 years since the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, what are the long term effects of exposure to radiation? Adam Rutherford talks to Professor Richard Wakeford who has been studying radiation for many years about his research following the nuclear bombings as well as nuclear accidents at Chernobyl and Fukushima. Marnie Chesterton talks to one of the short-listed entries for the Royal Society Winton book prize, Gaia Vince for her book, Adventures in the Anthropocene: A Journey to the Heart of the Planet we Made. Other short-listed entries are:

*The Man Who Couldn't Stop by David Adam - a scientific and personal memoir of a life with OCD.
*Life on the Edge: The Coming of Age of Quantum Biology by Johnjoe Mcfadden and Jim Al-Khalili
*Alex Through the Looking-Glass: How Life Reflects Numbers and Numbers Reflect Life by Alex Bellos
*Smashing Physics by Jon Butterworth - an insider's account of the discovery of the Higgs boson
*Life's Greatest Secret: The Story of the Race to Crack the Genetic Code by Matthew Cobb

Also, Adam talks to Zanna Clay about research into our closest relatives, the bonobos and the unique 'peep' noises they make and why they could provide clues to the evolution of human language. Roland Pease reports on one of Britain's great yet little known physicists, Henry Moseley. He died in the First World War but in just 18 months of research transformed ideas about X-rays and the atom and the Periodic Table of elements.

Available now

30 minutes

Broadcasts

  • Thu 6 Aug 2015 16:30
  • Thu 6 Aug 2015 21:00

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