Podcasts

Stonehenge, microscopic plants, and baboons

23 August 2011

In this Planet Earth podcast Sue Nelson will ask why scientists are working with the National Trust to restore the chalk grasslands around Stonehenge, how scientists are using satellites to study microscopic plants and the etiquette of dining and bullying in baboons.

 

Dr Peter Miller, a PML Remote Sensing Scientist, explains why measuring plankton blooms from space tells scientists much more about how healthy the oceans are than they could find out from close up in a boat.

 

Marine biodiversity on the Isles of Scilly

October 2010

Richard Warwick, PML Fellow, talks to Jaclyn Pearson from the Isles of Scilly Wildlife Trust about an all taxon biodiversity inventory for the marine life of the Isles of Scilly.

 

Butterflies, buoys and the English Channel

31 August 2010

In this Planet Earth podcast, Sue Nelson goes to the Eden Project in Cornwall, southwest England and to the South Downs in southeast England to find out what butterfly research is telling us about climate change. As you might expect, there's some bad news to report, but surprisingly there's also hopeful news – at least for the silver spotted skipper.

 

Meanwhile Richard Hollingham goes to PML to hear how long-term monitoring buoys in the English Channel have helped reveal, among other things, that the water has gradually been getting warmer.

 

Rockpools and ocean acidification

16 August 2010

Everyone loves a rockpool, and Sue Nelson nearly takes a dive into one in this week's podcast while finding out about the riches they contain. She visits the Anglesey coast of north Wales to learn what these mini marine laboratories can tell us about the value of biodiversity. 

The effects of climate change range from rising temperatures and higher sea levels to extreme weather and mass extinctions. Richard Hollingham reports from PML where scientists are investigating another, hidden process – increasing ocean acidification. And finally we learn how scientists are using pan scourers to find out how communities of marine creatures might respond to chemical changes in our oceans.

 

Leeches, earthquakes and weird sea-life

25 May 2010

It seems that hardly a week goes by without a major earthquake striking somewhere in the world, which may be why many people have been asking scientists at the British Geological Survey (BSG) if earthquakes are getting more frequent. Science writer and broadcaster Richard Hollingham talks to expert seismologist Brian Baptie from BGS and we also hear from PML scientists, on a boat off the coast of Cornwall (UK), sampling seawater and sediment from the seafloor to try to understand how marine ecosystems change from one month to the next, coming across many weird and wonderful creatures in the process.

 

Climate change special

11 December 2009

As the world talks global warming, scientists go to one of the chilliest places in Europe to find out what evidence there is for manmade climate change. Science writer and broadcaster Richard Hollingham, talks to the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) and PML's Science Communicator, Kelvin Boot.

 

Satellites and acid oceans

30 November 2009

With climate change and the talks in Copenhagen dominating the news right now, we find out how satellites have revolutionised our understanding of climate change. Science writer and broadcaster, Richard Hollingham, talks to ocean acidification experts Dr Ian Joint and Dr Jack Gilbert at PML to find out how the acidity of the oceans has changed in the last three decades and what this means for ocean life.

 

An interview with Dr J. Craig Venter

21 May 2009

Possibly one of the world's best known geneticists, Dr J. Craig Venter with his Sorcerer II yacht crew visited Plymouth and PML during his expedition to build a complete genetic map of the ocean. Science writer and broadcaster Richard Hollingham talks to Venter and PML ecologist Jack Gilbert.

 

Adapting to ocean acidification

05 January 2009

Science writer and broadcaster Richard Hollingham meets with Ian Joint and Jack Gilbert from PML to find out more about ocean acidification and how using new genetic techniques are helping scientists uncover adaptation in marine organisms.

 

Are phytoplankton fighting climate change?

21 November 2009

Science writer and broadcaster Richard Hollingham talks to Steve Archer and Mark Breckels from PML about the role of marine algae in atmospheric cooling.

 

Blooming useful

21 October 2009

Carole Llewellyn and Steve Skill from PML tell science writer and broadcaster Richard Hollingham about their hopes that algae can help solve a number of environmental problems.