Episode Details

Today the government announced a plan to rid England of bovine TB within 25 years. Adam Rutherford looks back at how this issue has evolved and the extent to which scientific evidence has informed the eradication strategies, from culling badgers to vaccination programs.

Pharmacognosy is the study of medicines found in nature. Reporter Gaia Vince travels to the seaside to find out how corals could save us from sunburn in summers to come.

There are an estimated 23,000 pieces of space junk around the size of a tennis ball floating above us. But there are millions of smaller bits of flotsam and jetsam, from the exploded rocket debris to fleck of paints. Even a 1cm bit of space debris could deliver the same energy as a car impacting on a concrete wall at 30 miles per hour.