Dr Julia Ravey and Dr Ella Hubber are both scientists, but it turns out there’s a lot they don’t know about the women that came before them. In Unstoppable, Julia and Ella tell each other the hidden, world-shaping stories of the scientists, engineers and innovators that they wish they’d known about when they were starting out in science. This week, a Chinese malariologist who hunted for clues in ancient medical texts to find a cure for one of the world’s deadliest diseases.During a time of global political tension, the Chinese government set up a top-secret project to help communist troops in North Vietnam struggling with malaria. And tasked with this mission was young scientist, Tu Youyou. With a drive to help people after falling ill as a teenager and seeing the horrors of malaria firsthand, Tu turned to traditional Chinese medicine to look for potential treatments. And, after finding a hit, decided she should be the one to trial it...Named as arguably the most important pharmaceutical discovery in the last half-century, winning the 2015 Nobel Prize, discover how one woman used an overlooked herb combined with modern science to ultimately save millions of lives.Clip credit: Vietnam Special: War Without End, 1966 (BBC Archive)(Image: Chief Professor Tu Youyou, laureate of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine acknowledges applause after she received her Nobel Prize from King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden during the Nobel Prize Awards Ceremony at Concert Hall on December 10, 2015 in Stockholm, Sweden. Credit: Pascal Le Segretain/WireImage via GettyImages)Presenters: Ella Hubber and Julia Ravey
Guest Speaker: Dr Xun Zhou, University of Essex
Producers: Ella Hubber and Julia Ravey
Assistant producers: Sophie Ormiston, Anna Charalambou and Josie Hardy
Sound Designer: Ella Roberts
Production Coordinator: Ishmael Soriano
Editor: Holly Squire
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Unstoppable: Purnima Devi Barman
Dr Julia Ravey and Dr Ella Hubber are both scientists, but it turns out there’s a lot they don’t know about the women that came before them. In Unstoppable, Julia and Ella tell each other the hidden, world-shaping stories of the scientists, engineers and innovators that they wish they’d known about when they were starting out in science. This week, the story of an Indian conservationist who combines stork preservation with female empowerment.
On the banks of the Brahmaputra River in the Indian state of Assam, a young Purnima Barman discovers a love of storks whilst singing songs with her farmer grandmother. Fast forward decades later, she has created a community like no other by recruiting an army of over 20,000 village women to bring the Hargila storks from her childhood back from the brink of extinction. With their shared goal of restoring the relationship between the people and the wildlife, discover how Purnima is empowering women in the face of gender inequality.
Presenters: Ella Hubber and Julia Ravey
Guest Speaker: Dr Purnima Devi Barman
Producers: Ella Hubber and Julia Ravey
Assistant producers: Sophie Ormiston, Anna Charalambou and Josie Hardy
Sound Designer: Ella Roberts
Production Coordinator: Ishmael Soriano
Editor: Holly Squire(Image: Purnima Devi Barman. Credit: Purnima Devi Barman)
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The Life Scientific - Anna Korre
As the famous frog once said, it's not easy being green. And when it comes to decarbonising industry, indeed, reducing emissions of all sorts, the task is a complex one.Fossil fuels are used to manufacture some of mankind’s most ubiquitous products, from plastics to cement to steel; and even in areas where we’re trying to improve our footprint, there are repercussions. Mining lithium for electric car batteries isn’t exactly without impact. Add to the mix stories of corporations prioritising profits, and governments focusing on short-term popular policies – and it would be easy to feel disheartened.Professor Anna Korre says her role is to be the champion of science in this debate: providing clear evidence to help reduce environmental impacts, while allowing vital production processes to continue.Anna is an environmental engineer at Imperial College London and Co-Director of the university’s Energy Futures Lab. Her work has led to a risk model that's now used in mining operations around the world – and her current research into underground CO2 storage could hold the key to decarbonising British industry. But as she tells Jim Al-Khalili, social and family expectations when she was growing up in her native Greece meant her successful career in engineering very nearly didn't happen...
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The Life Scientific - Rosalie David
Rosalie David is a pioneer in the study of ancient Egypt. In the early 1970s, she launched a unique project to study Egyptian mummified bodies using the techniques of modern medicine. Back then, the vast majority of Egyptologists regarded mummies as unimportant sources of information about life in ancient Egypt. Instead they focussed on interpreting hieroglyphic inscriptions, the written record in papyrus documents and archaeological remains and artefacts. Rosalie David proved that the traditionalists were quite wrong.Professor David’s mummy research started at the Manchester Museum when she began to collaborate with radiologists at in Manchester, taking the museum’s mummies for x-rays at the hospital. Her multi-disciplinary team later moved to a dedicated institute at the University of Manchester, the KNH Centre for Biomedical Egyptology. Over the decades, the team there has made remarkable discoveries about disease and medicine in ancient Egyptian society, providing a new perspective on the history of medicine and giving extraordinary insights into the lives of individuals all those years ago.Rosalie tells Jim Al-Khalili about her journey from classics and ancient history to biomedicine, including some of her adventures in Egypt in the 1960s. She talks about some of her most significant research projects, and the 21st Century forensic detective work on the mummy of a young woman which revealed a gruesome murder 3,000 years ago...
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The Life Scientific - Peter Stott
In the summer of 2003, Europe experienced its most intense heatwave on record - one that saw more than 70,000 people lose their lives.
Experiencing the effects whilst on holiday in Tuscany, climate scientist Peter Stott was struck by the idea that just maybe, he could use a modelling system developed by his team at the UK’s Meteorological Office, to study extreme weather events such as this very heatwave mathematically; and figure out the extent to which human influences were increasing their probability.That’s exactly what he went on to do - and, through this work and more, Peter has helped to shine a light on the causes and effects of climate change.
His career, predominantly at the Meteorological Office, has seen him take on climate change sceptics and explain the intricacies of greenhouse gas emissions to global leaders. His work with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change even earned him a share of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize.But the biggest challenge remains: Peter talks to Jim Al-Khalili about whether humanity can adapt quickly enough to deal with the increasingly dangerous effects of our warming world...
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