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THE MATERIAL WORLD
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PROGRAMME INFO |
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Quentin Cooper reports on developments across the sciences. Each week scientists describe their work, conveying the excitement they feel for their research projects.
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LISTEN AGAIN 听30 min |
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PRESENTER |
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"For me science isn't a subject, it's a perspective. There are fascinating scientific aspects to everything from ancient history to the latest gadgets, outer space to interior decorating; and each week on The Material World we try to reflect the excitement, ideas, uncertainties, collisions and collaborations as science continues its never-ending voyage into the unknown".
Quentin Cooper |
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| Boulengerula taitanus, a species of Caecilian, with its young |
Skin-eating Caecilians
Human parents are used to making sacrifices for the good of their children and providing them with the nutrition they need to grow into healthy adults.
However it seems that a peculiar kind of Caecilian amphibian has taken the boundaries of parental care one step further.
The offspring of a Caecilian from the Taita Mountains in Kenya literally eat the skin off their mother's back.
The young even have specially developed dentures to enable them to eat the nutrient rich skin of their mother with ease.
Quentin Cooper is joined by Dr Alexander Kupfer, a research fellow at the Natural History Museum and Professor Tim Halliday, International Director of the Declining Amphibian Populations Task Force (DAPTF) at the Open University to discuss this seemingly unthinkable sacrifice and the further habits of this curious creature as well as the state of amphibian populations around the world.
The Park Grass Experiment
The world's longest-running ecological experiment is now 150 years old.
The Park Grass experiment at Rothamsted was set up in a Hertfordshire field in 1856 by Gilbert and Lawes to test the effects of fertilisers and manures on crops.
It soon became evident that a lot more than anticipated could be learned from these simple fields.
They have been a major contribution to ecology research and helped us understand a lot of the basic principles we take for granted today.
Dr Keith Goulding, head of the Agriculture and Environment Division at Rothamsted Research and Professor Jonathan Silvertown from the Open University tell Quentin why the Park Grass Experiment is going strong after 150 years and why we're still reaping the benefits of the research today.
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