Main content

Has a company really discovered a million new species?

Investigating whether Basecamp Research found hundreds of thousands of bacteria species.

Have a million new species just been discovered?

That’s the claim made by Dr Oliver Vince, co-founder of a company called Basecamp Research, who are collecting genetic data to train AI systems. The hope is that they’ll be able to use this to discover new medicines.

But is this number a good one? Rob Finn, from the European Bioinformatics Institute, explains what is being counted and how you go about counting them.

Credits:
Presenter and producer: Tom Colls
Production co-ordinator: Brenda Brown
Sound mix: Dave O’Neill
Editor: Richard Vadon

Available now

9 minutes

More episodes

See all episodes from More or Less

Podcast

  • More or Less

    Tim Harford explains the numbers and statistics in the news and in life.