Use BBC.com or the new BBC App to listen to BBC podcasts, Radio 4 and the World Service outside the UK.

Find out how to listen to other BBC stations

Episode details

Radio 4,13 May 2010,30 mins

13/05/2010

Material World

Available for over a year

Quentin Cooper presents his weekly digest of science in and behind the headlines. This week the dangers of deep water exploration. How do engineers drill wells into the rock below the sea bed? How do they overcome the different currents that drag the mile long steel tube in different directions? The maths behind electoral reform - is there such a thing as a fair voting system? The fourth of our finalists from our science talent search "So you want to be a scientist?" meets her mentor and decides on how best to track snails from her garden. And fifty years of the laser - what will be next fifty bring - we find out if nuclear fusion is a reality? The producer is Ania Lichtarowicz.

Programme Website
More episodes