BBC Focus Magazine

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strange thought popped into my head whilst driving on the motorway this evening, if two cars each travelling at 70 mph crashed head on, is that the same as one car crashing into a solid wall at 140mph

This week's guide to science on the telly and radio...

Sun 16 June

Operation Snow Tiger
BBC Two, 8:00-9.00pm

Liz Bonnin joins a team of scientists and cameramen to track down one the planet’s rarest and most elusive animals: the Siberian tiger. This week they discover an orphaned tiger cub, but have they rescued him in time?

Rise of the Continents
BBC Two, 9:00-10.00pm

Prof Iain Stewart tells the story of how our iconic continents ...

Image Credit: SPL

"I'm a neuroengineer, and one of my goals is building brains."

Prof Steven Potter was disarmingly understated as he introduced himself.

It's not that tissue engineering is unusual. Nor even that doing it with neural cells should be an issue.

If heart cells or skin cells can be reprogrammed, why not neurons?

But "building brains" had been my flip way of labelling an intriguing, indeed unnerving, branch of science: the neurophysiology ...

Image Credit: Airbus

An aircraft with a lace-like structure may not seem like the best way to fly, but it is one of a range of radical ideas about how we may travel in the future.

A model of the aircraft, designed by Airbus, was shown off at the TEDGlobal conference in Edinburgh.

Taking inspiration from the human skeleton, the design is both strong and relatively lightweight.

This means it could, in theory, drastically ...

Image Credit: SPL

Human genes may not be patented, but artificially copied DNA can be claimed as intellectual property, the US Supreme Court has ruled unanimously.

The court quashed patents held by a Utah-based firm on two genes linked to breast and ovarian cancer.

The opinion said DNA came from nature and was not eligible for patenting.

The US biotechnology industry had warned any blanket ban on such patents would jeopardise huge investment in ...

Click - 08/06/2013

Featuring a look at the world's first digital currency and a conversation with the creator of the world wide web, Sir Tim Berners-Lee. Includes tech news and web roundup.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/JHU

A black hole 11 million light-years away has gone dormant, a decade after being spotted consuming cosmic debris.

The black hole lies at the centre of the Sculptor galaxy, a so-called starburst galaxy where stars are being born at a prodigious rate.

But the X-ray light corresponding to a black hole's snack has dimmed markedly.

The find, to appear in Astrophysical Journal, has mystified astronomers because star formation and black hole ...

Several types of downhill flow features have been observed on Mars Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech, Univ. Arizona

Long thin grooves - called gullies - on the surface of Mars may have been made not by water but by blocks of frozen carbon dioxide - dry ice.

These blocks seem to have flowed down Martian sand dunes on cushions of carbon dioxide gas.

Researchers liken these icy sleds to small hovercraft "ploughing furrows as they go". ...

Clonmacnoise Image Credit: Francis Ludlow

Researchers have been able to trace the impact of volcanic eruptions on the climate over a 1200 year period by assessing ancient Irish texts.

The international team compared entries in these medieval annals with ice core data indicating volcanic eruptions.

Of 38 volcanic events, 37 were associated with directly observed cold weather extremes recorded in the chronicles.

The report is published in the journal Environmental Research Letters.

In the ...