What’s on (29 Sept – 5 Oct 2012)

Fancy watching (or listening to) something new? Here’s our pick of the week’s science on TV and radio…

Sun 30 September

Planet Earth Live: an Elephant's Tale
BBC1, 5.35-6.35pm

Meet Maya, a newborn elephant calf who lives in Kenya’s Samburu National Reserve. It’s the rainy season and food is plentiful, but Maya and her first-time mum Zadie must avoid hungry lions, gun-toting poachers and the flooded river that flows through the reserve.

 

 

Mon 1 October

The Digital Human
BBC Radio 4 (FM only), 4.30-5.00pm

Aleks Krotoski presents a new series examining how the digital era is transforming the way we live and interact with others. This week, she explores how people are striving to preserve their cultural identities in the digital age.

 

Tues 2 October

The Life Scientific
BBC Radio 4, 9.00-9.30am

Jim Al-Khalili talks to Sir Mark Walport, the next chief scientific advisor to the government. Walport hopes to tackle environmental change and problems associated with our ageing population, as well as altering the government’s attitude towards science.

 

Saving Species
BBC Radio 4 (FM only), 11.00-11.30am

Brett Westwood examines the issues facing Britain’s rivers and freshwater systems. He meets a member of the Shropshire Wildlife Trust to find out about the problems affecting our crowded countryside, and travels to University College London to learn about the role of wildlife in today’s freshwater habitats.

Costing the Earth
BBC Radio 4 (FM only), 3.30-4.00pm

We’ve long been promised that ocean waves and tides could provide a solution to our energy crisis. But how close are we to this wave-powered utopia? Tom Heap investigates...

 

Thurs 4 October

Material World
BBC Radio 4 (FM only), 4.30-5.00pm

Quentin Cooper discusses the latest scientific developments and topical issues.

 

Explosions: How We Shook the World
BBC4, 8.00-9.00pm

Engineer Jem Stansfield – presenter of Bang Goes the Theory – investigates how we have learnt to control and harness explosions throughout history – a story that takes him from ancient China to the mines of Cornwall. First aired in 2010.