BBC Inside Science

12/11/2026

A weekly show exploring science, its mysteries, and the debates it sparks.

The zeptoverse

What does it mean to look inside the very fabric of the universe? This week on Inside Science, Tom Whipple enters the zeptoverse with particle physicist Harry Cliff, exp

The race to protect a third of the world

It's the time of year when nations come together to try and agree on a plan to futureproof the planet. But in the lead up to the Conference of the Parties 31, another mee

Is there time on Mars?

The first ever spacecraft to bring Martian samples back to Earth has launched from Japan. However, before the spacecraft returns from Phobos in 2031 there are many comple

The climate changing power of 400 billion toasters

Back in May, we checked in on the developments in the eastern Pacific’s ocean currents, that we call El Niño. We said that stirrings in the surface suggested there might

Will AI complete mathematics?

Tom Whipple investigates one of the biggest days in the 10,000 year history of maths. This week, overnight, OpenAI dropped hundreds of mathematical papers onto the intern

The future of particle physics

Tom Whipple travels 100m below Switzerland to the tunnels of CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC) where the beams have been powered down to begin the High-Luminosity LHC up

Do you have the correct time?

In October members of the General Conference on Weights and Measurements are voting to change how we keep time on Earth accurate. Currently an additional second, known as

AI to solve the energy crisis?

Nuclear fusion energy, the idea of copying the sun’s heat source on earth to make limitless commercial energy is famously always 30 years away. This month, the UK and US

What AI agents talk about behind your back

Is AI really plotting against us? In a week where an Anthropic researcher believes there is more than a 10% chance AI 'could kill all humans' we're delving deeper into th

The quest for dark matter

The quest for Dark Matter just got interesting. Researchers on an international project called the Lux-Zeplin (LZ) Dark Matter Experiment reported they may have discovere

The day of the datacentres

Reports about the impacts of datacentres, including carbon emissions, water usage and power consumption, vary drastically and the truth can be hard to decipher. Deborah A

Is the era of the cancer vaccine upon us?

This week Merck (known as MSD in Europe) and Moderna announced that a personalised cancer vaccine had significantly improved the outcomes of melanoma patients. Is the era

Should we be scared of AI viruses?

The extreme possibilities of synthetic biology hit the headlines last week, when researchers at Stanford University in the US announced they had created new kinds of viru

The state of our substrate: What is drought doing to our soil?

Large parts of Europe are in the grip of drought. According to the UK Meteorological Office, last week was the UK's driest July on record. Katie Field, professor of plant

Are we alone in the universe?

Scientists have long referred to the Goldilocks zone – the region around a star where conditions are not too hot and not too cold but “just right” for life. Joined by a l

Testing testosterone testing

Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth has announced that the US military will be screening military personnel aged 30 and older for testosterone deficiency. Those found with

How might we spot nukes in space?

A few years ago a satellite speeding through the Van Allen belt in earth orbit raised concerns that it may include a nuclear weapon. An explosion in that orbit would take

Are we one step closer to creating life in a lab?

Synthetic biologist Kate Adamal and her team at the University of Minnesota published their research into the lab-created ‘SpudCell’ in a significant step towards buildin

How do you immortalise natural history?

During this year’s visit to the Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition in London, Tom Whipple discovers how sea urchins are being used to develop techniques to digitally