´óÏó´«Ã½

Human Cloning – A Step Closer?
A team from the US has for the first time, created cloned embryos from an adult primate, in this case a male macaque monkey. The research, led by a team at the Oregon Primate Research Centre extracted embryonic stem cells from the clones, in the hope of furthering therapeutic research into the treatment of many degenerative diseases. We hear from one of the scientists behind the project.

I, Cockroach
An international team of researchers have shown how robotic cockroaches can influence the group behaviour of real ones. Geoff talks to Jose Halloy about how the robots not only integrated seamlessly into a colony but even managed to get the roaches to go against their natural preference for the dark. Could this be the future of pest control?

Botox for the Brain
The British Medical Association have just released a report into the ethics of using so-called brain boosting drugs and other technological solutions to help improve our mind’s performance. Geoff talks to Nick Bostrom from the Future of Humanity Institute in Oxford and Tony Calland from the BMA.

Half an Eye for an Eye
Charles Darwin famously wrote about the eye in his Origin of the Species – admitting he found it hard to believe how something so fantastic and complex could have evolved through natural selection, step by step. Now researchers at the University of California in Santa Barbara have been able to put a date on that first step, by studying a creature called hydra. Jon Stewart reports.

Grumpy Google
Technology expert and self-confessed curmudgeon Bill Thompson explains why he believes Google is a bad influence on scientists, students and anyone looking for a truer understanding of the world.