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HOME PLANET
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PROGRAMME INFO |
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Richard Daniel chairs the interactive environmental programme in which he and his guests deal with listeners' questions and concerns. Call 0370 010 0400 home.planet@bbc.co.uk Home Planet, PO Box 3096, Brighton BN1 1PL |
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LISTEN AGAIN 30 min |
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| | PRESENTER | | | |
| | | | | "Home Planet, the programme that tackles your queries about the world we inhabit and our interaction with it. From astronomy to geology, biology to environmental science. You set the agenda and our panel of scientists and conservationists come up with the answers."
Richard Daniel | | | | |
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PROGRAMME DETAILS |
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Panel
This week's guests:
Science writer
marine biologist
Ecologist and Director of the Tyndall centre for Climate Change Research at the University of East Anglia
TOPICS
TEMPERATURE OF THE EARTH
A listener contacted Home Planet to ask = why is the earth still hot? After 4.5 billion years why hasn't it cooled down? Is this due to the original heat of the earth's creation? And if it is due to fission processes we would expect radioactive volcanic emissions. Is there possibly a new source of energy from rotation, pressure and the nature of the earth's core that we do not yet understand?
Graham Underwood explained how the earth was made up; the roles that each part of the earth played; the importance of the earth's crust in maintaining temperature and how it happens. The team then discussed what the core of the earth was made of (iron and nickel) and how the constant pressure from the earth maintains the temperature more or less at a constant level
GLOBAL TEMPERATURE
A listener called us to ask what global temperature is and how it is measured. We discussed how a complex set of figures are analysed; gathered and how an average temperature is calculated.
Useful website:
- which calculates global mean surface temperature:
INVASION OF ALGAE
Following the invasion of algae in Qingado in China - we discussed what algae was; the different species; why and how we get them and what we can do to prevent it.
Useful website:
WHO ARE WE RELATED TO?
A listener wrote to ask at what point humans and all animal life shared a common ancestor with plant life?
A discussion arose looking at the 8 kingdoms of life - pointing out how our nearest relative is in fact funghi. We discussed DNA and how our understanding of that has helped us pinpoint more exactly when the split occurred.
COOKING EGGS WITHOUT FIRE
A listener wanted to know if Mrs. Beeton's statement in her Book of Household management was correct. Apparently Egyptian shepherds cooked eggs by putting them in a sling and swinging them around until they cooked ... apparently friction with the air helps to heat up the egg. We put it to the test.
Lynn Dicks demonstrated how this might work…. And the rest of the team discussed what friction was, and how much was needed to generate enough eat to get the eggs to cook.
Needless to say it didn't work!
Useful websites:
Contact Home Planet
Send your comments and questions for future programmes to:
Home Planet ´óÏó´«Ã½ Radio 4 PO Box 3096 Brighton BN1 1PL
Or email the programme: home.planet@bbc.co.uk
Or telephone the Audience Line 03700 100 400
Home Planet is a Pier Production and is produced by Toby Murcott.
The personal information you provide will be held by the ´óÏó´«Ã½ and by Pier Productions Ltd, the independent production company which makes Home Planet. Your information will be used for the purpose of creating the Home Planet programme, and will be processed in accordance with the Data Protection Act 1998. For more details on how the ´óÏó´«Ã½ deals with your information, please see the ´óÏó´«Ã½â€™s at
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