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THE MATERIAL WORLD
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Quentin Cooper reports on developments across the sciences. Each week scientists describe their work, conveying the excitement they feel for their research projects.
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LISTEN AGAIN 听30 min |
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PRESENTER |
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"For me science isn't a subject, it's a perspective. There are fascinating scientific aspects to everything from ancient history to the latest gadgets, outer space to interior decorating; and each week on The Material World we try to reflect the excitement, ideas, uncertainties, collisions and collaborations as science continues its never-ending voyage into the unknown".
Quentin Cooper |
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| ABBA, Winners of the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest |
Eurovision Song Contest
"Norway - nul points" may no longer be a regular occurance but might there have been some collaboration between member states of the Eurovision Song contest to keep Norway at the bottom of the pile?
Since the late 1980s, media observers have noticed that some pairs of countries routinely give high scores to each other. And there are suspicions that voting partnerships might now be turning into voting blocs. Are such phenomena statistically significant, or can be explained by chance?听
Quentin Cooper discusses voting alliances with Dr Derek Gatherer, author of a paper looking at the science behind the fabled voting collusions of Eurovision, and Dr Janet Efstathiou, Head of Manufacturing Systems Group at Oxford University鈥檚 Engineering Department, who has two students researching Eurovision. Could this herald the end of the Eurovision Song Contest as we know it?
Social Intelligence
In 1976, psychologist Nicholas Humphrey published the first paper on the social intelligence hypothesis, which suggests that intelligence might have evolved in response to the demands of social life.听
To mark the paper鈥檚 publication, next week the Royal Society is holding an event on social intelligence to discuss the developments of this theory over the last thirty years, and Quentin Cooper meets two of the conference鈥檚 speakers.
Professor Andrew Whiten, Professor of Evolutionary and Developmental Psychology, University of St. Andrews, describes the results of his research to show that primate communities pass on behaviours from generation to generation, giving rise to 'ape cultures'.
Professor Nicola Clayton, Professor of Comparative Cognition at Cambridge University, has found that members of the corvid family of birds display social intelligence by devising clever food stashing stratigies designed to outwit their peers.
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RELATED LINKS
大象传媒 Radio 2: Eurovision 2006
大象传媒 Science听& Nature
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