Experts Laura Piddock and Margaret McCartney discuss the ongoing challenges of antibiotic resistance. Marine biologist Helen Scales predicts future ocean changes. Cosmologist Andrew Pontzen talks about black holes. Food scientist Stuart Farrimond explains the EU ban on smoky flavored crisps.
Antibiotic resistance poses a serious threat to public health due to ineffective common antibiotics, leading to severe consequences.
Bacterial resistance mechanisms, including genetic mutations and DNA exchange, present challenges in developing new antibiotics, requiring innovative strategies for combating resistance.
Deep dives
Antibiotic Resistance Threat and Consequences
The podcast delves into the persistent threat of antimicrobial resistance, highlighting the rise of untreatable bacterial infections that caused 1.25 million deaths in 2019. With notable developments in antibiotics, concerns persist as common antibiotics are increasingly ineffective, leading to severe repercussions such as invasive treatments, serious side effects, and post-surgery complications. Failure to combat this resistance could impact routine operations, vulnerable patients, and overall healthcare effectiveness.
Bacterial Evolution and Research Challenges
Discussion shifts to bacterial resistance mechanisms, emphasizing genetic mutations, DNA exchange, and bacteria transfer among populations. The complexity lies in bacteria's resilient evolution and the challenge researchers face in developing new antibiotics. Factors such as scientific difficulties, limited funding, and pharmaceutical priorities hinder the antibiotic pipeline, necessitating innovative approaches like vaccination strategies and global research initiatives.
Revealing Black Hole Insights and X-ray Discoveries
Exploring the mysterious realm of black holes, recent findings by a group at the University of Oxford unveil the behavior of gases nearing a black hole's event horizon. The observations confirm theoretical predictions, shedding light on the emission of high-energy x-rays in the final moments before gas enters the black hole. The study's success showcases the ongoing relevance of Einstein's general relativity in understanding cosmic phenomena, emphasizing the collaborative efforts of physicists and astronomers in decoding the enigmatic properties of black holes.
The looming danger of antibiotic resistance may have fallen out of the public consciousness but is still very much in the mind of those in public healthcare and research. As promising new research is published, the University of Birmingham’s Laura Piddock and GP Margaret McCartney get to the bottom of why antibiotic resistance is still so difficult to tackle.
Marine biologist Helen Scales joins us in the studio to talk about her new book “What the Wild Sea Could Be” which uses changes in the Earth’s past to predict what we can expect to happen to our oceans in the coming years.
Cosmologist Andrew Pontzen speculates on what happens in and around the extreme environment of a black hole as news of the first observations of the “plunging zone” comes to light.
And as the EU head to ban smoky flavoured crisps we ask what the science behind this decision is with Food scientist Stuart Farrimond.
Presenter: Marnie Chesterton
Producers: Ella Hubber and Hannah Robins
Researcher: Caitlin Kennedy
Editor: Martin Smith
Production Co-ordinator: Jana Bennett-Holesworth
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