Discovery

Folk tales are full of fleeting phenomena like will o' the wisps, faint glows that must have spooked our ancestors. But these days, it's just about impossible to escape the omnipresent illumination of modern life, and these evocative spooklights have vanished like ghosts. Chemist Andrea Sella explores the science of lights so dim, they can be witnessed only in complete darkness. From the spontaneous combustion of marsh gas to the lightning sparks emitted by crushed sugar, Professor Sella finds there's more to light than ever meets the eye.

The Higgs particle is the final cornerstone of scientists’ model of the material universe. The Large Hadron Collider at CERN was built so researchers could discover it. Last week, they announced a partial sighting – the ghost of a Higgs particle hoving into view in their plethora of data. But it could be just a phantom, and may start to fade with more data next year. Roland Pease meets the scientists who are chasing this legendary particle, and gets exclusive access to the preparations for next year’s experiments.

Scientists are developing broad spectrum antivirals to combat various viruses, from the common cold to HIV. These drugs could revolutionize medicine like antibiotics did for bacterial infections. The podcast explores the challenges in treating viruses and the potential of innovative antiviral technologies to combat viral epidemics.

Discover the journey of leptin from hopeful obesity solution to impacting appetite, immunity, inflammation, and depression. Explore its role in regulating body functions beyond weight control, sparking diverse research interest.

One hundred years since humans first ventured to the South Pole, we are on the verge of a new era in Antarctic exploration. In Discovery, Andrew Luck-Baker talks to scientists who'll soon be entering the last untouched realms on the planet. They are poised to drill into ancient lakes trapped beneath thousands of metres of polar ice. British, Russian and United states scientists all have ambitious projects underway to do this. Among other quests, they will search for unique forms of life in these deep and hidden icy lakes. Their efforts might ultimately lead to finding life on other worlds.

For six months, CERN scientists guarded the best kept secret in science - that they'd seen tiny subatomic particles called neutrinos breaking the universal speed limit. The measurements were at the boundaries of scientific techniques - the discrepancy was just 10s of nanoseconds; parts of their apparatus barely ran at that speed. For six months they checked and then re- checked again every step of their analysis. And still the result held up. When the results were finally released at the end of September, the headline writers had a field day. Nothing sells copy like proof that Einstein was wrong. But fellow researchers at CERN were less excited. The overwhelming belief was that there still remained some hidden error. And for those who ran the experiment, the dreadful concern that sooner or later that error could turn up, and their triumph might become the stuff of mockery. And the next day the investigations continued. Roland Pease meets the scientists who have staked their reputations on the result, on the critics who think they can spot the mistake, and the theoreticians who think they can explain it all.

In the second of a two-part Discovery series, Robots that Care, Jon Stewart visits research institutes in the USA and UK to explore the brave new ideas about how robots may be able to help humans on a one-to-one basis.He talks to key roboticists in Japan, Europe and the USA, their collaborators and volunteers about the practicalities and ethics of using robots to help people.A number of studies have been done and more are underway in the use of robots for people wanting to lose weight and for children who are autistic. Robotocists are also conducting long-term projects with people who have suffered strokes. The robots are designed as personal instructors to help motivate and restore motor function. But they must be emotionally smart and coax rather than order about like a sergeant major. The roboticists are also examining how they might customise their robots to fit the personalities of the people whom they will serve.We have put robots on the moon but it seems that it is more difficult to put them in homes. A visit to a robot house in the UK shows that there are many pitfalls still to overcome before robots will be useful in our living rooms and kitchens.Finally, Robots that Care asks: what are the dangers of making the robots too human? Are there problems of dependency? What ethical and moral questions arise when robots socialise human beings?

In the first of a two-part series, Jon Stewart charts the advances in robotics that are increasingly leading to direct one-to-one contact between humans and robots. Jon visits robotocists and their collaborators in the US and UK and asks how the robots will be used in the future. He examines the way cinema has shaped our ideas of robots and investigates the gulf between our expectations of what robots can do and the reality.A fundamental question that scientists are posing is how we should consider the robots who, in the near future, will live alongside us in our homes. Should they be considered slaves, pets or friends? Jon also explores how the ideas of author Isaac Asimov, that firstly robots should do no harm, have evolved over the decades.Photo: Getty

Angela Saini reports from India on the country’s vast e-governance project aimed at driving out corruption, reducing bureaucracy and getting the nation’s 1.2 billion people online. Everything from a country-wide unique ID scheme (based on the iris system – Biometrics), to a roll out of service kiosks where everything from a parking fine to a death certificate can be issued. One of the main drivers behind this is immense task reducing both corruption and bureaucracy by going electronic - that's the idea - does it stand up? She asks critics as well as proponents. This can be thought of as a kind of Click special - and combines some of the science and technology with the impact and implications on society.

Exploring the emotional turmoil and thrill of witnessing volcanic eruptions, satellite geology's role in predicting volcanic activities, inaccuracies in volcano portrayals in films, and the challenges of studying volcanoes in culturally sensitive areas.