The evolutionary price we pay for longer lives; the asteroid coming VERY close to Earth; how dinosaurs shaped the ecosystem

The world, the universe and us

Episode 321

Humans live a lot longer than other primates - and much of that is down to our immune system. But there’s a price we pay for the capacity to fight off infections: inflammation. Chronic inflammation is to blame for a range of health issues, especially those related to older age. And now research has revealed exactly why inflammation is good for longevity but bad for health. Find out how proteins called death-fold domains often malfunction - and what this could mean for the future of drug development.

Bigger than the Eiffel Tower and closer than the moon - the asteroid Apophis will skim past Earth in 2029 and will be visible to the naked eye. Don’t worry, astronomers assure us it will NOT hit us. But it could be a good testbed for NASA’s asteroid deflection technology, helping us to prepare for more dangerous space rocks in the future. With two major space agencies due to visit Apophis - what will we find?

If you thought there was nothing new to learn about the extinction of the dinosaurs, think again. Something we hadn’t yet considered was the impact dinosaurs had on the ecosystem. Given they were so massive, dinosaurs made wide-ranging changes to the planet’s landscapes, such as shifting rivers. So when they were wiped out, there were huge knock-on effects, which researchers have now been examining.

Chapters:

(00:00) Intro

(00:41) The evolutionary price we pay for longer lives

(13:47) The asteroid coming very close to Earth

(26:42) How dinosaurs shaped their ecosystem

Hosted by Rowan Hooper and Penny Sarchet, with guests Alison George, Alex Wilkins, Sam Wong and Richard Binzel.

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