With the battle against climate change never far from many of our minds this week, 6 years on from when Brainwaves first visited, Pennie Latin returns to the Flow Country in Caithness and Sutherland to remind us how that much-maligned, but globally rare, feature of the Scottish landscape: the peat bog might be crucial as a carbon sink. Because it is now deemed so precious a group called ‘ The Peatlands Partnership’ has been formed with the aim of applying to get the Flow Country designated...

How comfortable are you with virtual reality? We're not just talking about gaming but across your life and your family's life? With virtual reality being developed in just about every area of our lives Pennie Latin weighs up the value of VR. There's no doubt VR is a powerful tool and results from research into the potential for using VR to treat mental health issues like schizophrenia and anxiety are looking very promising but how worried should we be about that power? Does the fact that VR...

Who doesn't love dinosaurs? Dr Steve Brusatte certainly does and his knowledge, story telling and passion for the subject are utterly infectious. In this Brainwaves Pennie Latin joins Steve in his Edinburgh laboratory to discuss the 5 fossils which best capture his love of the subject together with a flavour of a story which lasted over 180 million years then ended so dramatically with a mass extinction. Among his chosen 5 fossils Steve discusses the Sauropod trackways he discovered on the...

Top para-cyclist Karen Darke MBE won silver in London and gold in Rio now she's trying to make it to a third consecutive Paralympic games in Tokyo but its a tough challenge. So Karen's enlisted the help of Williams Advanced Engineering to see if they can bring a Formula 1 approach to maximising her performance this summer. In this Brainwaves Pennie Latin joins Karen behind the scenes to see just what science and technology can offer our elite athletes.

Professor Lesley Yellowlees CBE has an extraordinary passion for life and for her work as an inorganic chemist. A leading figure in the fields of spectroelectrochemistry and solar energy research Lesley's also a pioneer - she was the first female head of Chemistry and then of Science and Engineering in Edinburgh. She was also the first female president of the Royal Society of Chemistry and is a passionate champion for diversity in science. In this fun, fast talking and hugely engaging...

How often do you do a number '2'? Seriously! And do you know how often your friends and family members have a poo? No? So how do you know if you're normal and what does a well functioning gut system mean when it comes to our toilet habits and our health? Pennie Latin goes on a frank and fearless journey to find out more about the human gut system. Along the way she talks to Kevin Whelan, Professor of dietetics at King's College London, about what normal is when it comes to going to the...

Pennie Latin joins marine ecologist and deep ocean explorer Dr Jon Copley for a fascinating insight into his extraordinary world. Jon is a 'bathynaut' (someone who has gone deeper than 200 meters under the ocean) who specialises in researching hydrothermal vents deep under the ocean. His watery office is a small acrylic bubble capable of diving to incredible depths which allows him to explore, observe and research the amazing array of life which inhabits the half of our world which is covered...

Gill Skene didn't know what was wrong with her after the traumatic birth of her daughter, she just knew she wasn't depressed and she wasn't behaving normally. Flashbacks and paranoia culminated in a moment when Gill realised she was capable of attacking her husband after he came between her and her baby, she sought help and was diagnosed to postnatal PTSD. In this moving and thought provoking Brainwaves, Pennie Latin hears from Gill and her husband, Mark, then sets out to investigate what...

We live in this amazing country so why would we want to just pour a cocktail of random pharmaceuticals into the environment? As Pennie Latin discovers, to her astonishment, in Scotland we’re doing that each and every day just by taking a pee. It’s not just peeing the medicines out either, we’re even adding to the problem when we think we’re being conscientious by flushing unwanted pills down the loo. When you take into account the 1.4 million prescriptions dispensed in Scotland every...

September 7th 2019 marked the 20th anniversary of a unique and remarkable study into how our brains age. But it's a story which has roots back in 1921. Almost all the Scottish children born in that year were given a test in 1932, when they were 11, into their thinking abilities. It happened again in 1947 with a second group of 11-year-old Scottish children born in 1936. The results of those two sets of tests were tucked away until, in 1999, Professor Ian Deary and his colleagues from the...

Becoming part man and part machine may seem like something from a science fiction film, but cyborgs are moving among us in Scotland today. People who have had body parts replaced or enhanced are living in every community. In this programme we'll be exploring the benefits of becoming bionic, and asking how much has to be replaced before we stop being human. A researcher shares the stories she's gathered from people living with cardiac implants. A pioneer of Scottish engineering talks about...

Pennie Latin sits down at the kitchen table to discuss the future of food. We'll hear about innovations that are taking place across Scotland to alter the meals we put in our mouths. You might be partial to a bit of carrot cake, but how about a slice of bread that could count as one of your five-a day? Are you happy for scientists to breed berries which can reduce your risk of certain diseases? We know that Omega 3 is good for us, so is it OK for the fish we eat to have been reared on a...

Scotland has a serious drug problem. Scotland's drug death rate, per head of population, is roughly 2.5 times that of the UK as a whole. Based on the latest figures from the Scottish Government drugs deaths more than doubled in the 10 years up to 2017. In this Brainwaves Pennie Latin joins Cr Craig McKenzie, co-director of the recently formed Forensic Drug Research Group in Dundee, to find out how he's taking a fresh approach to understanding our relationship with illicit drugs. Craig...

How high is your pain threshold? Pennie Latin considers her own tolerance and meets those who have developed ways to increase theirs. Doctors discuss what happens within our bodies, and try to determine if it is a physical or emotional response that is triggered. Why do we cope better with pain in certain situations, and why does this threshold vary so much from person to person? We’ll hear how tactics like hypnotherapy and swearing can help. Then we consider if pain is a necessary thing...

Professor Niamh Nic Daeid, one of the world's leading forensic scientists, takes Pennie Latin behind the scenes at Dundee's Leverhulme Research Centre for Forensic Science. From looking into the past with the arrival of a heart which could have significant royal history which Niamh's team are challenged to uncover, to stepping into the future and a virtual reality crime scene which could change the face of how forensic experts access and gather information across the globe. As well as...

How many times have you got into a silly argument about the washing up or homework or money worries? We all experience all kinds of niggles during the course of life – at work, home, with extended family or friends – but none of us like arguing and constant conflict can have a big impact on our health and happiness. So what’s the answer? Well it’s all about learning to listen better, empathise, take a long hard look at your own behaviour, all the kinds of things which feel pretty much...

Our climate is changing. The effect of carbon dioxide on our climate change was first considered in the 19th Century, but it wasn’t until the late 1980’s that we started to take its effect seriously. The Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change was established to try and work out the effect of the burning fossil fuels on our climate. Cited as one of the world’s most influential scientific minds, Professor Gabi Hegerl’s career has been defined by our climate. She had a significant role on...

Quietly and without debate our lives have been taken over by a weapon of mathematical domination. The algorithm. Algorithms are one of the most powerful forces of our time. Replacing humans in decision making that affects almost every aspect of our lives these mathematical codes manipulate what we see, do, eat, how we live and who we love. But how many of us understand even what an algorithm is let alone the impact they have on our lives? This Brainwaves is all about unpacking the...

Professor James Boardman, neonatologist and Scientific Director of the Jennifer Brown Laboratory in Edinburgh, talks about his research into the effects of a baby being born too small or too soon on how the brain develops outside the womb. Its a fascinating, engaging and emotionally challenging role which sees him tread a path between time working as an NHS consultant with premature babies in Edinburgh's Royal Infirmary neonatal care unit and conducting research with these tiny babies using...

Loch Ness is a monster of a loch - so vast it holds more water than all the lakes and rivers of England and Wales combined - which is why, when it comes to studying it, it presents something of a challenge to scientists and researchers. This Brainwaves is not going to provide any answers to that question…but we are going in search of unknown species and the intriguing science that Loch Ness can provide us with. The whole monster obsession with this Loch has been obscuring our view of this...

Astrophysicist Professor Catherine Heymans is on a quest to understand the dark side of our Universe. Observations suggest that 95% of the Universe is made up of something invisible, something we can't see or touch called dark matter and dark energy. We only know it exists because of its impact on the things we can see and touch but beyond that we really know very little about it. So how can you study something you can't see, feel or observe through a telescope? In this fascinating...

It's 80 years since the Manhattan Project saw the first nuclear bomb developed and latterly unleashed on the world. In the aftermath enthusiasm for nuclear power and innovation went into overdrive but at what cost? In this Brainwaves Pennie Latin visits Douneray Power Station in Caithness where the long process of decommissioning is still in progress, to explore what the nuclear fuelled invention of the post war era now means for scientists working in Scotland. Why is the job of cleaning...

Ring tones, notifications, sirens, traffic, electronic gadgets, the noise is endless! So, in a bid to escape and find a bit of respite from our increasingly noisy world, Pennie Latin goes in search of a slice of silence. Its a journey that takes her from a world war II fuel tank hidden in the heart of the Highlands which houses the longest echo on record to an anechoic chamber where silence is absolute. In between she considers the value of silence and whether you can ever truly switch off...

From the chemical structure of different plastics to what exactly should we be putting in our recycling bins, Brainwaves explores what it is about plastics that has made them environmental enemy number one.