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Ancient farmers' genomes, Alice at Cern, Astrophysics questions

The DNA of people who lived in Europe as early as 8500 years ago shows signs of evolution, of natural selection and of how farming has changed Europe in the last few millennia.

Ancient farmers' genomes
New research looking at the DNA of people who lived in Europe as early as 8500 years ago shows signs of evolution, of natural selection, and of how farming has changed Europe in the last few millennia. The huge sample of 230 ancient individuals includes 26 Neolithic people from Anatolia thought to be the very first farmers.

Cern's ALICE Experiment
Adam visits CERN in Geneva, to see ALICE (A Large Ion Collision Experiment). ALICE is designed to investigate one of the four fundamental forces in the Universe. The strong nuclear force is the most powerful, but only over a very short distance. It is what holds quarks together, and quarks stuck together in the right conformation make neutrons and protons. Protons and neutrons stuck together plus electrons make up atoms, which is what everything is made of.

Listeners Questions on Astrophysics
Space physicists, Dr. Carole Haswell from the Open University and Dr Andrew Pontzen from UCL answer your questions about the force of gravity, the size of stars, the volume of matter and more.

Producer: Fiona Roberts.

Available now

30 minutes

Broadcasts

  • Thu 26 Nov 2015 16:30
  • Thu 26 Nov 2015 21:00

Explore further with The Open University

Explore further with The Open University

BBC Inside Science is produced in partnership with The Open University.

Podcast