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PROGRAMME INFO |
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Quentin Cooper reports on developments across the sciences. Each week scientists describe their work, conveying the excitement they feel for their research projects.
material.world@bbc.co.uk
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LISTEN AGAIN 30 min |
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PRESENTER |
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"For me science isn't a subject, it's a perspective. There are fascinating scientific aspects to everything from ancient history to the latest gadgets, outer space to interior decorating; and each week on The Material World we try to reflect the excitement, ideas, uncertainties, collisions and collaborations as science continues its never-ending voyage into the unknown".
Quentin Cooper |
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BIOGRAPHY
INTERVIEW |
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PROGRAMME DETAILS |
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Computer Games
Computer games have been part of our lives for nearly 40 years. From the original Space Wars! developed in 1962, through favourites like Space Invaders to modern day computer game icons such as Lara Croft, the computer games industry is constantly changing and growing. The fad for the black and white block graphics of the early games in the late sixties and early seventies has turned into an industry worth over $6 billion in the USA alone. It has been suggested that almost three quarters of people under 30 have played a computer game and half play on a regular basis. But how have computer games infiltrated society so readily and how will computer games designers keep the attention of this increasingly sophisticated market? On the day of the opening of Game On - the first major UK exhibition to explore the history and culture of video games - Quentin Cooper is joined by Lucien King, guest curator of Game On at the Barbican, London and David Doak, Managing director of Free Radical Games, the company behind Goldeneye and Timesplitters, to explore the influence games have had on society and technology and how games designers are constantly challenging the norms of what is possible in the virtual world.
Hydrothermal Vents
25 years ago, geologists crammed into the tiny research submarine Alvin found superhot water bubbling out from a crack in the seafloor at the bottom of the Pacific - an underwater geyser. The hydrothermal vent, as it was called, was something they had been expecting (indeed hoping) to find. But the extraordinary profusion exotic life they found in its vicinity was a complete surprise - giant clams, tube worms, unrecognisable life-forms they called dandelions. "Isn't the deep ocean meant to be like a desert?", exclaimed one researcher. As a new generation of geologists heads out this week to take another look at the site of that first known hydrothermal vent, Quentin Cooper talks to Dr Kathy Crane, one of the original team from 1977, and to Professor Chris German of Southampton University, whose plans include sending robotic submarines to Europa, the ocean-covered moon of Jupiter, to seek out hydrothermal vents there. With evidence growing that life may have originated on our planet near the scalding waters of deep-ocean geysers, there's hope that we may also discover life thriving in similar conditions on Europa too. |
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RELATED LINKS
Interview with Lucien King
Game On
Southampton Oceanography Centre
The Discovery of Hydrothermal Vents
BBC Science
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