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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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AI & the Stockmarket
With prices falling, both share holders and city traders are worrying about future trends in the stockmarket. Huge amounts of money flow through it everyday, so is there a way to make trading more efficient? Possibly - if you could get a computer programme to do the job for you.
In Material World Quentin Cooper discusses software based traders with Lawrence Barwick, head of Bank of America's global proprietary trading operation and Artificial Intelligence expert Dr Dave Cliff, of Hewlett Packard Laboratories in Bristol. Dr Cliff has invented an entirely new style of electronic market place - one that has been designed automatically by computer genetic algorithms - and has been populated with electronic traders proven to be more successful than humans.
The software robots are only fractionally better than people, but with the massive amounts of money flowing through the world's stock markets every year, those few percentage points could add up to billions of dollars. So could these software based traders help the stockbrokers make more money? And in the future will we be trusting our investments to a computer programme?
Ladybirds & STDs
Although sexually transmitted diseases are thought to be very common among animals, we actually know very little about them and how they spread in populations. Traditionally scientists have concentrated on the spread of "typical" infectious diseases and have studied the role they play in evolution. STDs are also likely to play an important role and it is hoped that new studies will reveal more about the impact they have in animal populations. This may prove to be crucial when conservationists are deciding how to try to save populations which have been reduced to very small numbers.
Quentin Cooper speaks to Dr Michael Majerus, Evolutionary Geneticist and ladybird expert at Cambridge University and Dr Robert Knell, population biologist and expert in STDs at Queen Mary and Westfield College to find out more about the importance of the sexual habits of ladybirds. |
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RELATED LINKS
Dave Cliff
Turtle Trader
Michael Majerus
Robert Knell
Wellcome Trust - Ladybirds & STDs
BBC Science
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