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Science, Maths & Technology
Computer technology: robotic milking and interactive mirrors
What have computers got to do with cows? Can a wooden mirror help us understand the computing behind digital image capture? Neil Rowse is the first dairy farmer in the UK to use a computerised system that gives cows control over when they are milked, and allows him to remotely monitor the welfare of individual animals. Daniel Rozin has created ...
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Science, Maths & Technology
Ecosystems: modelling the Earth
How can numerical models help us to understand our planet? How do we make sure they represent reality? This album introduces ongoing work to model the entire planet's ecosystems, simulating the complex physical, chemical and biological interactions taking place between every living organism and climatic activity. Since everything is ...
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Science, Maths & Technology
Supply chains: healthcare
From surgical tools to obstetric instruments, personalised colostomy bags to hip implants, the UK's National Health Service requires an astonishing number of products to be manufactured, delivered and routinely managed. What happens behind the scenes to ensure the systems function smoothly? This album focuses on the different roles of B.Braun, a...
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Science, Maths & Technology
Ecosystems: the carbon cycle
What is photosynthesis, and why does Sir David Attenborough describe it as 'the very basis of life?'. This album explains how the balance of sunlight, water and nutrients are fundamental to the process and how this balance acts to regulate individual ecosystems. But photosynthesis is only part of the carbon cycle. How is carbon returned to the ...
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Science, Maths & Technology
Supply chains: Smart cars
What happens when you bring the best of two famous brands together? What sorts of innovations can emerge, and how is a brand image created for the new product? The Smart car came about as a result of a collaboration between car manufacturer Mercedes-Benz and Swatch, the Swiss watch maker. This album examines the innovations behind the Smart car,...
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Science, Maths & Technology
Supply chains: the supermarket
How does a large supermarket chain expand into new markets? How does it adapt to new cultural values and consumer preferences? This album tells the story of leading UK retailer Tesco, which has increasingly become an international player in markets such as South-East Asia and Eastern Europe. The company gains global reach by forming strategic ...
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Science, Maths & Technology
Energy policy and climate change
The 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen presents a new focus for international debate and decisions about energy and its use. What are the countries of Western Europe and Scandinavia doing to promote sustainable energy production? Just how different will the future energy map of Europe look? And is energy policy ...
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Science, Maths & Technology
Ecosystems: living communities
What are ecosystems, and what do different ecosystems have in common? How are they affected by human activity? From the diverse rainforests of the tropics to the smallest microbial communities, ecosystems support life on Earth. This album reveals the ecological relationships that create these living systems of energy transfer and explores some ...
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Science, Maths & Technology
The relativistic Universe
Thanks to cutting edge technology, scientists can peer deeper into space than ever before. The audio tracks in this album feature Dr Robert Lambourne and Dr Stephen Serjeant of The Open University's Department of Physics and Astronomy. They introduce the origin of relativistic cosmology and share the latest ideas about the structure and ...
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Science, Maths & Technology
The Large Hadron Collider
To mark the re-launch of the Large Hadron Collider, the world's most powerful particle accelerator, this album examines how an accelerator works, why the LHC failed in 2008 and what scientists hope its high-energy collisions will reveal. The audio tracks feature Dr Stephen Serjeant and Dr David Broadhurst from The Open University and Dr Dan ...
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Science, Maths & Technology
The physical world: collisions
It has been called a 'Big Bang Machine', but what is the Large Hadron Collider and what do scientists hope it will discover? Presented by Robert Llewellyn, the three video tracks in this album address the science of collisions, the purpose of particle acceleration and the construction of the LHC at CERN, the European Organisation for Nuclear ...
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Science, Maths & Technology
Darwinian Demons
Is 'natural selection' inimical to bio-diversity? Why is the natural world not dominated by a few 'super' species? And in the future, can the richness of nature be preserved? In this album, Jonathan Silvertown, Professor of Ecology at The Open University, explains how Darwinian theory uses the concept of niche specialisation to account for the ...