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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 ...
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Science, Maths & Technology
Darwin and language diversity
Can Darwin's theory of evolution be applied to languages? If so what are the analogues for natural selection and species diversification? What truths does this approach reveal and what problems does it throw up? In this album Professor Mark Pagel of Reading University and Quentin Atkinson, an evolutionary biologist at Oxford, discuss the ...
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Science, Maths & Technology
Finite Element Analysis
Formula 1 is the ultimate motor sport. It demands the highest level of skill from both drivers and the engineers behind the cars. So what are the secrets of good car design? How are Formula One cars engineered for maximum performance? This album takes a behind the scenes look at Red Bull Racing, a front-runner on the F1 grid. Using thrilling ...
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Science, Maths & Technology
Charles Darwin - the man and the scientist
Charles Darwin is one of most famous scientists of the nineteenth century, but what was he like as a child, a father and a husband? How did his emotional response to the world affect his scientific theories? And how widespread is his influence today? This album looks at Darwin's rich and complex legacy. Ruth Padel, one of his direct descendants,...
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Science, Maths & Technology
Darwin Now
Why are we still interested in Charles Darwin, 200 years after his birth? Are his theories still as relevant? And what celebrations are planned for his anniversary? This album provides a solid introduction to Charles Darwin's groundbreaking theory of evolution. The geneticist Steve Jones and the historian Fern Elsdon-Baker explain and comment on...