The Origins of Infectious Disease
In Our Time8 Jun 2011

The Origins of Infectious Disease

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the origins of infectious disease. Infectious disease has been with us for millennia. There are reports of ancient outbreaks of plague in the Bible, and in numerous historical sources from China, the Middle East and Europe. Other infections, including smallpox, tuberculosis and measles, have also been known for centuries. But some diseases made their first appearances only recently: HIV emerged around a century ago, while the Ebola virus was first recorded in the 1970s.But where do the agents of disease come from, and what determines where and when new viruses and bacteria appear? Modern techniques allow scientists to trace the histories of infective agents through their genomes; the story of disease provides a fascinating microcosm of the machinery of evolution.With:Steve JonesProfessor of Genetics at University College LondonSir Roy AndersonProfessor of Infectious Disease Epidemiology at Imperial College LondonMark PallenProfessor of Microbial Genomics at the University of Birmingham.Producer: Thomas Morris.

Episoder(1079)

Higgs Boson

Higgs Boson

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Higgs Boson particle. One weekend in 1964 the Scottish scientist Peter Higgs was walking in the Cairngorm Mountains. On his return to his laboratory in Edinburgh th...

18 Nov 200442min

Zoroastrianism

Zoroastrianism

Melvyn Bragg and guests discusses Zoroastrianism. "Now have I seen him with my own eyes, knowing him in truth to be the wise Lord of the good mind and of good deeds and words." Thus spake the real Zar...

11 Nov 200442min

Electrickery

Electrickery

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the dawn of the age of electricity. In Gulliver's Travels, published in 1726, Jonathan Swift satirised natural philosophers as trying to extract sunbeams from cucumbers...

4 Nov 200442min

Witchcraft

Witchcraft

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss witchcraft in Reformation Europe. In 1486 a book was published in Latin, it was called Maleus Mallificarum and it very soon outsold every publication in Europe bar the ...

21 Okt 200442min

Rhetoric

Rhetoric

Melvyn Bragg and guests discusses rhetoric. Gorgias, the great sophist philosopher and master of rhetoric said, "Speech is a powerful lord that with the smallest and most invisible body accomplished m...

14 Okt 200442min

The Han Synthesis

The Han Synthesis

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Han Synthesis philosophies of China. In The Analects the Chinese sage Confucius says of statecraft: "He who exercises government by means of his virtue may be compa...

14 Okt 200427min

Sartre

Sartre

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Jean-Paul Sartre, the French novelist, playwright, and philosopher who became the king of intellectual Paris and a focus of post war politics and morals. Sartre's own ...

7 Okt 200442min

Politeness

Politeness

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the idea of Politeness. A new idea that stalked the land at the start of the eighteenth century in Britain, Politeness soon acquired a philosophy, a literature and even...

30 Sep 200428min

Populært innen Historie

rss-dette-ma-aldri-skje-igjen
rss-katastrofe
historier-som-endret-norge
henrettelsespodden
rss-benadet
sektledere
rss-nadelose-nordmenn-gestapo
aftenposten-historie
historier-som-endret-verden
rss-strid-de-norske-borgerkrigene
rss-historiske-romanser
med-egne-oyne
rss-frontkjemperne
rss-gamle-greier
historiepodden
liberal-halvtime
historiepodden-ww2
vare-historier
sannhet-eller-konspirasjon
rss-historiepodden-ww2