Biotech Risks and Asteroid Anxiety

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Hello, delightful, curious-minded people, and welcome to BBC Inside Science.

I'm Victoria Gill.

Today, we are going to dig some historical dirt on a row surrounding a controversial billionaire and the Royal Society.

We'll explore the new extraterrestrial wild west that is the lunar surface.

And we're going to explain some complicated, potentially world-changing calculations that reveal whether an asteroid might be heading our way around Christmas 2032.

All that in the space of the next 25 minutes, strap in.

But first, we live in an era where genes can be edited like text, and artificial intelligence can unlock the secrets of proteins and rummage through thousands of molecules to find new drugs.

The possibilities are thrilling, but the risks are unpredictable.

So how do we reap the benefits of scientific advances while preventing harm?

Well, scientists were grappling with this same question 50 years ago, just as genetic engineering first became a possibility.

So, a group of leading biologists met in Asilimar, California, to discuss the biohazards of DNA technology.

It was a remarkable conference, and next week, a group of scientists will gather at a meeting that marks its 50th anniversary.

Professor Matthew Cobb, a biologist and a historian of science at the University of Manchester, will be there, but right now he's here in the studio with me.

Hello, Matthew.

Hello, Vic.

How are you?

I'm good, thank you.

Welcome to the programme.

Before we get into what this latest sort of Asilomar 2.0 meeting aims to achieve, can you just tell us about the meeting 50 years ago?

You know, it was seen as something of an emergency gathering, wasn't it?

What was on the agenda?

Well, in the previous years, scientists had basically discovered how to be able to move bits of DNA between any two organisms, which was very exciting.

It meant you could discover all sorts of interesting things.

And there was also the possibility very soon realized that you could create new drugs.

For example, you could manipulate a microbe and get it to produce insulin.

But there was also the danger and the fear that you might inadvertently create something extremely alarming.

So it was this

threat of a very dangerous plague was really what dominated people's minds and made them want to get together to see whether it was going to be possible to provide

ways of doing these experiments safely.

So it was partly a kind of of technical discussion about how you should contain these manipulated microbes.

And hovering in the background was also the moral issue of whether these experiments should be done at all.

Right.

So what was achieved at Asilomar?

Where did they get to?

Well, they got to where they wanted to get, which was to be able to do the experiments.

And what's interesting is that this was primarily an American meeting, and there's no government involvement, right?

So what was really important for the American scientists was to be able to come up with a set of rules whereby they would decide, for the rest of the planet, effectively, they would decide what experiments could be done safely,

and that this would provide a way of limiting funding in the US from the National Institutes of Health.

That only laboratories which followed these regulations would be funded by the NIH.

It had no purchase outside of the USA, and yet those same regulations are now in application all over the world.

And so to present day, I believe you're, when do you leave for the next Asiloma, the spirit of Asiloma conference?

Talk us through that.

Why do we need another conference now?

What's the aim?

Well, because Asilimar was this self-regulation, or it appears to have been all kinds of self-regulation.

Scientists have loved this and technologists have loved it as well because it suggests that we don't need to involve governments, we don't need to involve international regulation.

We can sort it out.

we're the clever people.

And so, repeatedly, there have been calls for a new Asiloma for nanotech or whatever, and there have been other such meetings.

This meeting is a bit different, partly because it's on the 50th anniversary, and we are going to discuss something that was not discussed at Asiloma, that was ruled off the agenda, and that is the threat of bioweapons.

That is, of use manipulating pathogens.

This might sound familiar to some listeners,

viruses, for example, to make them more dangerous, which is something that's been done this century, the beginning of the century, by US researchers.

But clearly that's really dangerous.

If you're creating a more dangerous version of a pathogen, then what could happen?

So we want to discuss those issues and in particular to say very clearly that there should be no bioweapons.

This research should not be done by states or by individuals.

So bioweapons, obviously a huge concern.

What other technologies are raising concerns and need to be discussed at this meeting well we're getting close to be able to create synthetic cells so completely fabricating a cell and that will mean that we'll be kind of skipping over four billion years of evolution where lots of safeguards have been incorporated by natural selection and it's not quite sure what will happen if we were to be able to create such a cell and even more alarmingly if this involved what's called mirror life that is using molecules with a an opposite handedness to the ones that every form of life currently has.

And this is completely unknown territory, and so we need to discuss whether this can be done safely and indeed whether it should be done at all.

So how does this help then?

You know, this conference, like the first one, is primarily for scientists who are working in this area, people who understand this technology, can alert us to the potential risks.

That's great, but it doesn't involve governments and regulatory agencies.

So,

what outcomes do you think are important from this?

Well, I think clear statements are on, for example, don't make bioweapons,

the potential, for example,

this mirror world, this idea of creating life with molecules with an opposite organization to the ones we're used to.

Should this work go ahead?

And that is going to be an object of substantial debate, I think, between some of the researchers who are very keen because they're fascinated and they think it could have practical applications and others who are saying look this should work should just not be done because it's too dangerous or we must have a fail-safe we must have a point on the decision tree where it can be stopped and do you think getting all of those people together to form that agreement gives you a scaffold to be able to do that and to be able to push that agenda?

We'll see.

The difference between a biological experiment going wrong in an, I don't know, a road accident is that biological experiments are self-replicating.

And what we're creating or could create are things that, if they got out, could cause untold havoc.

And it's not enough simply to say, well, we need more guidelines.

We need very, very strict regulation, in my view.

Thank you, Matthew.

Well, it sounds like a fascinating meeting.

Great to have you on the programme.

Now we turn our attention to an extra-planetary emergency, or at least a possible emergency.

An asteroid that's been making headlines recently because it might, and I stress might, be on a collision course with Earth.

Joining me in the studio is someone who keeps a constant watch on interesting astronomical objects.

Tim O'Brien is professor of astrophysics at the University of Manchester and Associate Director of the Jodrell Bank Observatory.

Hi, Tim.

Hello.

Welcome to the programme.

We've had some scary headlines.

What do we know about this asteroid?

Yeah, well, it was only discovered just after Christmas, actually, it's the 27th of December 2024.

It's called 2024 YR4.

Right.

Excitingly.

But it was when it was discovered, when it was close enough to us that it was bright enough for us to to see, so basically we only see them because they reflect light from the sun, so they have to be relatively close by for us to see them, and its orbit was calculated from observations, it was realized that this orbit carries it across the Earth's orbit, so it's a so-called Earth-crossing asteroid.

And of course, the...

potential problem with these things is that if they cross the Earth's orbit at the exact time when the Earth happens to be at that point in its orbit, then there's a risk that it might crash into the Earth.

And sure enough, this one is on an orbit which takes about four years.

So it's close to us just now.

It'll be close to us again in 2028.

But in 2032, the calculations suggested there was a reasonable chance, which in this case was of order of a percent or so, that it would actually crash into the earth.

1% or so.

So it's about kind of doing those calculations and working out those probabilities.

Yeah, and sometimes

if we get worried about these sort of things, you could turn that around and say, well, it's a 99% chance it'll miss us.

Yeah.

Rather than a 1% chance of it hitting us.

So, yeah, so these, so it's obviously a very important thing to try and work out whether that possibility is

indeed real.

It's the sort of thing that as you gather more data, what tends to happen, if you can imagine a sort of range of uncertainty in where this thing will be when it passes by the Earth in 2032, that initially is quite large because we don't have enough observations.

But as we get more observations, that range of uncertainty shrinks.

The Earth is somewhere in this range.

As that range shrinks, the Earth occupies a larger fraction of that range.

So actually, the probability of impact goes up.

Right.

And in fact, as of two days ago, the probability had got as high as 2.8%.

So it's increasing from when it was first discovered.

As of today, I just checked, and it's dropped again.

It's dropped to 1.4% now.

And that's sort of what we expected because as this range shrinks, eventually the Earth sort of ends up sitting outside the range of uncertainty and you are sure it won't hit the Earth.

So that's what we're hoping, as more observations come in, we're hoping that we'll be able to say, actually, we're 100% sure it's going to miss.

As long as you're in this range of uncertainty, then there's a possibility.

So we've been watching all of these probabilities fluctuate.

I'm happy that we're back to the nearly 99% chance it'll miss.

But we've tracked down one of the astronomers from the International Asteroid Warning Network who's actually working on these calculations right now.

His name is Patrick Michel from the Côte d'Azur Observatory in France and we asked him what is the latest on 2024 YR4.

So now it's going away from the Earth.

So it's leaving us to go back to what we call the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.

And therefore now we need bigger and bigger telescopes to observe it until April.

In April we will basically not be able to observe it from the ground.

The good news is that we have also some observation time with the marvelous James Webb Space Telescope and it will be able to observe it until May.

And the thing that the James Webb Telescope can do that we cannot do from the ground is that it can even tell us the size of this asteroid because for now the size is about between 40 meters to 90 meters.

And the reason why we don't know the site, the size, sorry, is because for the same brightness you could have a small and very bright object or a large and very dark object.

The advantage of the Gen Sweep telescope is that it observes in the infrared and the size of an asteroid is directly proportional to its brightness in the infrared.

So just to say that we are doing the maximum to improve our knowledge of this asteroid so that we can you know hopefully tell the people okay this was just an exercise and therefore nothing to worry about.

It becomes zero, the probability, and that's the most probable scenario.

So that size uncertainty, that's quite a big range, isn't it?

Between 40 meters and 90 meters.

I mean, for a bit of perspective, the one that wiped out the dinosaurs was about 10 kilometers across.

Sure, so it's not an Earth-wide, a global cataclysm if this thing or a thing like it did hit, but it's certainly it's certainly a major problem.

I mean, there's a famous one that hit the Earth in 1908, about this size, actually.

And it hit, it impacted in a place called Tunguska in Siberia.

So well, you know, very low sort of population density.

But it basically destroyed an area of forest about 2,000 square kilometers in size.

And so if

we were unlucky enough that an object like this were to indeed hit the earth and then were to hit the earth over a populated area, it's the

size of Greater Manchester or the London area that would be significantly affected by this.

So it's certainly something that we should be watching out for and worrying about in the future, even if this particular one turns out and we'll see to have a zero chance of hitting us.

I'm going to hark back to that 99% probability it'll miss.

Jodrell Bank is home to what is probably the UK's most famous telescope.

Is that fair?

Can you use some of your radio telescopes at Jodrell to listen for objects like this?

Yeah, I mean, picking up on what was just being said then about using the James Webb Space Telescope and so on on and measuring the properties of these asteroids, that's a key thing to be able to do.

And another way of doing it is, you know, as I said, the only way we see these things is because the light from the sun is reflecting off them.

What we can do with a radio telescope, which is what we have at Jodrell Bank, is we can effectively light it up ourselves.

So we shine a sort of radio torch onto the asteroid and we see the radio waves that reflect back.

So this is basically a radar experiment.

So you have a powerful radar transmitter, you point at the asteroid, it reflects back, you then use radio telescopes to study it.

And actually, that gives us totally complementary information to what the visible light or the infrared telescopes like the James Webb are doing.

We can, in fact, study them in great detail in terms of measuring rotation speeds.

We measure the speed at which they're moving towards, away from us, and that adds precision to the orbit calculations.

So, Jodrell is going to help keep an eye on objects like this, and you're helping settle our nerves on that.

But have you brought us more news from Jodrell Bank?

What is happening at that wonderful observatory?

Yeah, so the Big Lovell telescope, the one that people must think of, I think, when they think of Jodrell Bank, the third largest telescope in the world still.

We've had some downtime for the last few weeks because we were having to change a wheel, which is...

Oh, right.

Okay.

Yeah, so this is part of the mechanics that move, that Lovell can move and follow this kind of trajectory and point wherever you want to point it.

Yeah, it rotates on big railway tracks, so they're like big railway wheels.

And occasionally they do crack.

But that was done successfully.

We were back in operation last night, actually.

Oh, just?

Okay, so you're up and going again.

Yeah, yeah, we're operating as we speak.

And in fact, today we're actually linking up with these other big radio telescopes across Europe.

They look at the same object at the same time, and that gives us this sort of continent-wide radio telescope, which gives us a zoom lens to look at very distant objects in the universe.

What are you looking at?

Well, first up, checking the schedule, first up today is these weird little things called red nuggets.

What's a red nugget?

A red nugget that's something that comes after a blue nugget in the story of the formation of galaxies, basically.

So in the history of the universe, when the galaxies first formed and the first stars formed, they go through this sort of sequence, we think, and this is something we're testing.

And a red nugget is basically a compact galaxy.

It's collapsed in on itself.

There's a supermassive black hole at the center.

It's got these stars which have formed in the past and they've become red old stars.

And there's no new stars being formed.

It's somehow switched off the star formation.

And we want to understand that process.

We think those things then merge together to make the galaxies of today, but we need to understand the details of where these objects sit in the story.

Right, so the sort of evolution formation of galaxies, and by joining all these telescopes together, you can look much further away and see these red nuggets at a huge distance.

What sort of distance are you focusing on?

So, these things, the light, the radio waves in this case from these things set off billions of years ago, so back towards the origin of the universe, actually, is what we're able to see with these things.

But you're also, what you're able to see is in detail the regions around the supermassive black hole, for example, at the center of this thing.

So you can study the mechanisms.

You know, you don't get a blurred view with these, as long as you spread these telescopes across large distances.

Remarkable.

Thank you, Tim.

We'll be back with you shortly.

Now, though, we're moving a little bit closer to our home planet, space exploration expert and

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Friend of Inside Science Libby Jackson has been examining examining the new politically charged race to the moon.

Look out towards the moon and the celestial path between here and there.

What was the equivalent of an overgrown, unloved byway is about to become a busy high street.

There are seven separate missions all due to make that quarter million mile journey this year, more than at any time since the heyday of the 1960s.

NASA is still targeting targeting 2026 for the first crewed mission around the moon since Apollo, and, with all his love of spectacle and hyperbole, surely Trump will want to be in charge when American astronauts return.

But why now?

Why the moon?

And what on earth is driving this stampede?

I devoured stories of Apollo when I was little.

They captivated my imagination and had me dreaming of the stars.

Amazingly, I turned those dreams into reality and have spent nearly two decades working with astronauts in the International Space Station.

I can't wait to see the Artemis missions unfold, living through history in the same way my parents did, though this time watching in glorious high definition.

The rocks and data that are returned will be a scientific treasure trove.

The magnificent desolation of the barren rock, unfettered by atmosphere or plate tectonics, means that the ancient geology is preserved and the permanently shadowed regions at the poles are thought to have material that was deposited there some one to three billion years ago by comets.

It's a pristine record of the solar system's deep history.

But let's not kid ourselves.

These missions are not just driven by scientific curiosity.

The discovery of water ice in the 1990s transformed the moon from a barren rock into potential lunar real estate.

This frozen treasure could be the key to sustainable lunar habitation, habitation, providing everything from drinking water to rocket fuel.

The moon is also rich in materials that could be useful, perhaps even profitable, back here on Earth.

There is no evidence of cheese, but helium-3 found in the loose rocks covering the surface might one day power fusion reactors.

There are deposits of rare earth metals such as terbium and europium.

vital ingredients in the sensors, screens and smartphones that we rely on every day.

Our insatiable appetite for technology, coupled with China's control of over 70% of worldwide production, leaves some countries anxious to establish alternative supplies.

But is it worth a massive effort and cost to extract this stuff from the moon?

And is it right to do so?

The lunar economy is forecast to be worth anything from billions to quadrillions, and governments are acutely aware you've got to be in it to win it.

First mover advantage could mean that finders are keepers.

But for the finders to make their returns, they must own the resources.

And who owns the moon, or rather who can't, is set out in the rather pithily named Outer Space Treaty, first adopted in 1967.

This international, legally binding agreement between 115 nations, including all the space-faring ones, is the foundation of space law.

It lays out that no nation can own own space and it must be used for peaceful purposes.

Now, some argue that whilst no nation can own the moon, there is nothing to stop it being mined for all it's worth with the miners owning their spoils.

And in 2020, NASA awarded contracts to commercial companies to collect space resources.

NASA would pay the companies the princely sum of $1

and then NASA would own them.

The moon is the new wild west, with land to be grabbed and resources to be claimed.

But for lunar activities to become commercially sustainable, beyond government contracts, the lunar resources are going to have to be so valuable to those on Earth that it warrants the mammoth effort to return them.

I love an ambitious space mission.

I used to help make them happen.

But as I look up at the moon, excited for the innovation and inspiration that this next chapter of exploration will certainly bring, I do wonder what comes next.

By the time we value the moon's riches so much that people on Earth are paying for them to be imported from space, what will have become of the Earth's resources and the life that relies on them?

I like to hope that humanity will learn lessons from the past and will tread a more gentle and sustainable path into the future.

That was Livby Jackson.

Tim, what are your thoughts on this new race back to the lunar surface?

Well, I think, I I mean, that's a very hopeful view, and of course, I'm sure we all share that view.

I mean, I certainly myself, I was certainly inspired by the original moon landings of 1969.

I remember one of my earliest memories.

You don't remember those, do you?

Do you?

I do.

Believe it or not, I am that.

I know I don't look that old, but I am that.

I was five.

You're a lot hiding behind that beard.

Exactly.

I was five in 1969.

And one of my earliest memories, actually, is

dressing up as an astronaut in a fancy dress at my first primary school when my mum made me a costume out of cowboard boxes and tiny.

So yeah, so I was probably almost certainly inspired by that.

So certainly sending people back to the moon is, I think it's inspirational for humans to see other humans doing these things, at least initially.

I would say that I would think, I think robotic space missions are perhaps equally inspirational when you think about what we're able to do technologically in terms of deflecting potential Earth, impacting asteroids, for example, which is a technology we're able to do these days.

But But I'm afraid I'm really quite pessimistic about the future in terms of how people might or might not exploit the moon.

I mean, you know, the reasons for going there always political, obviously, they cost money and that comes in.

But also, I think, you know, at some level, personally, I don't, you know, I can imagine a situation, you know, in the near future where someone might be declaring themselves king of the moon, for example, and that might not be what we want.

to see I think.

So on the one hand, there's this sort of scientific idealism of what can we learn about the history of the solar system from going to the moon.

But I think I agree with Libby that I think we need to look for some of the problems close at home.

No science without politics and financial interests, though, right?

I think so.

Speaking of which, you may have heard the rumblings over the last few days about the Royal Society and one particularly controversial fellow, Elon Musk.

The Elite Scientific Association has now called a meeting to discuss the behaviour of its fellows as a growing number of members have raised their concerns about Mr.

Musk's conduct.

He was made a fellow in 2018.

That meeting will take place in March and we'll keep a close eye on the outcome.

But before then, we've asked our own Ella Hubber, who else has caused controversy over the centuries at this learned society?

Hi, Ella.

Hi, Vic.

Thanks for having me.

Always a pleasure.

Take us through it.

You've got a lot of history to get through in a few minutes.

Yes, yes, a lot.

So as far as expulsions go, only three people have ever been expelled from the Royal Society.

So Elon Musk will be making history here as the fourth ever, should it happen.

Wow, okay.

One per century.

Who were the people who've been expelled?

Why were they kicked out?

Well, a big one here is astronomer John Flamsteed, who was expelled in 1709 for the scandal of not paying his fees.

This was apparently done, quote, following disagreements.

And we can't know for sure, but what we do know is that Flamsteed and the then head of the Royal Society, Isaac Newton, seemed to have quite a strained relationship.

So in 1694, Flamsteed shared his observations about the moon with Newton under the promise that he would be properly credited if they were published.

But when they were published, Newton reportedly stole most of the glory for himself.

Scandalous.

Quite.

This seemed to trigger a decades-long feud between them and may have been the reason that Flamsteed didn't pay his fees when Newton later became head of the Royal Society.

Just like a grudge, a financial grudge.

But what about other fellows that have caused controversy who've not been expelled?

Certainly, yeah, there have been other controversial fellows.

For example, have you heard of the mathematician Charles Babbage?

Yes, so he originated the idea for the first computer, didn't he?

I don't think he was a particularly controversial figure in science.

No, not as a scientist, but in 1830, as he was getting more involved in politics, he wrote this pretty scathing pamphlet titled Reflections on the Decline of Science in England,

which called for the current president of the Royal Society to be ousted and for the Royal Society to be reformed from its elitist ways.

Elitist.

Outrageous.

Outrageous.

And as far as I can tell, his efforts didn't actually do much.

But despite actively trying to overthrow the Royal Society, he wasn't expelled.

That really does show how great the stakes are here.

And do we have time for one more controversial figure?

I assume there have been a few.

There have been.

I'll do a very quick one here.

And this is the one that surprised me the most when I was looking through the records.

And that's former fellow Margaret Thatcher.

Ah, yes.

She was a chemist, wasn't she?

Does that have anything to do with her fellowship?

Well, you're right.

She was a research chemist before she trained as a barrister, before becoming Prime Minister.

And maybe, perhaps, her time refining the chemistry of soft serve ice cream did give her a leg up into the Royal Society, but probably not.

An article in New Scientist from the Times states that she was elected under a statute which allows new fellows to be nominated for service to science and signal benefits to the society.

So, political reasons, essentially.

I should add here that she wasn't the first or last Prime Minister to become a fellow, but her appointment was very divisive.

Many scientists at the time spoke against her becoming elected, but others in the Royal Society evidently disagreed, and she was elected and never expelled.

Thank you, Ella, for that distilled and fascinating three-century history of controversy.

And we should say that the Royal Society has sent us a statement about the current controversy over Elon Musk and the upcoming meeting, which they say will take place on the 3rd of March.

In a statement, they told us: In the history of science, there have been people who have contributed to scientific progress who have expressed opinions that are controversial and intemperate.

Their statement continued: Principles and traditions of the society evolve over time, so we are holding this meeting to discuss them.

And we will bring you updates on that.

But for now, that is all we have time for.

You have been listening to BBC Inside Science with me, Victoria Gill.

The producers were Ellen Goodman, Sophie Ormiston, and Ella Hubber.

Technical production was by Amy Gallagher and Rhys Morris, and the show was made in Cardiff by BBC Wales and West.

For more fascinating space and science content, head to bbc.co.uk, search for BBC Inside Science, and follow the links to the Open University, and try the Open University Space Quiz.

But for this week, thank you to all of our studio guests and to you for listening.

Until next time, bye-bye.

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