The pandemic showed Africa at the back of the global queue when it came to vaccines. That should never happen again if plans being debated in Cape Town this week go ahead. Roland talks to Seanette Wilson of South Africa's Biovac. Also in the programme: life finds a way on plastic floating in the ocean; Greenland rock dust as a global fertiliser; and designing proteins from scratch. Image Credit: Robert Bonet/NurPhoto via Getty Images Presenter: Roland Pease Producer: Roland Pease Assistant Producer: Sophie Ormiston

H5N1, a highly pathogenic avian flu is racing across the world, and has infected multiple species, including wild and farmed birds, and mammals from cats to sea lions. What can be done to control it? Roland Pease talks to global experts about the dangers to animal and human health, and about the measures to bring the outbreak under control. Producer: Roland Pease Assistant producer: Sophie Ormiston (Photo: A government worker examines chicks for signs of bird flu infection at a poultry farm in Darul Imarah in Indonesia's Aceh province. Credit: Chaideer Mahyuddin)

Chasing tornados in the American mid-West – scientists are trying to learn the maximum from the tornado outbreaks currently in America. Professor Karen Kosiba calls us from a radar truck studying the storms, and Professor John Allen explains the energy powering them. From the weather of today to the skies of 800 years ago... Dr Sébastien Guillet reveals how lunar observations by medieval monks are helping untangle the connection between historic eruptions and climate. Finally, we go back even further in time to the Bronze Age with Professor Elisa Guerra-Doce – to find out what drugs our ancestors were into. Image credit: Getty Images / Michael B. Thomas Producer: Roland Pease  Assistant Producer: Sophie Ormiston

We look at a gene editing breakthrough, a new technique to correct genetic errors in sick patients. Roland speaks to Professor David Liu to learn about the base editing technology. Also, we look into the complex causes of last year's post-pandemic spike in child hepatitis. Professor Judy Breuer and her colleagues may have found an explanation behind the unexpected outbreak. And the James Webb Space Telescope continues to seek out the secrets of our universe. Professor Beth Biller and Dr Elsa Ducrot have the details on the atmospheres of two very distant, and very different, exoplanets. Plus, how to get sober – for mice. Professor Steven Kliewer explains how certain mammals have evolved to deal with the intoxicating effects of ethanol. Producer: Roland Pease Assistant Producer: Sophie Ormiston (Image: Genetic engineering 3D rendered conceptual image. Credit: Getty Images)

DNA has revealed potential animal COVID carriers at the Wuhan market, but what does that tell us about the start of the pandemic? Roland talks to two of the experts behind the new analysis: Dr Florence Débarre and Professor Eddie Holmes. Also, we look into Europe’s grand new space ambitions. ESA director general Josef Aschbacher gives Roland the details of the space agency’s out-of-this-world plans. And Beethoven's last DNA: a hairy story of his family and genetic afflictions. Dr Tristan Begg shares how the composer’s tresses unlocked new information about his life and death. Image credit: Eddie Holmes Producer: Roland Pease Assistant producer: Sophie Ormiston

34 days after it first formed at the far end of the Indian Ocean, record-breaking Cyclone Freddy made a repeat landfall on Mozambique as well as passing over Malawi, causing extensive damage and loss of life. Climate scientists Liz Stephens and Izidine Pinto join Roland to give an update on the destruction and explain how Cyclone Freddy kept going for an exceptionally long time. At the Third International Human Genome Summit in London last week, Professor Katsuhiko Hayashi announced he had created baby mice from eggs formed by male mouse cells. Dr Nitzan Gonen explains the underlying science, whilst Professor Hank Greely discusses the ethics and future prospects. And from one rodent story to another, SARS-CoV-2 has been detected in brown rats scurrying around New York sewers. Dr Thomas DeLiberto from the US Department of Agriculture gives Roland the details. Image credit: Jack McBrams/Getty Images Producer: Roland Pease Assistant Producer: Sophie Ormiston

Human Genome Editing: The team meet experts at the Human Genome Editing Summit in London, seeking to cure genetic disease and ensure that it's safe and available to all. Roland Pease hears from Victoria Gray, the first person to be cured of the debilitating and life-shortening disease sickle cell anaemia by gene editing, and from the scientists making it possible. Also, the prospect of work to attempt gene rescue in fetuses before they are born. But the technology is expensive and complex – the question troubling the participants is to ensure people across the world can benefit from it, not just the rich and privileged. And what are the limitations of gene editing? Can it be made more effective, safer? And what of gene edits that will be inherited by future generations?

The long rains of East Africa are forecast to fail again, for the third year running, precipitating a food crisis affecting millions. Science In Action explores the science of the drought, hears about new methods improving forecasts, and what is unusual about the region that makes it so vulnerable. When we think of helium, for many of us balloons and squeaky voices come to mind. But the noble gas is critical for many aspects of modern life – and we’re facing a global shortage. Dr Annie Cheng and her colleagues at the University of Oxford are attempting to solve this by creating a model that has the potential to locate previously untapped reservoirs. Image by Gerald Anderson/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images Producer: Roland Pease Assistant Producer: Sophie Ormiston

Cyclone Freddy has made landfall on Madagascar, leaving destruction in its wake. At the time this edition of Science In Action is going to air, Freddy is on course to reach Mozambique and South Africa. Freddy, which has been gaining strength since it originally formed on the 30th of January, is the most powerful southern hemisphere cyclone on record. Professor Francois Engelbrecht provides the science behind the storm system. In the centre of our galaxy, an enormous cloud is heading towards the Milky Way’s supermassive black hole. Dr Anna Ciurlo tells us that this is a unique opportunity to study the influence of the black hole on the cloud’s shape and properties. We’ve heard a lot about balloons floating above Earth recently… but what about sending balloons to Venus? That’s exactly what Dr Siddharth Krishnamoorthy is proposing in order to study Venus’s seismic activity. Recorders on a “floatilla” above the planet’s surface could listen into Venus-quakes and reveal Venus’s mysterious past. And closer to home, scientists have discovered a new layer in the Earth’s core. We journey into the very centre of the Earth with Professor Hrvoje Tkalčić, who tells Roland what the innermost inner core can teach us about our planet’s past. Image: NASA Earth Observatory image by Lauren Dauphin, using VIIRS data from NASA EOSDIS LANCE, GIBS/Worldview, and the Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS). Producer: Roland Pease Assistant Producer: Sophie Ormiston

In the decade since the genome editing capabilities of CRISPR-Cas9 emerged, research into novel medicines has boomed – but alongside progress comes new ethical considerations. Controversy erupted in 2018, when Chinese scientist He Jiankui created the first babies with edited genomes. After leaving prison last year, he’s now back in the lab trying to raise support for new research but refuses to discuss the ethical implications of his work. Dr Joy Zhang recently arranged a bioethics seminar and invited He Jiankui, it was the first time he’d agreed to engage with a global cohort of CRISPR scientists since returning to his research. Going back in time from cutting-edge to ancient technology, some of the oldest stone tools ever used by human ancestors have been unearthed at a fossil site in Kenya. Professor Tom Plummer talks us through the findings and how important the tools were in our evolution. And we immerse ourselves in the mysterious sounds of the Arctic and Antarctic, from singing ice to the man-made noises of oil and gas drilling. These dramatic soundscapes, created for the Polar Soundscapes project, showcase just how busy our oceans are. Dr Geraint Rhys Whittaker, composer and project lead, believes a novel approach may be required to prompt climate action. Image Credit: Anthony Wallace Presenter: Roland Pease Producer: Harrison Lewis Assistant Producer: Sophie Ormiston