A stunning variety of organisms each striving to reproduce some of them dont even need a partner to produce offspring in others the father bears the young and it turns out that in sexual reproduction the conventional model of two genetic parents doesnt always hold true at least in plants. Here moms have one genetic mother and one genetic father the same generally goes for the rest of the animal world but new Research Shows that things can be different for plants it turns out that fail cress plants occasionally exhibit different numbers of chromosomes. Molecular biologist rita goes heart and her team at braman university suspected that they could have a mother and two fathers now the researchers have been able to prove it. Either before during the federalization process an excel can infuse with more than one sperm cell. We describe this red process as poly spermy whats special about plants is that the process of police isnt lethal but can actually lead to viable offspring confort. The use provided some two Million Euros of funding for the project the biggest challenge was actually proving that there were tried parental plant scientists employed a genetic trick. They disconnected two gene elements that are necessary to confer herbicide resistance and introduce them separately into two different plants. Then they collected pollen from that father number one and father number two and used to pollinate the flower of the third mother plant in the by paternal seedlings with the contributions from both fathers the resistance gene is activated meaning they can survive treatment with herbicide the model paternal ones cannot clear evidence that there are plants that have two fathers. Weve examined over half a million progeny to determine if they have two or three parents. Weve established that plants rarely have three parents. Only one in ten thousand in fact. I am. The discovery of these natural anomalies could prove highly useful in the Agricultural Industry three parent plant breeding has the potential to give rise to new plant lines with more chromosomes. In conventional plant breeding crosspollination often results in compatability reactions these could perhaps be partly avoided with three parent plant reading allowing us to generate new plant combinations for agricultural crops and ornamental plant markets. Start recently begun work on a Pilot Project with the book by a Science Company for nineteen years the focus of the Family Business has been on cultivation by paternal plants could help the Company Start breeding new types of orchids while abiding by a new law and avoiding genetic engineering. Our aim is to introduce those orange type as large blossoms in an orchid if we could combine the large flowers with a fragrance wed have types that dont exist on the market. The company isnt alone in pinning its hopes on new technology breeders of canola and other crop plants are also interested in its potential. The researchers believe that the phenomenon of three parent plant breeding has played an Important Role in plant evolution. In the wild poly spermy has many benefits for plants it results in strong growth and also means theyre better adapted to the environment past and. The scientists intend to carry on researching by paternal plant breeding every to cause heart and her team can contribute to the development of new plant lines their years of work will have borne useful fruit. What makes science advance many researchers leave the lab and head out on expeditions sometimes to remarkable places like the icy poles or they seek the object of their research in more trouble call rain forest or under extreme conditions in a dusty desert. But the scientists who study phenomena beyond our solar system have to rely on very different methods. Throughout Human History we have gazed up at those twinkling points of light in the sky and wondered about their number researches today estimate there are least one hundred billion galaxies with a septillion stars thats a one followed by twenty four zeros many of these distant suns have planets orbiting around them over the past twenty years modern telescopes have found three thousand five hundred planets outside our solar system in our galaxy. And the number of known exoplanets is rising fast we can even estimate how many of them might be like the earth. Then if you go out at night and count five stars one two three four five then one out of five stars is another sun that could have a planet like ours. And and with billions of stars in our galaxy the milky way alone. Well its just so exciting to search for life in the universe. Lisa cota neg dreams of finding life on an exoplanet like many other astrophysicists the planet hunter at Cornell University in the u. S. Is looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack. The object of her search an exoplanet resembling earth in the socalled habitable zone of its sun where liquid water can exist on its surface. In all this present we know of about three dozen planets that are the right distance from their sons not our sun but other stars and these and they are incredibly hard to find. One hundred earths next to each other of the diameter of the sun so were talking about something really tiny. Place bar away from us. The key to hunting down these tiny planets that could be light years away is the light from the stars they orbit modern detectors can measure the starlight with great sensitivity like the senses are not as kepler missions since two thousand and nine theyve led to the discovery of numerous exoplanets. This is how it works when an exoplanet passes in front of its star it blocks a small part of the star like during its transit. This tiny dip in the light level can be detected and given the regularity and the extent of the darkening astrophysicists calculate the jury. The planets orbit its math and science. Telescopes at the european southern observatory in chile and nasa space telescopes used this method to discover an entire planetary system depth trappist one. This is what it means look like seven planets roughly the size of the earth and three or four of them could potentially support life. In general up there with basically im an optimist and i believe if there is life out there we will track it down in the next few years. On im really excited. This is a watershed in Human History like the copernican revolution when we learned that the earth is not the center of the universe and now we will hopefully find out whether were alone or not in the. Landfill or that. She expects a breakthrough soon the James Webb Space Telescope is due to be launched in twenty twenty a collaboration by nasa the European Space agency and the Canadian Space agency webb will be the first to pick up faint signals that could help pinpoint life. And under construction at the european southern observatory is the extremely large telescope its expected to start operating in twenty twenty four to get a detailed look at planets circling other stars. The worlds biggest particle accelerator is the large hadron collider a twenty seven kilometer long ring of one hundred meters underground. At the European Organization for Nuclear Research or cern some investigations are geared to finding a kind of particle that particularly interested one of our viewers. From mexico wants to know. What is anti matter. Every subatomic particle has an empty particle on the anti matter form of the electron is the positron its a mirror world with Similar Properties to the world of ordinary matter with one big difference matter and anti matter of opposite charges. And when the two collide they annihilate one another. In the famous equation named after him physicist paul direct predicted the existence of anti. In one thousand nine hundred twenty eight. The current hypothesis is that matter and antimatter were formed in equal amounts in the big bang but soon after an imbalance grew in favor of matter otherwise we probably wouldnt exist. But we do why does the visible universe mainly consist of ordinary matter is anti matter different or other entire worlds made of anti matter. This giant magnet can detect anti helium nuclei particles that will provide evidence of anti matter in space it went into operation in twenty eleven on the International Space station but it still hasnt found any of the particles. In Science Fiction anti matter is often portrayed as a dangerous weapon. But have no fear gigantic operator says are required to generate just a few atoms of anti matter and storing them before they are annihilated is an even greater challenge. If you have a science question go to our website and send it in if we answer it on the show youll get a d. V. D. Featuring a lighthearted look at albert einsteins most famous theory. The most important thing is to never stop asking questions. And we never stop asking you questions like this one on facebook what is your favorite smell. Kamil kumar says it has to be the fresh smell of spring when everything wakes up from winter hibernation early hossein favorite smell is the scent of the night blooming jasmine. Clinton met trio prefers lavender. On the other hand part of my mohammads favorite aroma is that of strawberries. And mortar syrup a sheer in mar loves the smell of sand after it rains. A good sense of smell is hugely import. And for humans and other animals protecting us against spoiled food for example. But humans have poor smelling ability when compared with other animals and thats why scientists are listing the help of some real old factory experts. In this berlin city park researchers are out looking for hedgehogs extensive Agricultural Land uses string kingly nocturnal creatures Natural Habitats and forcing them to establish new to Wellington City parks and gardens the scientists from allotments institute for Wildlife Research want to find out all they can about how the animals live here. In la. This really gives us the fact that theyre nocturnal makes it harder you have to go out at night when the most active but hedgehogs can hear and smell incredibly well as soon as one notices youre approaching it will scuttle straight off into the bushes where its almost impossible to find. Ecologists down a burger is taking a close look at this little critter. To clarify family relationships she takes a lawyer samples for genetic testing and other barratry then they tag the creatures and weigh them unfortunately this little guy is the only one theyve been able to catch this time its not a very effective way of going about the task so a better method is called for. Hoping phina is the answer. To strain the australian shepherd dog to sniff out hedgehogs she came up with the solution after learning about dogs in other countries being used to detect hiding animals. It was a far to take advantage is that the dogs help you look during daytime so they can take you straight to the hedgehogs nest so we can map out their whereabouts without disturbing them while they sleep and just. Has to show them where the animals are by lying down. To be reliable pheno has to practice regularly in special training courses. Like this one in the eifel region. The program is called nozzle course most nervous cool. Dogs dont have any problem smelling. The challenge is to train them which of the thousands of voters around to pinpoint and how to go about it. Time to get to work. Scene is given several objects to choose from they all have distinctive scents plant pots water pistols and hedgehogs spines to reinforce the target scent thena gets a reward whenever she locates the spines. The clicker reinforces that she got it right then she gets a treat. Freeness done for the day now a colleague a truffle hound gets his turn he exercises refine a dogs ability to focus on one specific scent. Harvest Border Collie fosco has even been working with a pest control for the past year learning how to track bed bugs. Hides them to see if osco can find them. Fosco shows hes found the sample by remaining very still. A reward is very important and mustnt be overlooked it confirms the dogs performed well on phoenix second day the trainers raise the bar but place a hedgehog skin in a large garden plot for the canine sleuth to find. Its hidden among thousands of unfamiliar and enticing smells. But the canine has to concentrate on the hedgehog scent and this time she has to display a new alerting behavior instead of lying down she has to stare at the exact location where on a bed it can find the skin. A masterful performance by fener. Back in berlin shes ready for her next assignment and a back up plans to continue to head child cunt tonight. Fitness scouts the area for their nests. She soon finds one even though she performs the role alerting behavior lying down instead of staring at the spot she still gets her reward. Right about the marks the spot and loves its g. P. S. Coordinates so she can find it later that night. Hours later. That. Exactly where pheno showed us what we normally think is good reason to chanel out one if its more effective in faster this way locates many more hedgehogs so we can do our work more rapidly me its also much more fun to have such a nice four legged colleague working alongside me. While science takes its course. Can take a much deserved snooze. By the way african elephants have an even better sense of smell than dogs as japanese researchers discovered recently but the packet terms might be a bit too big to help sniff out hedgehogs. In the year seventy nine a d Mount Vesuvius erupted and engulfed the roman city of pompei the film of that name reconstructs that devastating event but the volcano didnt just destroy buildings the material it spewed up in a fiery eruption has an enduring secret we head to italy to find out more. On the. Tunnel city the coliseum is two thousand years old the pantheon and unlike clients its return there is made of concrete of lighter than normal density the romans pioneered the use of concrete italy is full of Historic Buildings that have withstood the ravages of time what exactly makes them so extraordinary durable is an interesting question but one thats only been australia to very recently. Its to the fact that the Morning Technology of concrete starts developing the late fiftys saw when the realize that the way they produce the concrete was not the smartest way they started to think ok lets see which is the secret of the ancient greece from rome. Heres an ancient thermal bath geologist pierre julio demonstrates just how robust it is the lower part you will see these irregular blocks of neapolitan you load off that are mixing together with the mortars which is made by. Law and mixed together this is the neapolitan you load off the rock in this is the warder you can see that sometimes the top is eroded while the mortar is Still Standing very tough. The key ingredient in roman cement originates from a volcanic area near naples the term part salonica ash comes from the name of the town of parkes wooly we are right in the middle of our volcano its called come peacefully get a flag around the fields and all of these hills that you see here are built by volcanic eruption that took place from thirty nine thousand to forty thousand years ago volcanic eruptions supplied the romans with an abundance of Building Materials tough limestone and pots of money catch. If. And the roman already know how to use them to produce very light concrete in order to mean the buildings such as the pantheon in rome that uses these the can if you put in order you will float because its volcanic glass full of poors and you see here you have more send the its use it for the mixing with lime to obtain the concrete and this is the real good one he has a lot of properties and the most important one is that its almost the last saw ready to react with other constituents to build the new phrases that are responsible within the concrete of their strength of their resistance professor caplan let in a team of international researches at the university of naples are examining why exactly the volcanic material make rayman concrete said juror bill. Basically we take a look at the french class which is this move surface. Represent the puzzle i make material at their starting condition you can spot from the in their left sides that something start to crystallize within the poors of the volcanic glass so the glass is turning into something else. Thats whats known as the pots and manic reaction and the volcanic glass is so reactive that crystalline structures for minutes polls they stabilize the cement and also make it highly water resistant the formation of this be cured mineral aluminum to burglarize which is responsible cording to our study to the strength thats the real secret for roman concrete in the northern italian city of pergamon research is hope to use this ancient knowledge to improve modern day concrete its detective work the remains amazing recipe for making multiple. Own disappeared when the empire collapsed. More or less two thousand years or for us was very important because from the roman concret the qualities we can learn and what the modern concrete can be. The romans make this top product despite having no killings that could reach temperatures of one thousand five hundred degrees celsius instead they harness the power of the volcano which practically pre roasted the put some money cash. Was created by adding the raw material at the temperature over one thousand so this is the green and so using the experience made by the romans we can have some ports so Alex Samantha the that can. Go to a mission for its production but unfortunately naturally pretty roasted material such as pots a lana is rare thats why research is a looking for alternatives for example using fly ash a byproduct produced by coal combustion. Would have reinvented the modern concrete making and thinking this is the unsung good thing it in the new congress and thats theres been a very interesting looking at the past and for me for the new conference of the future naturally future Co