8:00pm – Thursday, April 7 on ABC1
Fin Forensics In recent years there has been growing concern over the conservation status of sharks. They grow slowly, are late to mature and produce very few young. But there’s strong demand and high prices for shark products.
There’s a living to be made catching sharks for their fins alone and the suffering animal is often returned to the deep to suffocate on the seafloor. Ruben Meerman reports on the forensic science that is bringing some fishermen to justice.
Low GI Diet Is it possible that a mother’s diet during pregnancy can affect her child for the rest of its life? Scientists are now proposing that it’s not just our genes that shape us. What we’re fed in our mother’s womb can also have a profound impact on how we grow up. Gestational diabetes and fat babies can lead to obesity in adulthood and type 2 diabetes. Maryanne Demasi meets Professor Jennie Brand-Miller, to examine the importance of a Low GI diet during pregnancy.
Mean Girls A study of pre-school children suggests that girls are no less competitive than boys – they simply employ more subtle tactics. While boys use head-on aggression to get what they want, girls rely on the pain of social exclusion. Ostracism is employed by pre-schoolers and teenagers alike and as Jonica Newby finds out, in older girls at least, the behaviour can be devastating.
Boys Toys Boys like trucks and girls like dolls right? But is it nature or nurture? Well, the jury may still be out, but there’s evidence that exposure to testosterone in utero has a bearing on boys’ preference for vehicles with big fat tyres. Females growing in the womb however, respond to testosterone very differently.
Discovering Other Earths Astronomers have discovered a lot of planets orbiting other suns recently, but as yet none with the habitable nature of Earth. But we’re about to discover a whole host of far more interesting places that could support life.
Graham Phillips explores the source of these expected discoveries – the Kepler Space Telescope.
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