The human cost of the decline of nature’s carcass cleaners

Science In Action

The near extinction of vultures in India may be responsible for an additional half a million human deaths between 2000 and 2005. The widespread use of the painkiller diclofenac in herds of cattle, starting in 1994, led to a massive decline in vulture populations in India, as the drug is poisonous to them. We hear from environmental economist Anant Sudarshan of Warwick University.

Cooking like a Neanderthal - Mariana Nabais of the Catalan Institute of Human Paleoecology and Social Evolution has been replicating ancient butchering methods to learn how Neanderthals ate birds.

A faster test for sepsis – we hear from Sunghoon Kwon of Seoul National University about a new method for identifying the pathogens involved in sepsis cases. The test has the potential to reduce the turnaround times normally associated with developing treatments for infections and may improve patient outcomes.

And it seems we may have inherited some conversational habits from chimps – or rather from whatever came before us and chimps 6 million years ago. Cat Hobaiter of the School of Psychology and Neuroscience of St Andrews University and her colleagues have found that like humans, wild chimps engage in snappy, turn-taking conversations.

Presenter: Roland Pease Producer: Jonathan Blackwell Production Coordinator: Jana Bennett-Holesworth

(Image: World Wildlife Day - Gyps fulvus feeding on a buffalo carcass at Kaziranga National Park in Assam, India. Credit: Anuwar Hazarika/NurPhoto via Getty Images)