Genetics, Super Materials, Recycling Energy

Broadcast on 24th February 2011  IMAGE:  Experts estimate that fossil-fuel burning power plants, such as the one pictured here, a peat fired plant in Ireland at Shannonbridge, Co Offaly, lose up to 70 per cent of their energy through heat losses. New nano materials could change all that [Credit: Wikipedia]  WHAT'S IT ALL ABOUT? Genetics, past, present and future, explained by Ken Wolfe, Trinity College Dublin (TCD) head of the only Irish laboratory involved in The Human Genome Project.  THE QUESTION IS? We lose over 70 per cent of the energy - as heat - generated by fossil-fuel burning  power plants. Can nano materials improve things? We ask TCD nano researcher Jonathan Coleman.  WRITER'S ROOM Ireland's county Waterford has produced many of Ireland's most famous scientists, including Robert Boyle, of Boyle's Law fame, and Atom splitter, Ernest Walton. Author Donald Brady tells us more.  To contact the show email: [e-mail] For more about the Presenter & Producer, Seán Duke, click here.