Slovakia Today, English Language Current Affairs Programme from Slovak Radio

Space agencies were taken by surprise on March 4th of this year when a discarded Chinese rocket unexpectedly crashed into the far side of the moon, something that hadn’t happened before without the knowledge of scientists. Jonathan speaks with space debris expert Jiří Šilha from Comenius University’s Faculty of Physics, Mathematics and Informatics about this unusual event and what implications it has for the future of moon exploration. – Repeat: With the emergence of so-called ‘superbugs’ – bacteria that are resistant to our current range of antibiotics – researchers have become focused on trying to develop new and more powerful ones. But how are such new medications found? In this the second part of their discussion, organic chemist Pavol Jakubec speaks with Jonathan about how he and his team have taken their cue from nature, in discovering and developing what he hopes will eventually be a new antibiotic capable of killing the most dangerous and resistent forms of bacteria that we know of.