The Origins of Life

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the emergence of the world’s first organic matter nearly four billion years ago. Scientists have named 1.5 million species of living organism on the land, in the skies and in the oceans of planet Earth and a new one is classified every day. Estimates of how many species remain to be discovered vary wildly, but science accepts one categorical point - all living matter on our planet, from the nematode to the elephant, from the bacterium to the blue whale, is derived from a single common ancestor. What was that ancestor? Did it really emerge from a ‘primordial soup’? And what, in the explanation of evolutionary science, provided the catalyst to start turning the cycle of life?With Richard Dawkins, Charles Simonyi Professor of the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University; Richard Corfield, Visiting Senior Lecturer at the Centre for Earth, Planetary, Space and Astronomical Research at the Open University; Linda Partridge, Biology and Biotechnology Research Council Professor at University College London.

→ Listen on BBC Sounds website

Guests

• Richard Dawkins 4 episodes
  Charles Simonyi Professor of the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University
• Richard Corfield 10 episodes
  Visiting Senior Lecturer at the Centre for Earth, Planetary, Space and Astronomical Research at the Open University
• Linda Partridge 3 episodes
  Biology and Biotechnology Research Council Professor at University College London

Related episodes

• The Habitability of Planets
  
  12 Dec, 2024 570 Biology
• The Cell
  
  13 Sep, 2012 570 Biology
• Human Evolution
  
  16 Feb, 2006 560 Fossils and prehistoric life
• Ediacara Biota
  
  9 Jul, 2009 560 Fossils and prehistoric life
• Human Origins
  
  27 Apr, 2000 560 Fossils and prehistoric life
• The Cambrian Period
  
  17 Feb, 2005 560 Fossils and prehistoric life
• Microbiology
  
  8 Mar, 2007 570 Biology
• Mammals
  
  13 Oct, 2005 590 Animals (Zoology)
• The Universe’s Origins
  
  20 May, 1999 520 Astronomy
• The Fish-Tetrapod Transition
  
  20 Oct, 2022 570 Biology

Experimental. For more related episodes, visit the visual explorer.

---

Programme ID: p004y29f

Episode page: bbc.co.uk/programmes/p004y29f

Auto-category: 570 (Biology)

Hello (First sentence from this episode)

Hello. Scientists have named 1.5 million species of living organism on the land, in the skies, and in the ocean of planet Earth, and a new one's classified every day.