Excess Baggage - 15/05/2010

John McCarthy meets Anil Ananthaswamy a science writer who has visited many of the world's most inaccessible observatories and telescopes. These are often sited in remote places to avoid light pollution or cosmic interference so his travels have taken him to the South Pole, the Atacama Desert, half a mile underground in Minnesota and the middle of a frozen Lake Baikal. And he has encountered the particular breed of technologists who don't mind being cut off from the rest of the world for up to eight months at a time. John also talks to travel journalist Juliet Rix who enthuses about the Neolithic temples in Malta and Gozo which predate the Egyptian pyramids by a thousand years. Although discovered a hundred years ago and forming a fascinating part of Malta's rich history they remain under-visited by tourists to the islands. Producer: Harry Parker.