Material World

Quentin Cooper is joined by Pen Hadow, the polar explorer who reports that the Arctic could be free of ice during summers within a decade because of global warming. Quentin hears how Pen's trek over the polar ice drew him to this conclusion. Physicist Prof Alan Guth explains why he calls the beginning of time, the first instant when the Universe was created out of nothing, 'the ultimate free lunch'. As Kew Millennium Seed Bank announces that it has banked 10 per cent of the world's wild plant species, we ask how technology can help to conserve the remaining 90 per cent.