The Life Scientific, Radio 4
Today with Claire Byrne, RTÉ Radio 1
For those of us who are not that into science – that’s me being chased around the school lab by a friend waving a huge, white dead rat – Professor Jim Al-Khalili takes the difficult and makes it fascinating.
He gets scientists to tell their stories in a way that makes sense to ordinary mortals.
Enter one Rosalie David, a pioneer in the study of Ancient Egypt. Her passion for her subject began in infant school. She knew that far back what she wanted to be.
In the early 1970s, she launched a unique project to study Egyptian mummified bodies using the techniques of modern medicine. It was unusual but proved ground-breaking.
There were stories of adventures in Egypt in the 1960s – including a particular train journey when the guard decided she’d be better off in the harem carriage and escorted her there. It was very comfortable, she laughed.
But it was her 21st century forensic detective work in Belfast that caught my attention.
The mummy at the Ulster Museum – Takabuti – has fascinated hundreds of thousands of people. There’s a story that some of the children of the city gifted her nits – but that’s probably apocryphal.
Professor David, working with a team from both Queen’s University and Manchester University, established that Takabuti was probably hit in the back with an axe as she fled from her attacker. Tests on a sample of tissue in her leg revealed that she was running.
The killer could have been an Assyrian but might also have been an Egyptian soldier as the axe was a key weapon at that time.
Scientists used DNA analysis, X-rays and CT scans to find out so much about Takabuti thousands of years after her death. I’m a Life Scientific convert.
On RTÉ, Irish laureate Colm Tóibín was interviewed by Claire Byrne.
His book Long Island, the follow-up to Brooklyn, was the hit of the summer.
With his usual self-deprecation, he attributed a lot of the hype to the film of Brooklyn.
He was a little bemused about his new book being picked by Oprah Winfrey for her book club.
His publishers had been urging him to answer his phone – Oprah’s policy is that she speaks to the writer directly. So Oprah rang and he was off to the studio at 5.30am.
“It’s like being pulled out of the Christmas cake… and then this ould fellow gets wheeled on,” he joked.
It was a lovely interview from one of our most gifted writers.