Science report

Press, 27 August 1980, Page 18

Science report

r . ... i Listening

■ Halley’s Comet is. due S to visit our skies again between December. 1985. and March. 1986. The European Space Agency is investigating the possibility of sending out a spacecraft to take a really close look at Halley’s Comet. The project manager of British Aerospace talks about the feasibility of the-mission on “Science Magazine” on the Concert Programme at 7.30 p.m. tonight. >*? It takes one fifth of a second to blink. However, shutting our eyelids and blocking out light in this fashion does not affect our vision as a light turned off for the same period does. Three- Ameri.can psychologists are trying to discover the reasons why. ■ Professor Colin Blakemore of Oxford University • talks about their experiements. •# # # To end’ “Science- Maga-. zine” .Dr Conrad Harris, director of the department of general practice at St Mary’s Hospital Medical School, London, talks about the advantages doctors can gain from using non-verbal communication as an aid to diagnosis. Berlin orchestra On the Concert programme at 8 p.m. the third in a further series of four programmes featuring the Berlin Philharmonic, in concert can be heard. The Berlin Philharnjonic perform ■ Piano Concerto No. 4 in G, Opus 58, and Ravel’s complete ballet, Daphnis- and Chloe. On this occasion the Philharmonic is conducted by Jesus Lopez Cobos. Wilhelm Kempff features as the piano soloist.

Bacharach Burt Bacharach has’ .written many hit songs, horn “Raindrops Keep Failing on My Head” to “This Guy’s in Love with You.” Bacharach is featured by the Radio Orchestra ' tonight. Solbists ■ with the orchestra in' this recording are the established New Zealand singer. Ray Woolf, accompanied by the pianist. Carl Doy, and Neil McGough on the harmonica. The entire programme was arranged and conducted by Tony Baker. National Programme, S p.m. Refugee voices ■ “Voices Along the Mekong” on the Concert programme at 8.25 p.m. tomorrow is a documentary by Patricia Penn about the refugees on Thailand’s border with Laos. Patricia Penn, who is • based in Hong Kong, recently spent six weeks among refugees from Laos in five refugee camps in the north and north-east of Thailand. She also talked to United Nations relief officials and Ministers in the Thai Government. Many refugees, says Patricia Penn, are reluctant to accept resettling in “third countries.” The Thais push out as many refugees as . they can. even though many would prefer to wait out events in Thailand. However now the repatriation programme of the United Nations and the changes the Pathet Lao Government has made to its more radical policies may make the reversal of the flow of refugees more possible.