Lost in Science

This week, Catriona tells us about research into pharmacological waste or medicines in our waterways, including Prozac (fluoxetine) and oestrogen, and the effect they can have on other species; and Chris examines the Younger Dryas Impact Hypothesis, an asteroid or comet strike some believe to have caused additional cooling at the end of the last ice age, and the status of attempts to prove it by f...

Stu talks to Professor Paolo Inglese, a world expert on olive oil on what has changed and what hasn't in the long history of olive oil. 

Chris talks about the possibility of life on our immediate neighbour planets Mars and Venus based on observations of organic chemicals in their atmospheres, and Stu finds out whether rats really like the nightlife and got to boogie on the disco round... 

This week, Chris examines some recent reporting on the hypothesis that COVID-19 originated as a leak from a laboratory in Wuhan, China, and finds that it’s based less on science than it is on reading between the lines in questionable translations of online documents; and Stu explains the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2022, which was awarded for the development of “click” and bioorthogonal chemistry.

Chris walks us through the 2022 Nobel Prize for physics which unravels quantum entanglement, and Stu talks to Emma Harding about her research into amphibian and reptile viruses and what they can tell us about virus evolution. 

It’s our annual Halloween episode where we get lost in science fiction! Catriona explains how the hoverboards and flying cars in Back to the Future II (1989) could become real; Stu explores the practicalities of moving ecosystems to space as seen in the 1972 movie Silent Running; and Chris goes down the path of wormholes as mentioned in 2022’s Thor: Love and Thunder.

This week, Catriona tells all about the surprising success of NASA's DART mission, which tested a method of colliding a spacecraft with an asteroid to redirect it before it can threaten Earth; and Stu speaks to Tien Huynh from RMIT University about a plan to grow plants on the Moon as part of the project https://lunaria.one/

Two interviews from the archives, Claire talks to Joseph Schubert about Peacock spiders, and to Victoria Camilleri Asch about how sharks can smell in water

The Nobel prize for Physiology and Medicine for 2022 looks at the relationship between ancient homnids and modern humans, Chris talks abotu the research that won the prize. Stu looks at the relationship between the newest humans and their immediate ancestors, as science tackles exactly how to get babies to sleep. 

This week, our special guest immunologist and science communicator Catriona Nguyen-Robertson tells us about her PhD research and direct personal experience of how the immune system's T cells can also target fats and oils; and Stu shares a new study using brain scans to find out why spending time in nature can reduce the stress of city life.

It's that time of year again when science recognises its most improbable research by awarding the 32nd First Annual Ig Nobel Prizes to ten research projects that "make you laugh, then make you think". Find out how researchers use ice cream to save the day (again) and why having your ducks in a row is scientifically a good thing. 

This week, Stu shares new research that may explain why the most famous dinosaur, the T. rex, evolved such big heads, plus maybe why they had tiny arms as well; and Chris talks about reverse or anti lasers, which absorb light rather than emit it, and for that to make that sense he tries to explain how regular lasers work too.

This week, Claire talks to Dr Cathie Page from the Australian Institute of Marine Science about getting coral to spawn out of season in the laboratory; and Stu explains how the concept of alpha males does not in fact correspond to how wolf packs operate in the wild.

This week on the show Chris revisits the world of space junk, who is putting it up there, and where it comes down. And Stu informs us of a big discovery that is rocking the microbe world - a giant bacteria that you can see with the naked eye!

Claire talks about new research that links hearing with the evolution of warm blooded animals, and Chris fills us in on another possible case of academic misconduct linked to Alzheimers research. 

Stu and Claire give us a run down of events in Melbourne, in Victoria, around the country and online for National Science Week (13-21 August 2022), including the schools program based on the International Year of Glass. And Claire gives a taste of questions for Lost in Science's annual trivia night on Monday 15 August. Find out more about National Science Week at scienceweek.net.au

Chris talks to PhD candidate Jennifer Ervine about her review paper of the mental health cost of unpaid domestic labour which is largely borne by women, and Stu checks out the winners of the 2022 Eureka Prizes for science from the Australian Museum. 

This week on the show Stu talks us through the two new research papers on the origins of the spread of the covid-19 virus to humans from the wet market in Wuhan. Also on the show, do you think AI can become sentient? Chris looks into the spurious claims that the laMDA AI chat from google is actually a sentient being.

Chris talks about some of the discoveries the new JW space telescope has possibly discovered since booting up in the last few weeks, and Stu looks at a new technique for bringing dead skins back to life which may hold the key to genetic diversity in endangered animal populations. 

This week we replay a couple of recent favourites: Claire reveals the surprising observation of parthenogenesis, aka 'virgin birth', in the endangered California condor (Gymnogyps californianus), and explains how this is possible, and why the chicks are male thanks to bird sex chromosomes being different from ours; and Stu tells us how it's possible to get frogs to regrow amputated limbs, raising...

Claire talks to Dr. Jay Iwasaki about the invasive pest of honey bees the Varroa mite which was discovered in hives around Newcastle in NSW for the first time. 

This week on the show Chris dives into the recent research about Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, or SIDS, bringing us closer to understanding a biological cause. Also on the show, did you know it's International Year of Glass? Stu talks about why this humble material is so important in our lives, and for science. 

Recycled cotton and polyester are often seen in clothing shops, but Claire tells us about the challenges to making it work, and how there are other ways to reduce waste; and Stu runs us through recent research showing much more common variations in human sex chromosomes beyond the XX and XY you might have learned at school (see more at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gim.2022.05.011)

This week on the show Stu speaks to researcher Chris Rinke about his fascinating research investigating how superworms, the larval stage of some beetles, can eat and digest polystyrene breaking it down into organic components. Also on the show Chris gets experimental again, this time showing how twisting threads creates enough friction to make incredibly strong twine and rope.

A new disease on the block is cause for concern, but how much should we be worried about the erroneously named Monkeypox virus? Claire finds out more on this week's show. And Chris explains what the Hubble constant is, and how it should be able to tell us how fast the universe is expanding, but it may reveal potential flaws in the way we think about physics. Photo by Brett Ritchie on Unsplash