Naked Scientists, In Short Special Editions Podcast

During an asthma attack, inflammation in the airways leads to breathlessness, and severe cases can end up with sufferers being hospitalised or even dying. One culprit that can make asthma worse is the virus that causes the common cold, known as rhinovirus. But why does a cold mean a runny nose and feeling a bit grotty for most people, but can lead to dangerous breathing problems in asthmatics? Kat...

You can forget Jurassic Park because actually dinosaurs are all around us! And I'm not joking because the fact is that when you see a chirping bird, you're actually looking at a modern dinosaur. Evidence has been growing for some time that our feathered friends are descended from small carnivorous dinosaurs called therapods. For example, the arrangement of bones in a bird's fingers, encased in the...

Hydrogen is regarded as an excellent candidate future fuel on the grounds that it is relatively easy to store and it burns cleanly to produce only heat and water. But present methods of production involve fossil fuels and are energy intensive, offsetting any benefits of the hydrogen. Instead, scientists would like to use electricity from renewable sources to split water into hydrogen and oxygen, w...

We've all heard that whales and dolphins have a highly developed way of making sounds to communicate with each. However when it come to ordinary fish you'd have thought they're pretty silent things. But you'd be wrong. Marine biologist Erica Staaterman from the University of Miami believes that most animals in the ocean including crabs, lobsters, shrimp and fish make sounds. In a new study she sho...

A cardiac arrest is when a person's heart stops beating and they collapse. It affects 30,000 people every year in the UK.The majority of these occur outside the hospital setting and they're frequently fatal. But how should they be managed - by attempting to resuscitate the victim at the scene, or by rushing them to hospital in an Ambulance? Emergency Medicine specialist Bruce Adams, from the Unive...

Are you a strategic decision maker? Is your brain anterior cingulate cortex switched off or on? Are random decisions being made or are you basing them entirely on past experience? Alla Karpova discusses decision-making... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

World leaders had been planning for a world population of about 9 billion by 2050. But now a new analysis, based on fresh data and more advanced statistical methods, suggests that this estimate might be wildly inaccurate and that the real figure might be more than 12 billion, which means population policy might need a major rethink. Adrian Raftery at the University of Washington is the author of t...

Wireless connections are everywhere now. Perhaps you're listening to us through your smartphone or laptop, or maybe you have one of those new-fangled smart fridges connected to the internet. Technologists now talk about the internet of things, where objects around us are all connected up using wireless radio technology, and the potential applications are wide-reaching, from labelling banknotes to...

Scientists have been able to alter the emotional associations of memories mice by using a technique called optogenetics, which involves shining lights inside the brain. Roger Redondo explained to Georgia Mills how they reversed emotions at the brain cell level, and what this could mean for treating emotional trauma in humans. Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

The karma-sutra for back pain may soon be arriving. Within the UK and abroad, there are striking percentages of men and women that report experiencing back pain, especially in later life, and this may be causing the bedroom to take a backseat for these couples. Now, recent research carried out by Natalie Sidorkewicz from the University of Waterloo, may help bring back the intimacy... Like this pod...

Something bothering you? Don't want to visit a doctor to talk about your problems? An online tool called 'myGRiST' due to be released early next year to the public, aims to assess your risks and help to identify areas where you could improve your overall mental health. Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

From 'plastic' solar panels to flexible electronics, and quantum mechanics to regenerative medicine, we found out about the exciting research of the nominated rising star scientists at the British Science Festival... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

You may have heard reports of seemingly healthy young athletes suddenly dropping down dead in the middle of a game. Professor Paulus Kirchhoff from the University of Birmingham studies the genetic defects that lead to this condition- a rare form of heart disease which exercise actually makes worse. At the British Science Festival, Ginny Smith wanted to find out more. She started by asking him how...

Previously undiscovered monuments surrounding the stone circle have been found, using highly advanced geophysical tools and laser scanners in order to search the landscape and identify what lies beneath Stonehenge... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

A 'pocket-doctor' smartphone app may now help to diagnose Parkinson's, a degenerative motor disease, that was previously very difficult to assess. With symptoms such as voice tremors and walking abnormalities, how does the phone application work? Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

Have you ever heard of someone dying of a broken heart? In fact, it is remarkably common for elderly people who were previously healthy to die soon after their spouse. But why? New research from the University of Birmingham has discovered that it is down to reduced functioning of the immune system during times of stress. This leaves older people susceptible to bacterial infections like pneumonia,...

Octopuses and cuttlefish are well known for their astonishing ability to change colour almost instantaneously. Can we copy this system to create a camouflaging material? John Rogers from the University of Illinois reveals all... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

Cancer is one of the world's biggest killers, and current treatments often have terrible side effects. So scientists have begun looking into ways to help the body's own defenses fight back. When have a bacterial or viral infection, our immune systems go into overdrive to tackle the invader and protect our bodies. If it were possible to harness this line of attack and use it against cancer, this co...

Have you ever seen somebody in the street and thought you know them, until you get closer and realise it's a different person entirely. Matching faces to memories or pictures is easier for some people than it is for others. But what happens if you're job is dependent on being able to tell the difference between a 2D face in a photo and a person standing in front of you? Hannah Tooley spoke to Dr R...

Stardust returns Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

Memory boosting drugs, the military, the legal system and enhancing athletes mental focus and muscle tone. Where should neuroscience stop? How a revolution in technology is bringing an unprecedented flood of information about the brain and with this, concerns over use. Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

This week in the Planet Earth Podcast: Ilik Saccheri and Arjen Van 't Hof of the University of Liverpool describe how the British Peppered Moth changed from peppered to black during the Industrial Revolution in northern England. Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

Going back through the generations, eventually you come to the ancestor of all life on earth, something scientists call LUCA (last universal common ancestor).LUCA lived on a hydrothermal vent deep under the ocean, and probably used energy from the natural acidic gradient to survive and reproduce, using a generator called ATP-synthetase. But now Victor Sojo and his colleagues at UCL have come up wi...

One of the remarkable things about the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico four years ago was the fact that a lot of the contamination was cleaned up by bacteria which simply ate the oil. Now there's more understanding of how microbes exist in oil which could lead to new technologies for extracting energy from oil deposits deep underground. A group of scientists have been studying an...

Hello I'm Naked Scientist Hannah Critchlow and I'm concerned about aging. Alzheimer's disease affects around half a million of us in the UK alone, and this number is predicted to increase as the population gets older. However, this week a study suggested that up to a third of cases could be preventable just by changing the way that we live. I spoke to Carol Brayne, Professor of Public Health at Ca...