The Naked Scientists Podcast

This week, we have another special show from Perth in Western Australia. Chris Smith and Victoria Gill go in search of dolphins, find out how DNA sequencing technology has allowed us to find out what was on Australia's first barbecue, and give a science lesson to children in the outback. In the news, how glucose affects our willpower, why the Antarctic oceans are so different from the rest of the...

This week we have a special show from Perth in Western Australia. Chris Smith finds out whether importing nitrogen fixing legumes could hold the answer to Perth's poor soil fertility and Victoria Gill heads out on a scientific fishing trip to see how Black Bream stocks could give us an insight into the health of estuaries. Plus could gardens hold the answer to preserving the native plants of the K...

We hear from the astronomers who are mapping out the Milky Way to work out where its stars came from. Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

A special question and answer edition of the show where the team get to grips with your queries, including, do hairs know they've cut? Is someone who sweats sooner fitter? How do noise-cancelling headphones work? How do we know what's inside Earth? Why are there no whale-sized insects? Does protein suppress appetite? And could there be a planet with a green atmosphere? Like this podcast? Please he...

How has new technology changed the face of sport? This week we delve into the science behind the tennis rackets that professional players use, the diets that top athletes follow, and how systems like Hawkeye are revolutionising the way that rules are enforced. Plus, we hear about new evidence that dolphins refer to each other by name, and sucking or chewing a sweet: which does least damage to teet...

What do sufferers of schizophrenia experience, and why? Might the immune system be to blame? And could an avatar be the answer to treatment? This week we delve deep into the brain circuitry behind this psychiatric condition to uncover the causes, hear what drugs like ketamine can reveal about hallucinations and how a cartoon representation of the voices plaguing patients can block the symptoms. Pl...

This week, the latest innovations in solar power technology including a Cambridge team racing from Darwin to Adelaide in a solar car, community co-operatives empowered by solar panels, and how algae harvest the Sun's energy. In the news, how wobbles in the Earth's core are affecting time, how nerves control prostate cancer growth and the turmeric-thalidomide combo being used to combat cancer. Plus...

This week, the latest from the UK's National Astronomy Meeting in St Andrews Scotland including what will be the last organism living on Earth when the end-of-life Sun swells, why space science projects are getting larger, and the amateur astronomer who uncovers supernovae. In the news, a replacement liver grown from stem cells, the bacterial fingerprint in your intestines, nuclear bombs help with...

Miniature lungs, breasts and other organs are being grown in dishes so scientists can study how they form, why they succumb to disease and how toxins, drugs and poisons affect them. Organ models like these are rapidly replacing animals for many lab experiments. But are the days of the petri dish also numbered, as computer models, like the virtual physiological human, become more powerful. We talk...

Fungi go under the microscope this week as we explore how they barter minerals and carry chemical messages in return for sugars from plants; we also hear from someone who nearly died after consuming a deadly fungus, find out why fungi make the toxins they do, and hear how these organisms might hold the key to the next generation of packaging and building materials - and even surfboards! Plus, news...

How can an ascent to the top of Everest help to save lives in intensive care? This week we're exploring physiology at the extremes: altitude, depth and cold. How does the human body adapt and cope under these conditions? Also, news of improved gene therapy techniques for sight-loss disorders, when do babies become sympathetic, how to cloak your cat (or goldfish), and have scientists discovered the...

The science of satellite navigation and how it can be fooled or "spoofed", a new system to pinpoint a person within a building to within a metre, and how GPS signals can probe and track volcanic dust clouds. Plus, news of what nuclear bomb tests have revealed about the brain, why volcanoes might cause Parkinsonism, HPV and oral cancer and why we comfort-eat high fat foods when we get depressed......

The next generation of LEDs, how LED lighting affects health, a new way to fight flu, treating schizophrenia with avatars and bringing 400-year-old frozen plants back to life. Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

This week, how plants keep track of time, how scientists are breeding cereal crops with ancient varieties to boost diversity and yields, how insects carry viruses between plants, and the chemical in smoke that triggers fire-dependent plants to germinate. Plus, printing new body parts, the workings of tornadoes and the bug behind potato blight... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the...

How are weather forecasts made? Are they accurate, and if not why not? And how do we know when extreme weather is on the way? Also, what about on other planets and moons? To find out, we talk to the teams who study weather and climate patterns, both on Earth and elsewhere in the solar system. Plus, scientists discover the world's oldest water, signs that selfishness kickstarted agriculture, and wh...

Under the microscope this week, where new flu viruses including influenza H7N9 come from, the threat from extensively resistant tuberculosis and how doctors keep tabs on how bugs are spreading and who they are infecting... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

The conservation and restoration of great art once relied on only a good eye and talent with a paintbrush. Now though, scientists and art conservationists are working together to develop new techniques to preserve our cultural heritage. Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

What are legal highs, and how do scientists, doctors and law-makers keep up with new drugs entering the market? Plus, biofuels and why they cost the Earth, the cause of LED droop, a neutron star proves Einstein's theory of general relativity right, and E. coli programmed to pump out diesel. Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

We visit the annual British Society for Gene and Cell Therapy conference to explore the latest in this exciting area of medicine... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

Fossilised dinosaur egg embryos, fish fats on 15,000 year old Japanese pots, who put the arsenic in the beer, and we tour the Malapa cave site where Australopithecus sediba was discovered... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

We take a tour of the two Australian precursors to the Square Kilometre Array - the Murchison Wide Field Array and the Australian SKA Pathfinder - to discover how big radio astronomy projects will see the universe in a new light. Plus, how understanding the physics of radio detectors helps us make better telescopes... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

The genetic basis of autism goes under the microscope in this special Easter edition of Naked Genetics, from Kat Arney. One per cent of UK children have autism, a complex range of disorders that can be challenging to understand and live with. But recent advances in genetics are shedding new light on the origins of the condition. Plus, we look at the genes underlying Specific Language Impairment, f...

What the future holds for digital data storage goes under the spotlight this week - how can we ensure that what we record today - on film, discs or up in the cloud - remains readable for years to come? Plus, news of what the Planck probe has revealed about the early Universe, giant squid, an update from the Mars Curiosity mission, eye implants and nanoparticles to track stem cells... Like this pod...

Breasts, bazookas, bosons and bombs: The Naked Scientists take to the stage for the Cambridge Science Festival 2013. An explosive mix of fertile conversation and kitchen science... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

We celebrate the 200th anniversary of the birth of the epidemiologist John Snow by looking at the historic and modern fight against Cholera. Also, news of what 4000 year old mummies are revealing about arterial disease, a novel antibiotic approach to battling bacteria, the Facebook app that turns likes into predictions about your personality and do animals practise dentistry...? Like this podcast?...