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Have you wondered why humans like you and I speak in long steady voices, while gorillas, apes and chimpanzees often bounce about trees and shriek in high-pitched voices? Have you also wondered what would happen if you spoke in a shrill voice for a long time? Go ahead and try it. Or better, listen to this episode to find out what an 8-yr old boy called Devansh has found about this in a recent Scien...

When NASA sent the Curiosity Rover to Mars in 2012, they expected the rover to last all of one year on the Red Planet. Much to their consternation and the rest of the world's delight, the rover shows no signs of slowing down. Who would have thought we owe much to dust for this? Like our brooms at home, the dust clouds on Mars help keep the solar panels on the rover clean, and keep them running. Th...

Hello wildlife geeks, we are holding a Wildlife Quiz on 18-Sep. Come, join us to have lots of fun discussing wildlife trivia and register for the wildlife quiz by clicking here. The Sahara desert has been spreading southwards, as global warming and deforestation have been on the rise. To prevent its spread, the idea of a great green wall - a wall made of trees, rather than forests, was mooted in 2...

In the Journey to the Atlantis by Geronimo Stilton, a boy who speaks an unknown language and with blue skin lands up in a new place. The mouselings set out to discover ways to help him. In this episode with the fourth grader Dhruv Agarwal from Kolkata India, we discuss the news story of how California's new law might help people who come to their country, just like Thea Stilton set out to help the...

For long we have been hearing news about how our marine ecosystem has been declining. In this episode, we discuss some positive developments in our oceans. The Great Barrier Reef is showing signs of recovering in nearly a third of the area, which had almost been bleached until a few years ago. Many government and not-for-profit organisations have instituted measures that help clean up coral reefs....

Sports that exist for people who are differently abled, but emojis for these are yet to be created - that's paralympics in a nutshell. Some of these inspiring stories of people with fewer limbs swimming or playing table tennis are an inspiration to all of us. As this 13-year old co-host on this episode, who had done his research about Paralympians, describes - the next time he is faced with a diff...

Many people in Africa and Asia have been going without essential food ever since the Ukraine war broke out. While soldiers in Ukraine have been busy fighting the war, the farmers of Ukraine have also been busy sowing, planting and harvesting grains from their fields. Because, Ukraine is a very big supplier of wheat and sunflower oil to the world. The farmers of Ukraine have also stocked their harv...

Commemorating India's 75 years of independence, the government of India plans to bring African cheetahs from Namibia. In this episode, 12-year old Aadya discusses the reasons for cheetahs going extinct in the past and where these cheetahs stand the best chances of survival. India has had reasonable success in ensuring healthy populations of other animals that were earlier on the brink of extinctio...

The Kodiak bear, which has long held the prized position as the world's largest omnivore has been recently unseated by the whale shark. Marine biologists have long wondered about the diet of many giant creatures of the ocean. Sharks open their mouths wide to consume fish. Alongside these tiny creatures, plenty of algae, zooplankton and other plant varieties also float into their mouths. The fish b...

If you felt strange on June 29, 2022 - a bit fuzzy or if you were hiccupping continuously, you won't need a doctor. Because you, like many others, may have felt the effect of the earth spinning very fast on that day. It's been the shortest day recorded (in the last 60 years) - short by 1.59 milliseconds. Vidyut, a 10-year old who joined us on this episode, plunged into a full scale discussion of t...

Winning medals in weightlifting, judo and javelin throw have brought a variety of sports into the ambit of many children in India. 13-year old Tejas, who plays cricket professionally (and is equally adept at football) speaks about his own experiences. In this episode, you will also hear stories about sportspeople like Milkha Singh and Dhyan Chand, who have inspired generations. You can find answer...

The ISS is a satellite, as big as a football ground, that you can spot from your own terraces and even send messages on twitter to the astronauts in it. While they spend much of their time doing experiments, they do take a break and play a game of chess (yes, someone from space played against someone on earth over the internet, a few years ago). They are also busy trying to find how living creatur...

If the idea of spending your weekend by holding a cup of hot chocolate and a book (or a kindle, if you insist), and sitting in a park bench appeals to you, the future might be here in many streets of Paris. If you hope that kids will get more open spaces to play in, the future might already be here in Stockholm, which plans to ask cars to make way for children's parks. If you think we need to be m...

Who would have thought a pair of 3D glasses (like the ones you use to watch Marvel movies in theatres) can help us jump into a different world, atleast in our minds. In this episode, a 11-yr old tells us a story about how she fractured a couple of bones in her hand, and how watching LOTR kept her mind off the pain. Doctors are keen on using a similar effect and help our minds forget our immediate...

Autorickshaws have funny and interesting names across the world. They go by tuk-tuk, baby taxi and lapa in different countries. While Tesla, BMW, Audi, Ola, Mahindra & Mahindra, Hyundai and many more companies are making electric cars that keep our air cleaner, their gentler autorickshaw cousins haven't made much headway. But that will soon change as they get an e-lift. Nunam, an NGO has tied...

The Famous Five go on adventure trips in bicycles and camp in the moors. The Secret Seven go on picnics carrying food and a dog along for adventure in the summer. In current times, we book a pretty villa somewhere in the hills and book a flight to our holiday destination. But, the Mongol Rally is a car adventure trip that might just be more adventurous than any of these. Three Indians have just le...

Scar in Lion King, Thanos in the Marvel universe, or Zeus the Greek God got very powerful in their kingdoms. The people in their lands were upset with the decisions of the rulers. Simba came back and fought Scar off his Pride Lands. Thanos was defeated by the Avengers. Zeus was put inside a golden cage by the other Gods. A similar story is unfolding in Sri Lanka. People of the country have been le...

Black Panther, Shang Chi, Miles Morales, Miss Marvel and America Chavez are new age superheroes. They are new age, not because their super powers are starkly different from that of others, but because they don't look, or speak or perhaps even behave like other superheroes. They are not strictly male or white. Why are superheroes looking more different? What helps the studios create characters who...

Crash tests for cars sold in India are not common. Many people who buy cars may not even know if the car they are buying gets 0 out of 5 points for its safety features. But now, all that is set to change. Beginning 2023, the government will provide for every car produced and sold in India to be tested within the country. So, if you happen to want to buy a car, you can get a fitness certificate, ve...

A few curious scientists got together to answer the question whether we might find a giant gorilla like the King Kong, in an island somewhere in the world. The answer to this question was published in a science journal recently, which 12-year old Eesha discusses in this episode. Giants in movies like Mei from Turning Red, or the Hulk from the Avengers have kindled the imagination of many viewers....

Japan, after 2 long years during this pandemic, has finally opened itself to tourists who can now visit the Land of the Rising Sun. In this episode, 9-year old Shravan speaks about his summer vacations in Europe and how this differs from life in Asia. While Japan has announced opening itself to the world, they still remain very careful about how people can move around in their country. For instanc...

An old old ship is lying in the Red sea, all alone. It hasn't been cleaned, dusted or maintained for many years. 14-year Keshav (who co-hosts this episode) thinks the ship must have gone rusted and mouldy by now. The world would not be too worried about a ship gone mouldy, except that it also contains a whole lot of crude oil. The fishes and the coral reefs have been scared of the oil spilling int...

The country Turkey got tired of being confused with the names of birds which are also the symbol of a national holiday in the US. Turkey's leaders were also not too keen on the meaning of the word Turkey in English (google says it refers to someone rather silly). Tired of these unflattering associations, the country has decided that the time has come for it to change its name! In this conversation...

The new Jurassic world dominion movie makes a departure from the previous movies in how the dinosaurs look. Taking help of paleontologists - Stephen Bassett in this movie and Jack Horner in some of the previous movies, the scenes and sets of each of these movies are getting closer and closer to how the science world thinks. Especially, about how dinosaurs looked like, millions of years ago. Listen...

Kids who love video games should be able to find male and female characters / avatars with equal ease today. This was not so, just a few years ago. In this episode with an 'almost' 11-year old Trayee, we talk about how girl characters have become increasingly common (thanks in part to the efforts of a 12-yr old girl Maddie who wrote about it in 2015)Listen to this episode to also hear the personal...