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PODCAST

The Mr Science Show

Your weekly prescription of popular science in a social context. Check out www.mrscienceshow.com for more info.

science natural sciences

All Episodes

06:33

Ep 144: Two-up - an ANZAC tradition

The Mr Science Show ·

2012/04/26

It's an Australian tradition on ANZAC Day to take yourself down to your local pub and play Two-up - an Aussie gambling game in which you toss two coins in the air and bet on the outcome. In this edition I have a chat to Chris Coleman of ABC Riverina about the maths behind two-up. For a longer read, check out our 2009 article on the topic.

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14:21

Ep 143: TedxSydney - Bryan Gaensler

The Mr Science Show ·

2011/07/16

TED is a US based not-for-profit enterprise devoted to the propagation of Ideas Worth Spreading. TED started out in 1984 as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment and Design. TedxSydney was a Sydney-based TED event, bringing people together to share a TED-like experience. I ducked out to Carriage Works to catch some of the event, and you can see all the talks over at the TedxSydney youtube channel. Many of these talks were science based, so I'm going to

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25:55

Ep 142: Beyond Zero Emissions

The Mr Science Show ·

2011/06/13

Beyond Zero Emissions is a not-for-profit, volunteer run organisation whose core goal is to develop blueprints for the implementation of climate change solutions. In partnership with the University of Melbourne's Energy Research Institute, BZE are undertaking the Zero Carbon Australia 2020 Project, which puts together fully costed transition plans for getting Australia to zero emissions in ten years using commercially available technology. Last year I attended their launch event for the Zero Carbon

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49:49

Ep 141: Science of Superheroes - Harry Potter

The Mr Science Show ·

2011/04/22

And we're back! It's been a while, but finally it's time for another podcast, so we've made it a long one. Take this episode on a long train ride or car trip, as Dr Boob and I explore the science of the spells of Harry Potter. Attempting to find scientific and engineering solutions to Harry Potter spells is probably the most difficult task we have set ourselves yet, so we would be very interested to hear how you would made the Harry Potter spells a reality. The spells dealt with in this episode

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19:48

Ep 140: The Redback Spider invasion of New Zealand

The Mr Science Show ·

2011/01/24

Research published in Biological Invasions shows that Australian redback spiders are invading New Zealand and could become established in many urban areas around major ports. The paper, The invasive Australian redback spider, Latrodectus hasseltii Thorell 1870 (Araneae: Theridiidae): current and potential distributions, and likely impacts, details recorded sightings of redback spiders in New Zealand, then used biological and climatic information to reveal where redbacks could establish. Warm, dry

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22:38

Ep 139: Christmas special - Santa, sport and out-takes

The Mr Science Show ·

2010/12/24

It's scarcely believable that another Christmas has rolled around! I hope that 2010 has been a wonderful year for you. In this year's Christmas podcast, I've compiled some of my favourite segments from the last few years. First up, I chat to Bianca Nogrady, who assembled a crack team of health experts to look into the health of Santa Claus. Not only does he eat copious amounts of sugar and drink gallons of beer, he is also at risk of altitude sickness, deep-vein thrombosis, jet-lag, zoonotic

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09:49

Ep 138: The health benefits of breakfast

The Mr Science Show ·

2010/12/09

A world first study conducted by Menzies Research Institute Tasmania has shown that skipping breakfast over a long period of time may increase your risk of heart disease and diabetes. The study, Skipping breakfast: longitudinal associations with cardiometabolic risk factors in the Childhood Determinants of Adult Health Study, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, followed up a 1985 national sample of 9–15 year old Australian children. The original work looked at whether these

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24:13

Ep 137: Can your environment change your DNA?

The Mr Science Show ·

2010/11/24

Did you know that worker bees and queen bees have exactly the same DNA? Although they look and behave differently, at birth they have the same genome. Young queen larvae are fed a diet of Royal Jelly, a substance secreted by the worker bees which includes B-complex vitamins, proteins, sugars and fatty acids. This concoction not only feeds the queen bees, it turns on and off various genes with what is known as epigentic effects. Epigenetic effects - meaning "above the genome" - alter gene expression

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30:24

Ep 136: Sexual Selection

The Mr Science Show ·

2010/10/19

It's about time we put out a new podcast! In this edition, I chat to Associate Professor Robert Brooks, Director at the Evolution and Ecology Research Centre, UNSW about sexual selection. Charles Darwin described sexual selection as "struggle between the individuals of one sex, generally the males, for the possession of the other sex" and nature abounds with strange examples of where animal features have evolved way past their survival needs - for example, reindeer antlers, peacock plumes and quite

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33:34

Ep 135: Why do I sneeze at the Sun?

The Mr Science Show ·

2010/08/24

Do you sneeze at the Sun? I do. My brother does. Both my parents do. In fact, we are a family of Photic Sneeze sufferers. The Photic Sneeze Reflex (PSR), also known rather ridiculously as Autosomal Dominant Compelling Helioophthalmic Outburst (ACHOO) Syndrome (how long do you think it took researchers to figure out that acronym...) is a dominant genetic condition affecting around 10% of the population. When a sufferer moves from a region of darkness to a region of bright light - for instance,

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01:54

Ep 134: Climate Change Vox Pops in Paddington

The Mr Science Show ·

2010/08/10

With climate change seemingly falling off the agenda of Australia's major political parties in the lead-up to the 2010 federal election, I wanted to see whether this inaction reflected the views of the community. I headed down to Paddington Markets, on Oxford St in Paddington, Sydney for some vox pops. This area falls within the federal seat of Wentworth, whose member is perhaps the only member of the Liberal Party willing to act on climate change, Malcolm Turnbull. It borders the seat of

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04:02

Ep 133: Senator Bob Brown on Science Policy for the...

The Mr Science Show ·

2010/07/29

In the tradition of UK newspapers, this blog/podcast has decided to throw its (rather small) weight behind a political party at each Australian federal election. And this time around, the decision is easy. The 2010 Australian federal election is the most vision-less election in which I have had the privilege of voting. Without going too much into my own political leanings, what sways me in a federal election are a party's social policies. And the only party with progresive social policy in this

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34:33

Ep 132: Science of Superheroes - The Hulk

The Mr Science Show ·

2010/07/21

The science of superheroes is taking a green and nasty turn this week as we discuss the largest superhero of them all, The Hulk. Join myself and our regular superhero expert Dr Boob as we delve into the science of how we might realise The Hulk in the lab. It was one of the more entertaining interviews I have done for the podcast. The Hulk is alter-ego of Dr Bruce Banner, who allegedly bares a striking resemblance to Dr Boob. Banner is a reserved physicist who involuntarily transforms into

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23:48

Ep 131: The Science of Sport at Altitude

The Mr Science Show ·

2010/06/26

Professor Chris Gore, head of Physiology at the Australian Institute of Sport, has had over 20 years experience in the science of sport at altitude, including the study of the physiological effects of altitude on the body and designing altitude training regimes for athletes.The effects of altitude have been known for some time, however their effects on sport became prominent during the 1968 Mexico Olympics, which were held at over 2000 metres. At these games, endurance sports

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13:13

Ep 130: Using Twitter to predict the future

The Mr Science Show ·

2010/05/25

Ever wondered what good Twitter actually does? Personally, I love it, but really, is it anything but noise? One of the pipe dreams for online social media is the ability to track opinions and interests in real time. In their paper Predicting the Future With Social Media, Sitaram Asur and Bernardo A. Huberman have not only tracked live opinion on movies, but used it to predict their future success. Asur and Huberman, from the Social Computing Lab, HP Labs California, have shown that the rate of

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18:23

Ep 129: The domestication of the dog and the...

The Mr Science Show ·

2010/05/18

The Australian dingo and the New Guinea Singing Dog may be the world's oldest dog breeds.The study, Genome-wide SNP and haplotype analyses reveal a rich history underlying dog domestication, which was published in Nature and is a major genetic study into the domestication of the dog, was a world-wide effort and had 37 authors - including Dr Alan Wilton, of the School of Biotechnology and Biomolecular Sciences at UNSW. The study found that the dingo and the New Guinea Singing Dog are the

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19:32

Ep 128: Another demotion for Pluto?

The Mr Science Show ·

2010/05/04

Is Pluto is set to become an also-ran in the astronomical world?Already demoted from the exalted planet club, Pluto could be joined by up to 50 other objects in the ever-expanding "dwarf planet" club if the new definitions of dwarf planet, recently proposed by Australian scientists Charles Lineweaver and Marc Norman, are accepted by the International Astronomical Union.On the other hand, perhaps you would rather regard Pluto as the leading player in the astronomical second division. Rather

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15:38

Ep 127: Conditioning quolls against cane toads

The Mr Science Show ·

2010/04/25

The cane toad in Australia is a text book example of a feral species. As an introduced species, it has no natural predators and out-competes native animals for food and habitat. Things are made worse by the fact that cane toads are highly poisonous - so poisonous that they can kill animals as large as crocodiles. One species imperilled by the cane toad is the Northern Quoll. The northern quoll has been almost driven to extinction in many parts of northern Australia because they attack the toad and

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26:36

Ep 126: Science of Superheroes - Doc Ock

The Mr Science Show ·

2010/04/11

Continuing with our recurring segment The Science of Superheroes, this week we're tackling the mechanically-blessed supervillain Doc Ock, from Marvel Comics. And joining me once again for a journey through superhero scholarship is Dr Boob. Dr. Otto Gunther Octavius is a scientist who designed a set of advanced mechanical arms to assist him with his nuclear physics research. He controlled the arms via a brain-computer interface. In the movie Spiderman 2, Octavius created the mechanical arms to

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0:50

The Sailors' (syphilis detecting) Handshake

The Mr Science Show ·

2010/03/30

It may be an apocryphal tale, but here's an interesting story about how sailors of yore determined if a potential suitor had syphilis.As demonstrated by Victoria Bond and myself, Victoria is feeling my right elbow whilst shaking my hand. The epitrochlear lymph nodes in the elbow get swollen with syphilis. The story goes that when sailors arrived in a new port, they would greet the girls in this manner to determine if they had syphilis. Another story goes that they did this whilst dancing

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