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PODCAST

Special Editions

Naked Scientists

Probing the weird, wacky and spectacular, the Naked Scientists Special Editions are special one-off scientific reports, investigations and interviews on cutting-edge topics by the Naked Scientists team.

science

All Episodes

5:28

Fusion experiment yields new record energy

Special Editions ·

2021/11/17

When two atoms join together, the laws of physics tell us that a large amount of energy will be released, but the experiments performed so far by scientists to achieve nuclear fusion have always yielded a lot less energy than the inputs. This week, the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, which uses an approach called 'inertial confinement fusion', announced that they achieved a huge improvement in the record energy yield from a fusion experiment. Iacopo Russo heard from Debbie

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4:42

Dogs can pick out words from speech

Special Editions ·

2021/11/16

The first part of understanding a new language is working out where one word stops and the next word starts out of a string of syllables. Researchers at ELTE University in Hungary have been looking at how dogs' brains respond to language to figure out if they can recognise words, as Sally Le Page found out from author Marianna Boros... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

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6:13

Facebook's Metaverse

Special Editions ·

2021/11/15

Recently Facebook announced a name change for the company to Meta, which comes during the midst of a marketing plug by Mark Zuckerberg for his new take on an augmented reality universe. Facebook's metaverse. Harry Lewis finds out what the metaverse is from BBC technology editor Zoe Kleinman, but first here she is with what this rebrand means for us everyday users... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

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5:20

What does oxytocin sound like?

Special Editions ·

2021/11/12

We talk a lot about proteins on this programme - what they do, how they work - but have you ever wondered what they sound like? A group of scientists at the National University of Singapore have been turning proteins into pieces of music, as Sally Le Page heard from author, Peng Zhang. Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

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6:13

Antibiotics upgraded to tackle superbugs

Special Editions ·

2021/11/11

Antibiotics are such an important part of modern medicine but their effectiveness has been waning in the last few decades as certain bacteria, so called superbugs, have become resistant to multiple common antibiotics, leading to the UN declaring that antimicrobial resistance is one of the top 10 global public health threats facing humanity. To tackle this issue, new approaches are needed and as new strains of antibiotics are hard to come by, one option is to modify existing antibiotics to make them

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5:18

Humans navigate inefficiently in cities

Special Editions ·

2021/11/10

Have you ever noticed that you take one particular walking route to the shops, only to take a completely different route on the way back? If so, you might not be alone...based on recent paper published in Nature Computational Science, this is more common than you might think and could be because our brains try to always take the pointiest, not necessarily the fastest, route to their destination. Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

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6:44

Hydrogen electrolyser wins Earthshot Prize

Special Editions ·

2021/11/09

The Earthshot Prize is an ambitious environmental program created by His Royal Highness Prince William to find and develop solutions for the climate emergency. This year's prizes were awarded last month at a ceremony in London. The prize for the Fix Our Climate category went to company Enapter, which developed a technology called "AEM hydrogen electrolyser". Iacopo Russo heard from Enapter's co-founder Jan-Justus Schmidt, and from Cambridge University engineering professor David Cebon, to find out

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3:38

COVID-19 nanotube-based sensor

Special Editions ·

2021/11/04

"Test! Test! Test!" was the instruction from the World Health Organisation when the Covid-19 pandemic began to take hold around the world. Now scientists at MIT think they might have a solution, both for this pandemic and future ones: they've developed a sensor system comprising a fibre optic to which a special coating is applied that can recognise specific viruses. When it does so, it emits light of a specific colour, signalling a detection. Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked

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4:28

How Alzheimer's Disease Unfolds

Special Editions ·

2021/10/29

New research published this week has turned what we know about Alzheimer's disease progression on its head. Instead of the disease gradually spreading through the brain causing symptoms to get worse, the study found progression relied more on how quickly the number of disease-associated proteins increased in individual brain regions. Julia Ravey heard from Cambridge University's Georg Meisl, the study's author, on how this may impact future treatments. Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting

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6:44

Potential health benefits of winter swimming

Special Editions ·

2021/10/21

Wild water swimming is becoming ever more popular and, according to a new study published recently in Cell Reports Medicine, combining dips in cold water with time in a hot sauna could have potential health benefits. Verner Viisainen spoke with senior author Camilla Scheele to find out more... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

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6:24

E-Waste Day: what to do with old electronics?

Special Editions ·

2021/10/20

Who doesn't like to pick up a cold drink from the fridge and sit down to watch a show on their laptop or TV? Electrical appliances have made our lives easier and richer and yet, as much as we love them, we don't seem to be as good at properly maintaining or disposing of them. Thursday 14th October this year was International E-Waste Day, an event to raise awareness about the problem of waste electronics. Iacopo Russo heard from Pascal Leroy, the General Director of the WEEE Forum, the non-profit

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4:12

HeLa cells: do you own your own body parts?

Special Editions ·

2021/10/19

A form of cultured cell, known as a HeLa cell, is at the centre of a lawsuit that is being brought against a large scientific company that uses these cells. HeLa cells are named after the person they were collected from originally, Henrietta Lacks. They are an "immortal" cell line that grows continuously in the culture dish. This means that the cells that exist today stem directly from Henrietta Lacks' original cell sample, which was taken back in 1951. The use of these cells today raises ethical

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7:10

New painkiller: local and long-lasting relief

Special Editions ·

2021/10/13

Pain relief after surgery is a major headache as we don't have a lot of effective, and safe, options. Opioids in particular, like morphine, are very addictive and cause hundreds of thousands of deaths globally each year, and so doctors are desperate for alternatives. Now, scientists at the University of Buffalo have developed a long-lasting, local painkiller that can be injected into the site of injury to specifically prevent pain-transmitting nerve cells, or neurons, from passing on their painful

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5:29

Why do we keep catching the same diseases?

Special Editions ·

2021/10/05

This week, listener Rick emailed us to ask "Why do we acquire lifelong immunity against some pathogens but not others?" Sally Le Page asked author and infectious disease researcher at Imperial College, London, John Tregoning, to jog our memories... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

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28:30

Vaccines passports in England shown the door

Special Editions ·

2021/09/25

He said he'd introduce them, now Boris Johnson has stepped back from mandating vaccine passports across England for venues like nightclubs. But what's provoked this viral volte-face? Also, saliva tests for Covid-19, few fatal coronavirus cases among the unvaccinated, what's the role of hand sanitisers, and are Covid booster jabs the way forward? Dr Chris Smith joins RNZ's Kim Hill to discuss the latest Covid-19 news... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

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5:13

Self-assembling filter can remove fluoride

Special Editions ·

2021/09/23

Fluoride is the stuff in toothpaste that helps strengthen teeth. But if there's too much fluoride in the water it softens bones, and children become susceptible to bone deformities. It's very difficult and expensive to remove dissolved fluoride ions from water. But, inspired by nature, scientists have used polymers to produce a membrane that can filter out fluoride, as Sally Le Page heard from Ayse Asatekin... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

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4:21

Moral outrage on Twitter is contagious

Special Editions ·

2021/09/22

Twitter has been the subject of another study, looking at how people's tendency to post tweets in moral outrage is affected by other people on the site. Increasingly in recent years, celebrities and other well-known individuals have found themselves being "cancelled". This usually happens when they do or say something that other users disagree with. The outpourings of outrage reverberate across the social network with many piling in publicly to scorn and humiliate the perpetrator. But why do people

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4:05

Bit.bio: a new source of human cells

Special Editions ·

2021/09/17

Scientists and doctors are always after good quality human cells for research and therapeutic purposes, but these can be hard to come by in sufficient quantities. Now, synthetic biology company bit.bio has opened up new headquarters in Cambridge to start supplying multiple different cell types by reprogramming stem cells. Eva Higginbotham heard more from founder and CEO Mark Kotter... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

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7:12

Feeding birds could be causing harm

Special Editions ·

2021/09/14

Many of us love putting out bird seed and watching birds feast away, and feel we're doing a good deed too, but a new paper out of Manchester Metropolitan University suggests we may actually be doing more harm than good. Eva Higginbotham spoke to BBC science correspondent Victoria Gill, who spoke with lead author Alex Lees previously... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

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7:00

Schools Causing Covid Surges

Special Editions ·

2021/09/10

Most schools across the UK are open and children are heading back to their classrooms. But to what extent will this affect the Covid case rates across the country and what can we do to avoid disrupting a third academic year? In Scotland, children returned to school sooner than their English counterparts: what can we learn from their experience? Chris Smith spoke with Linda Bauld, who specialises in public health at the University of Edinburgh... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the

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153 results

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