This week, reports suggest that the 2013 opium harvest in Central and South Asia was the largest on record. But what is opium? Here's your quick fire science with Kate Lamble and Simon Bishop. Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists
This week archaeologists in Queensland, Australia, found part of a fossil from an ancient platypus that was a metre-long. Archaeologists have already found the remains of many giant ancestors of modern creatures, so here's two modern day giant animals - Simon Bishop and Matt Burnett - with this week's Quick Fire Science looking at why animals grew so big in the past. Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists
Remember, remember the fifth of November, Gunpowder treason and plot. We see no reason, why gunpowder treason should ever be forgot! So here's your quick fire science on gunpowder and fireworks just in time for Bonfire Night, with Kate Lamble and Simon Bishop. Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists
This week saw the final of the Great British Bake Off, a television programme in which 13 people spend a weekend in a tent, baking cakes and bread. Over 6 million viewers tuned in each week to catch the adventures of the amateur bakers, as they crafted three-dimensional novelty vegetable cakes, tricky millefeuille and choux pastry delights, while avoiding that ultimate sin against pastry - a soggy bottom. It has also inspired a new generation of home bakers. Here's your quick fire science on bak...
It's official: the UK has a slug problem. This week, researchers from the John Innes Centre in Norwich asked the public for help to help them track down the Spanish slug, a rapidly reproducing invasive species that eats crops and is not deterred by slug pellets. Here's your quick fire science on invasive species, with Matt Burnett and Simon Bishop. Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists
This week, the Nobel Prizes for medicine, physics and chemistry were awarded. Here's your quickfire science on the life of the prize's founder, Alfred Nobel, and past recipients of the award with Matt Burnett and Simon Bishop. Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists
A mummified body known as the Cashel man was recently found to be the oldest so called 'bog body' with intact skin anywhere in the world. Here's your quickfire science on how wetlands can preserve ancient human remains with Kate Lamble and Matt Burnett... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists
This week, salvage experts have been trying to raise the MS Costa Concordia, a cruise liner which partially sank near the island of Giglio off the coast of Italy in January 2012. Here's the quick-fire science on the Concordia and the salvage operation to raise it. Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists
Zoo keepers in Edinburgh have said this week that they're uncertain whether a giant panda in the city's zoo might give birth to a cub. But why is it so notoriously difficult to get pandas to breed in captivity, and how can there be so much doubt over whether a panda is pregnant? Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists
You may have heard this week about a new building at 20 Fenchurch St, in the City of London. The 37-storey skyscraper, which has already been dubbed the 'Walkie-talkie' due to its unusual shape, has been blamed for cooking a number of vehicles parked nearby. Some suggest that this might be due to the novel shape of the building, which causes it to act as a parabolic reflector, targeting sun's rays. Here's the quick fire science behind parabolic reflectors and their uses. Like this podcast? Pleas...
This week, nuclear expert Mycle Schneider, formerly an adviser to the French and German governments has said that he's deeply worried about contaminated cooling water leaking from tanks at the site of the Fukushima nuclear reactors.- Huge amounts of energy can be released by joining or fusing small atoms together to make larger atoms, or by splitting apart larger atoms like uranium.- In nuclear reactors, atoms such as Uranium 235 and Plutonium 239 are bombarded by neutrons which causes them to s...
US-based entrepreneur Elon Musk is not a man who's lacking ambition in life. His company Space-X has already built rockets which compete with those used by NASA and the European Space Agency, and last year one of them became the first commercial spacecraft to visit the International Space Station. This week, however, it's another of his projects which has been in the news - a new kind of train which he thinks could transport people over the 350-miles between Los Angeles and San Francisco in only...
This week, star gazers have been turning their eyes to the sky to look for shooting stars, as the Perseid meteor shower reaches its peak. But what are meteors, and what's the best way to observe them? Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists
This week the world's first lab grown beef burger was cooked and eaten in London. But how was it made and why is it important? Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists
This weeks Quick Fire Science on Jellyfish Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists
This Sunday sees the start of the 19th World Transplant Games in Durban, South Africa. The games offer the opportunity for those who have undergone a transplant to compete in a variety of competitive sports at the highest level. Here's the Quick Fire Science on organ donation and transplantation. Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists
This week, a team at Toronto university won the "Igor I. Sikorsky Competition" by building a man-powered helicopter and flying their machine "Atlas" within a 10mx10m box, at a height of 3m for over a minute. Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists
A baby has been born in the US using a new genetic screening test for IVF embryos Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists
What causes wildfires? Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists
The virtual currency 'bitcoin' has long been used by gamers to buy extra features online. But now you can spend your savings on real life pints. Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists
Dubbed Project Loon, and with the strapline "Balloon-Powered Internet For Everyone", Google announces the deployment of a fleet of balloons to bring Internet access and WiFi within reach in remote places... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists
A team in Singapore have developed an invisibility cloak that can hide goldfish and cats. Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists
This week the actor Michael Douglas revealed in an interview with the Guardian newspaper that he believes the throat cancer he suffered was as a result of infection with the human papillomavirus - HPV - infection he believes he contracted through oral sex. Here's the Quickfire Science with Dominic Ford and Kate Lamble Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists
This week marks the 60th anniversary of the first complete ascent of Mount Everest by Edmund Hillary and Tensing Norgay in 1953. But few people know that had it not been for the failure of one of two competing designs of breathing equipment - a completely different pair of climbers could have made it to the top first.Here's your Quickfire Science from Hannah Critchlow and Kate Lamble. Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists...
Tragedy struck Oklahoma this week, when a massive tornado at least a mile wide ripped through the town of Moore, injuring 353 and leaving at least 24 people dead. To find out how these destructive forces of nature develop, here's your Quickfire Science of tornadoes with Elena Teh and Pete Skidmore... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists
It emerged this week that actress and director Angelina Jolie chose to have a double mastectomy, because she carries a gene called BRCA1, which greatly increases her chances of developing breast cancer. Here's your quickfire science about the story from Naked Scientists Elena Teh Pete Skidmore... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists
