Special Editions
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.
Robots in blood vessels
You're probably familiar with the 1966 science fiction film "Fantastic Voyage", where a submarine crew are shrunk to microscopic size and venture into the body of an injured scientist to repair damage to his brain. They're not quite at the stage of shrinking scientists yet, but engineers in America have…
Cooling that comes with a twist
What if the next refrigeration technology could be based on twisting and untwisting strands? A new paper published in Science by an international team of researchers explored how twisting and stretching can change the temperature of certain types of fibres, leading them to propose a new method for building fridges…
Prostheses that can restore lost sensation
Can we help people who've lost a leg to feel it again? Mariana Marasoiu has this report... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists
Are phone masts going to get larger?
Mobile phone companies could be set to erect bigger and taller phone masts as part of government plans to roll out 5G networks and improve coverage in rural areas. How might taller masts help with connectivity - and what is 5G anyway? Tech-xpert and Angel Investor Peter Cowley explains to…
Antimicrobial resistance and future plastics
Bacteria are becoming increasingly resistant to many of the agents we use to deal with them, including antiseptics. The bacterium Acinetobacter baumannii is one example and causes hard to treat skin, chest, and urine infections in hospitals. Now, a team at the University of Newcastle, Australia have discovered a gene…
Stronger earthquakes from oilfield wastewater
A research team from Virginia Tech, led by Ryan Pollyea, has found that earthquakes 8 kilometres below the earth's surface are increasing in intensity. Published in the journal Nature Communications, the team's work has found that a super-dense liquid called oilfield wastewater is seeping deep into the sheets of the…
The science behind heatwaves
A heatwave has been sweeping across Europe recently, causing record temperatures across the continent and creating a lot of consternation in the Naked Scientist office. But where do heatwaves come from. And what's going to happen in the future. Adam Murphy spoke to Manoj Joshi, professor of climate dynamics from…
Decoding the Minimal Genome
Your genome contains all of your genetic information, and it's pretty long - the Human Genome Project estimated that humans have between 20,000 and 25,000 genes. But according to synthetic biology, you can survive on only 473! At least a very simple bacterium can. Of this "minimal genome", scientists previously…
The Largest Seaweed Bloom on Earth
The world's largest patch of seaweed appears every summer in the mid-Atlantic. Since 2011, the Great Atlantic Sargassum Belt has been growing to monstrous sizes - thousands of kilometres long - and it's been clogging up beaches along the Americas with metres of stinking brown sludge. Now, scientists in Florida…
The nervous system of worms
The nervous system is a complicated network of specialized cells, called neurons, that allow the transfer of information from one part of our body to another. To help our understanding of the nervous system in humans, scientists have been mapping the connections between neurons in a type of round worm,…
Oumuamua is alien technology no mua-more
You might remember from a year or so ago stories of an alien fly-by. The unidentified object was famously referred to as Oumuamua, which means "scout" in Hawaiian. Now a paper just out in the journal Nature Astronomy has revisited the story to probe whether Oumuamua really is alien technology,…
Extremely Fast: The Future of Electric Racing
In June, Izzie Clarke explored the extremely fast science of speed and headed to the race tracks with McLaren in their 600LT Spider supercar. But whilst Formula 1 and petrol racing have a huge fan base, we're also seeing the rise of electric racing, Formula E. In this bonus interview,…
Making crops more light sensitive
With a rising global population, and the impending impacts of climate change, we need more food, and reliable food sources safeguarded for the future. But varying light levels mean that plant growing conditions aren't always consistent, as Katie Haylor has been finding out... For information regarding your data privacy, visit…
Boaty McBoatface and the Antarctic mystery
In March 2016 the public voted to name a new polar research vessel "Boaty McBoatface", ultimately though, it was decided that "RRS Sir David Attenborough" was a more fitting choice. But the name "Boaty McBoatface" lived on and was instead given to one of the ship's autonomous submarine vehicles. Now,…
Smarter, safer robots
Robots are increasingly used to take over repetitive tasks in industry and agriculture, but they are still limited in what they can do. This also means that humans still need to work alongside them and often things can go badly wrong. 13000 injuries and 60 deaths were caused by accidents…
Fish: a small world after all
The world is facing a global fish issue - a fissue, if you will. One third of all fish stocks are being overfished, and most of the efforts to prevent this involve exclusive zones in the ocean managed by individual countries. But a study released this week shows how the…
Asthma: mapping the human lung
The chest disease asthma is becoming more common. It can lead to life-threatening breathing difficulties when the airways constrict and the lung tissue overproduces mucus; this is usually an allergic reaction that can be worsened by air pollution. But our understanding of what's going on in an asthmatic lung is…
Cracking the secret of Antarctic ice holes
Holes in the Antarctic sea ice have been forming for decades, and are a mystery to science For information regarding your data privacy, visit acast.com/privacy
A special skill?
When it comes to understanding how the brain functions, scientists have done a great deal of work on studying macaque monkeys, our evolutionary relative. We share 93% of our DNA and in a lot of ways, our brains are very similar. Even for high level operations such as learning, memory…
Recyclable crisp packets using nanotechnology
At the end of 2018, Walkers launched their own recycling scheme for crisp packets after more than 300,000 people signed an online petition demanding that they change to a fully recyclable material for their packaging. Crisp packets are made from plastic and coated with a thin layer of metal. The…