Naked Scientists, In Short Special Editions Podcast

Electronic nose senses pesticides and terrorism threats

11 Jul 2016

Contributed by Lukas

The most sensitive "electronic nose" ever has been built by scientists in Belgium. The portable "E-nose" uses spongy structures called metal-organic f...

Royal Society Summer Exhibition

10 Jul 2016

Contributed by Lukas

It's summertime again and along with ice cream, sunburn and our other favourite British traditions, it's time for the Royal Society's Summer Science E...

Cyborg Cardiac Patch

07 Jul 2016

Contributed by Lukas

A system for growing heart cells on a microscopic silicon grid that can eavesdrop on their electrical behaviour is giving scientists a much clearer pi...

Getting every last drop

06 Jul 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Days of squeezing the last drop from your shampoo bottles are over! Thanks to researchers from the US, we now have a material which allows sticky liqu...

Life-saving helium discovery

05 Jul 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Helium is the stuff that goes into party balloons and is also an essential ingredient in hospital MRI scanners. Most people have heard of helium but n...

Juno probe plunges into Jupiter

04 Jul 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Today, NASA's Juno spacecraft has plunged into uncharted territory, flying closer to Jupiter than we've ever been before. Graihagh Jackson spoke to co...

Two Zika vaccine candidates discovered

03 Jul 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Back in February the World Health Organisation declared the zika virus epidemic in Brazil to be a public health emergency of international concern. At...

Silky sounds - making violins from silk

29 Jun 2016

Contributed by Lukas

When it comes to making musical instruments, there's as much science in today's violins as there is art. While many manufacturers around the world are...

Mini-guts for testing cystic fibrosis theraphy

29 Jun 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Cells collected from the intestines of patients with the disease cystic fibrosis can be grown in the laboratory dish to produce balls of cells that sc...

Solar powered jet makes historic crossing

29 Jun 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Solar Impulse is a unique plane, powered not by jet fuel, but solar energy and it is currently on a record-breaking tour around the world. But how doe...

Iron Up Against Heart Failure

21 Jun 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Chronic Heart Failure is the inability of your heart to effectively pump blood around your body and affects over half a million people in the UK alone...

Sudden cardiac death in the young

15 Jun 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Sudden cardiac death in the young, that's an apparently healthy person dying unexpectedly from heart-related issues under the age of 35, is rare but d...

Turning Carbon Dioxide Into Stone

10 Jun 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Carbon dioxide is a problematic greenhouse gas contributing to global warming. Power plants are major emitters of carbon dioxide, but unfortunately, c...

The Longest Tunnel Ever Built

07 Jun 2016

Contributed by Lukas

On June the 1st, Switzerland announced the opening of the world's longest tunnel. Called the Gotthard tunnel, it runs under the Alps to link Northern ...

Fish Prefer Pastic Over Food

06 Jun 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Earlier this year, the US banned microparticle beads from personal care products, but Europe has yet to follow suit. Now, researchers from Uppsala Uni...

Immune System Surprisingly Adaptive

06 Jun 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Immune cells are essential to the maintenance and repair in our bodies. However, an over-active immune system can lead to diseases such as arthritis, ...

Universal Cancer Vaccine

05 Jun 2016

Contributed by Lukas

A vaccine that can teach the immune system to attack any type of cancer is being developed and tested by scientists in Germany. Cancer affects one per...

Does salt increase blood pressure?

26 May 2016

Contributed by Lukas

As a nation, the UK are above the intake guidelines for salt, which, for an adult, is 6g per day. To put that into perspective, there's about half a g...

Botox Effects are More than Skin Deep

22 May 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Botox is a popular cosmetic treatment where Botulin toxin-A injections paralyse your facial muscles, which relaxes smile lines and makes your skin app...

Boiling Frogs?!

19 May 2016

Contributed by Lukas

This week we're tackling a myth sent in by listener Tim who says, "For many years I heard management gurus talking about the boiling frog syndrome.If ...

500 Years of Robots

18 May 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Robots are everywhere, from the machines that work in factories to pop culture icons like the Star Wars droids BB8, R2D2 and C3PO. but this is nothing...

The Maths of Gambling

15 May 2016

Contributed by Lukas

From maths hacks to poker playing bots, could there be a science to help you win big at the casino? Georgia Mills has been practising her poker face w...

New link in how life began

15 May 2016

Contributed by Lukas

The origins of life on earth has been a mystery since, well since life began. Researchers from Germany this week have found a crucial link in explaini...

Mouse Model Shows Zika Causes Birth Defects

15 May 2016

Contributed by Lukas

On February 1, 2016, the World Health Organization declared Zika virus a Public Health Emergency of International Concern with the virus' continued sp...

Limbs from Gills?

24 Apr 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Could limbs have evolved from fish gills? While it might sound fishy, scientists from the University of Cambridge have discovered that the same geneti...

Archaeology Undisturbed?

20 Apr 2016

Contributed by Lukas

In Archaeology is it better to keep an object in the ground or dig it up? Connie Orbach spoke to curators of the Fitzwilliam Museum's Death On The Nil...

Brains: the bigger the better?

19 Apr 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Humans are awesomely clever, right? We've colonised the world, manipulated our environment, developed incredible technology and can even make brillian...

Will your doctor be prescribing LSD soon?

17 Apr 2016

Contributed by Lukas

The drug LSD, or lysergic acid diethylamide, was first made in the 1930s in Switzerland by chemist Albert Hoffman, who also tried the agent on himself...

Have STIs led to monogamy?

17 Apr 2016

Contributed by Lukas

We might have sexually transmitted infections to thank for our modern-day monogamous society, according to a new study from Canada this week. Between ...

Invisible allies: the future of satellites

25 Mar 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Without satellites operating above us, we would be in considerable trouble; even ATM machines don't work without them! So this week, Graihagh Jackson ...

New Horizons reveals Pluto's secrets

23 Mar 2016

Contributed by Lukas

This week, we've had a first glimpse at the wealth of data sent back by the New Horizons probe, which reached Pluto and its largest moon, Charon, last...

New stroke rehabilitation technique

22 Mar 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Strokes are a major cause of permanent disability and they affect millions of people every year. The cause is usually a lack of blood flow to one part...

ExoMars spacecraft launches successsfully

21 Mar 2016

Contributed by Lukas

ExoMars 2016 launched successfully last week, but why are we going back to the red planet? This mission aims to seek out methane, which could be a cru...

What's killing the bees?

26 Feb 2016

Contributed by Lukas

It is that time of year again when we should start to see bees buzzing around gardens but populations of bees have been declining recently as disease ...

Coercion - It's easy to be bad

25 Feb 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Back in the 1960s, US researcher Stanley Milgram stunned the world with a study showing that members of the public were prepared to inflict potentiall...

Game changing cancer cure?

24 Feb 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Results that scientists are describing as "unprecedented" in the treatment of cancer have been announced at a conference this week. A team led by Stan...

Mapping climate change

19 Feb 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Many people make the assumption that climate change means that places will become warmer; and indeed some will. But more important in some ways is how...

Here Comes Science: They Might be Giants

18 Feb 2016

Contributed by Lukas

American band They Might be Giants, famous for charting singles 'Birdhouse in your Soul' and 'Istanbul', have also made an album all about science. It...

Gravitational Waves Discovered!!

12 Feb 2016

Contributed by Lukas

100 years after Einstein predicted them, scientists have finally discovered gravitational waves. For 25 years, hundreds of scientists across 16 countr...

Zika declared public health emergency

10 Feb 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Last week, the outbreak of Zika virus in Brazil prompted the World Health Organisation to declare a global health emergency. The virus is spreading fa...

Gene editing human embryos

08 Feb 2016

Contributed by Lukas

This week, a British researcher got the green light to genetically modify human embryos - this is the first time that gene editing has been approved i...

What beached the sperm whales?

03 Feb 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Sperm whales are renowned for being the biggest toothed whales of our seas, migrating thousands of miles every year. But this week, photos of cetacean...

Could conspiracy theories be true?

02 Feb 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Science is full of conspiracy theories, the moon landings were faked and climate change is a hoax, but how many of them are likely to be true? Felicit...

Behind the scenes at Call the Midwife

27 Jan 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Call the Midwife is one of the UK's best loved TV shows, and the new series has just started on the BBC. But as well as its empathetic characters and ...

Free radicals - a miracle cure?

25 Jan 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Hibernating animals put their bodies through huge amounts of stress but seem to remain unharmed. Professor Rob Henning from Groningen University expla...

National Security Algorithm

18 Jan 2016

Contributed by Lukas

The current threat level from terrorism in the UK and many other countries is set to severe, and police and security forces acknowledge that their job...

New Leukemia Therapy

18 Jan 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Leukemia is a cancer of the white blood cells that normally fight infection. About one person in every 200 will develop the disease, a common form of ...

Why Do Dogs Slurp So Sloppily?

22 Dec 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Dogs drink in a very distinctive way, lapping up water and, more often than not, making a huge mess. But, until now, the exact way they did this has b...

Tim Peake Rockets To Space

21 Dec 2015

Contributed by Lukas

On Tuesday the UK Space Agency's first official astronaut, Tim Peake embarked on the trip of a lifetime to the International Space Station. The launch...

COP21 The Results

21 Dec 2015

Contributed by Lukas

"195 Nations Set Path to Keep Temperature Rise Well Below 2 Degrees Celsius" were the headlines issuing from Paris in the wake of the Conference of th...

Plants communicate to trade with fungi

18 Dec 2015

Contributed by Lukas

A plant protein used to communicate with friendly soil fungi has been identified by Cambridge University scientists. Like this podcast? Please help us...

Science Breakthrough of the Year 2015

18 Dec 2015

Contributed by Lukas

What was the most momentous bit of science that you heard about this year? Every December the journal Science asks its editorial staff this question a...

ARM: 25 years as Britain's biggest tech company

15 Dec 2015

Contributed by Lukas

How an Acorn grew into, amongst other things, an Apple: What began as a business making home microcomputers now turns out the processing brain behind ...

Can genetics help you stop smoking?

07 Dec 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Researchers have linked a gene with your ability to stop smoking, but not all of the scientific community is in agreement... Like this podcast? Please...

Why loneliness can kill

02 Dec 2015

Contributed by Lukas

People with the best social networks, who sing in choirs; play instruments; go to church and take part in team sports, all live longer and tend to be ...

Sex addicts hooked by online porn

01 Dec 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Compulsive sexual behaviour, more commonly known as sex addiction, is driven by the huge novelty provided by online material, a new study has found. L...

Supergenes can determine behaviour

27 Nov 2015

Contributed by Lukas

The choices we make are often down to past experience and the circumstances, including picking partners. However, for a bird called the ruff, the way ...

Puberty Timing and Health

13 Nov 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Can you remember when your voice broke? According to conventional wisdom most men can't, but women have very strong memories of their first period. Th...

Sounds to make you emotional

13 Nov 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Music can have a huge impact on your emotions. Research published this week in PNAS has shown that if you apply the same sound properties that convey ...

Cambridge Graphene Technology Day

11 Nov 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Back in August we did a show all about the super material graphene. At the molecular level, a sheet of graphene looks a bit like chicken wire and is o...

How Random are DNA Mutations?

11 Nov 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Cambridge has a rich history of making discoveries about DNA - the genetic code inside each and every one of us. In the 50s Watson and Crick announced...

Can we prevent breast cancer?

10 Nov 2015

Contributed by Lukas

At the beginning of November, Kat went up to Liverpool for the annual NCRI Cancer Conference, bringing together scientists, doctors, nurses, patients ...

How Healthy are E-Cigarettes?

09 Nov 2015

Contributed by Lukas

E-cigarettes seem to be everywhere nowadays. Invented by a Chinese pharmacist and patented in 2004, they first went on sale in 2010 and are now the mo...

New Vaccine For RSV

09 Nov 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Respiratory syncytial virus or RSV is a virus of the respiratory system that infects people of all ages during the winter causing colds, however in in...

Eye drops to treat cataracts

07 Nov 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Cataracts are caused when proteins inside the lens of the eye come together. It's a condition that clouds the vision of approximately one hundred and ...

The problem with childbirth

30 Oct 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Despite the hundreds of thousands of babies born every day, we still know relatively little about childbirth and how hormones play their key roles in ...

Frost prevented by new material

28 Oct 2015

Contributed by Lukas

As Winter approaches in some parts of the world, so does the colder weather and the threat of ice on the roads and on your car windscreen. But help is...

Is personality linked to birth order?

24 Oct 2015

Contributed by Lukas

There have been many exaggerated reports this week that birth order, whether you are a first or last born, affects how intelligent you will be compare...

Slippery steel that repels bacteria

24 Oct 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Steel is used to manufacture a wide range of products from tiny surgical tools to huge ships. However, it can become corroded or contaminated when liq...

£21m for Engineering Grand Challenges

20 Oct 2015

Contributed by Lukas

This week the UK science minister, Jo Johnson, was in Cambridge where he announced an initiative to pump 21 million into seven key research programmes...

Do people spread disease?

08 Oct 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Every day millions of people are moving around the world by air, land and sea, but they may be bringing with them more than just their luggage. For ex...

How are our lives are mapped on our brains?

08 Oct 2015

Contributed by Lukas

The Human Connectome Project has collected data of hundreds of individuals ranging from brain imaging to genetic and lifestyle information. Now resear...

Getting high from marathon running

08 Oct 2015

Contributed by Lukas

You know when after a run you feel great? Well previously scientists thought this runners' high was down to endorphins, but this may not be the case. ...

Extinct animal colours revealed

07 Oct 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Fossils have long been used to help us piece together the size and shape of extinct animals, but the colours of these animals has, until now, been som...

Concussion and the Rugby World Cup

29 Sep 2015

Contributed by Lukas

This week, with the Rugby World Cup in full swing, the sports chief medical officer, Martin Raftery has called for changes to be made to the rules in ...

Fidgeting could prolong your life

28 Sep 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Sitting for long periods of time has long been associated with negative health effects and is thought to slow down your metabolism. However new resear...

A cooling layer for solar cells

28 Sep 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Solar power is growing in popularity around the world, with huge solar farms springing up all over the place. Obviously, solar panels need as much sun...

Extremely Large Telescope

27 Sep 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Earmarked for 2024, the European- Extremely Large Telescope will be the biggest telescope in the world. The primary mirror is 39 metres across and cap...

3D-printing body parts

25 Sep 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Scientists have announced a revolution in 3D printing. Rather than building things up layer by layer, which is the traditional approach, University of...

Paralysed man walks again

24 Sep 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Scientists in America have helped a paralysed man to take his first steps in over 5 years. They've done it by developing a system that eavesdrops on t...

A new insight into parasites

24 Sep 2015

Contributed by Lukas

You may never have heard of the disease lymphatic filariasis, but it affects 120 million people in 70 countries around the world, causing dramatic swe...

Good beetle parents die younger

23 Sep 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Does being a good parent shorten your lifespan? It turns out the answer is yes, at least if you're a burying beetle. Results from researchers at The U...

Does stress affect elephant fertility?

22 Sep 2015

Contributed by Lukas

It has been found that endangered Asian elephants age faster and have fewer offspring if their mothers are stressed when they are born. Researchers at...

Lovey-dovey finches

17 Sep 2015

Contributed by Lukas

People can spend their lives looking for love. We go on awkward dates and let our friends set us up with complete strangers. All in the hope of findin...

Age related diseases associated with 'biological age'

14 Sep 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Early intervention is likely to be critical for preventing many age-related diseases; but detecting these diseases at a sufficiently early stage to ma...

Dusty farms protect children from allergies

05 Sep 2015

Contributed by Lukas

A well known benefit of growing up on a farm is the reduced chance of developing allergies. Evidence shows that children who are exposed to a dusty fa...

Green Highways

26 Aug 2015

Contributed by Lukas

This month, Cambridge based company Innovia Technology have taken charge of the "Mission Zero Corridor Project". This project aims to make a 12 mile s...

Keeping clocks accurate

25 Aug 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Getting accurate clocks is really important for all kinds of technologies, especially when monitoring the distant heavens. But even if the clock itsel...

Hidden memories explained

24 Aug 2015

Contributed by Lukas

It's long been known that traumatic memories forged in stressful situations can lie buried in the subconscious, yet they can bubble to the surface une...

Dogs evolved with climate change not prey

23 Aug 2015

Contributed by Lukas

In the UK we are a nation of dog lovers but how did man's best friend become the speedy, bouncy animal we know today? Well for a long time it has been...

Premature birth affects personality

10 Aug 2015

Contributed by Lukas

New research has shown that babies born severely prematurely or underweight are likely to suffer in adulthood with a socially withdrawn personality. A...

GCSE success: it's in your genes

04 Aug 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Scientists at King's College London have discovered that genetics makes an unexpectedly large contribution to children's GCSE grades across a wide ran...

A pill on a string!

03 Aug 2015

Contributed by Lukas

About 8000 people in the UK develop a cancer in their oesophagus - the tube that connects the back of the throat to the stomach - every year. The majo...

Can de-worming really improve school attendance?

02 Aug 2015

Contributed by Lukas

A decade ago a landmark study was published showing that treating Kenyan children for worm infections could increase their attendance at school, as we...

Music tastes linked with brain type

31 Jul 2015

Contributed by Lukas

How does the way you think influence the music you choose to listen to? Scientists at Cambridge University have developed a test that marries up a per...

Rocket-powered Punting

30 Jul 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Punting is one of the most typically 'Cambridge' of activities, with hundreds of tourists being punted lazily along the river Cam at any one point dur...

Sugary drinks increase diabetes risk by 20%

30 Jul 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Fizzy drinks are often very high in sugar, and doctors suspect that they're likely to be linked to the growing rates of obesity in many countries. Now...

Growing Human Hearts

23 Jul 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Growing a human heart from a single cell may seem like science fiction, but scientists at the Gladstone Institute at the University of California San ...

Volcanoes may have ended the Roman Empire

16 Jul 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Volcanic eruptions can be both beautiful and destructive at the same time, but now scientists have found evidence they may have also been linked to pl...

Benefitting medically from marijuana

14 Jul 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Marijuana has a reputation for helping people who are in pain. But achieving the analgesic effect comes at a cost: users of the drug complain of memor...