The Naked Scientists Podcast

This week we we zoom in on the subject of nano-particles to examine how tiny objects, smaller than the wavelength of light, can be making such large waves in the fields of health, optics, and electronics. Plus news of purple tomatoes on their way to your dinner plates, the medical treatment that could mean the end of peanut allergies, the acid dip that reverts cells to their stem state, and what's in the air in Beijing? Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

Live on location at the Cambridge Science Centre, Chris Smith is joined by exercise scientist Dan Gordon, who also holds the world record in tandem cycling, epidemiologist Nita Forouhi, who studies diet, and David Ogilvie, who investigates how our environment can shape our activity. Together they pit their wits against the assembled public as they answer questions like, is watching the Exorcist a replacement for exercise? Plus Dave Ansell and Ginny Smith find the iron on breakfast cereals, measure the vitamin C in carrots, and see how much exercise it takes to work off a Mars bar... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

This week we investigate why the UK is investing in space weather forecasts. Plus how could changes in the Sun's activity affect us here on Earth? In the news, conservationists supporting the sale of a hunting licence for the endangered Black Rhino, gene therapy success for treating blindness-causing diseases, and do humans use anger strategically? Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

This week we want to hear how you're doing with your New Year's Resolutions as we investigate the psychology of willpower and how long it takes to form a new habit. In the news, does drinking a cup of coffee after studying help students remember their work? Should the UK introduce a minimum price for alcohol? Plus the light activated glue that could change the way cardiac surgery operates. Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

The Naked Scientists tackle your questions, from how hail storms come about to why the Mediterranean Sea has such small tides. And why do people often favour walking on one particular side of the road?Plus, we look at what science might hit the headlines in 2014, from China's ambitions for manned spaceflight, to new graphene-based electronics. Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

It's Christmas, and we're celebrating in style with a look at the science behind the things that grace the festive period. In a special programme recorded live in the kitchen, we produce our own home-made ice cream, hear about the brain-basis of the Boxing Day sales bargain, test fruit-fuelled flamethrowers, investigate candle chemistry, find out about LED fairy lights, probe the origins of the Star of Bethlehem, and make our own hydrogen-powered party popper. Merry Christmas! Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

How balls of cells assemble into a baby, why cell shape is crucial in cancer, telling cells where to go in an embryo, and getting a handle on how limbs develop: this week's Naked Scientists explores the science of structure. Plus, does classical music make you brainier? News of what your Christmas dinner means to the microbes in your intestines and a breakthrough in tracking the international spread of pandemics... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

The bid to create the world's largest marine reserve, diseases threatening corals in the Caribbean, what is the best way to conserve coral reefs in Fiji, and why fish microbes matter too. Plus news of DNA sequences extracted from a 400,000 human ancestor in Spain, contraceptive pills for men, pain-free injection patches and the brain basis of dyslexia... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

Live on location at the Cambridge Science Centre, Chris Smith is joined by guests Didier Queloz, who discovered the first exoplanet, Alan Tunnacliffe who investigates organisms which might be able to survive in space, and Gerry Gilmore, who is aiming to map the Milky Way. Together they pit their wits against the assembled public as they go on the hunt for alien worlds and life in space. Plus Dave Ansell and Ginny Smith reanimate yeast, spin an alarm clock to demonstrate how planets make stars wobble, and launch their own hydrogen rocket... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

This week, smells, pheromones and anosmia. We talk to a patient with no sense of smell, hear why odours might be more down to the way molecules vibrate that how they are shaped, we look at the role that genes play in what we can smell and hear how pheromones affect how we feel. Plus, in the news, the legacy of double Nobel laureate Fred Sanger who died this week, a new water-repelling material which rejects water faster than ever before, an ode to World Toilet Day, the swarm of tiny satellites which are helping to miniaturise space missions, and we hear about the bacteria that have acquired... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists