The Future of our Food

It's big, it's blue, it's where life began and life certainly wouldn't be the same without it: yes, that's right, it's the sea. This week Helen Scales is taking the show underwater to explore her favourite realm. Among the marine menagerie she'll be revisiting the incredible story of squid that see with their entire body, once again be meeting the humming toadfish, which is teaching us a thing or two about making music, and we'll catch up with the colourful clownfish that, just like Nemo, might soon be needing some help finding their way home... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

15 Aug 200959min

This week, Kat Arney has been through the archives and picked out her personal Naked highlights, including making experimental jelly, sneezing at computer screens, stabbing potatoes and Ben dancing (badly) in the studio. She looks back on advances in cancer therapy, developments in making people bionic and how new diseases emerge, as well as reliving the chance to meet Alan Titchmarsh, for a chat about the importance of ponds. Plus, we have a brand new bit of the Naked Scientists, where we're looking at Chemistry in its element. Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

8 Aug 200959min

What happens if you urinate on an electric fence? We find out the answer to this and some of your other science questions on this week's Naked Scientists, including why chilli peppers are red, how does squinting help you see further and what's the best way to align your laundry with the wind? Plus, why blue food colouring could reduce the damage of spinal injury, how shrimps could catalyse biodiesel production and the physics behind the regularity of raindrops... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

1 Aug 200958min

We dig deep into the science of rubbish, refuse, waste and recycling... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

25 Juli 200959min

The latest in the science of fertility, IVF and pregnancy... We find out how pre-implantation tests could improve the success of IVF and how stress during pregnancy affects foetal development. Plus, why knowledge is its own reward, how a jockey's posture makes horses run faster and how science publishing on the web is about to change. In Kitchen Science, Dave finds out how a bag of liquid cushions a developing baby inside it's mother! Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

18 Juli 200959min

Award winning Canadian hip hop artist Baba Brinkman brings us his Rap Guide to Evolution, an hour of clever, witty and scientifically accurate rhymes that will have you seeing Darwin from a whole new perspective. Baba explores the history and current understanding of Darwin's theory, combining hilarious remixes of popular rap songs with clever lyrical storytelling that covers Natural Selection, Artificial Selection, Sexual Selection, Group Selection, Unity of Common Descent, and Evolutionary Psychology. Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

15 Juli 200959min

We seek the Science of Sight on this week's Naked Scientists, discovering how deep sea fish use clever bioluminescence and biological mirrors to cope with the darkness of the deep. We hear how our brains choose what sights to pay attention to, and what a bees brain can teach us about how we see optical illusions. Plus, salt-tolerant GM crops, statins stalled by sluggish blood and how the turtle got it's shell. In Kitchen Science, we fool our eyes into seeing confusing colours... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

11 Juli 200957min

This week, we're taking on your science brainteasers! We find out why toothpaste ruins other flavours, whether humans have a mating season and why food goes in multicoloured, but comes out brown... Plus, fighting Fido's fleas with fungus, stressed men take more risks, and predicting if hepatitis B will lead to liver cancer. In Kitchen Science, we make a fruity fireball with orange peel. Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

4 Juli 200958min