Lagrange Point
558 episodes - English - Latest episode: 6 months ago - ★★★★★ - 2 ratingsA fun take on the latest science news with enough data to sink your teeth into. Lagrange Point goes beyond the glossy summary and gets in depth with the research from across the world.
Homepage Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Overcast Castro Pocket Casts RSS feed
Episodes
Episode 555 - Breaking down toxic fungus and learning to live alongside them
October 28, 2023 15:12 - 20 minutes - 29.3 MBFungal invasions taking over living hosts is the thing of science fiction, but the humble button mushroom is taken steps to start. Often a fungi will specialize in symbiosis, invading or decomposing. But Mycena are starting to adapt to do all three. Humans, plants and fungi are in a complicated relationship where we influence the development of each other. The complex fungal toxin patulin is dangerous for humans, but can be broken down by microbes in soil. What can we learn from soil to figh...
Episode 554 - Collaborating to solve Martian Mysteries
October 21, 2023 16:16 - 14 minutes - 21.8 MBWhat caused those large quakes on Mars? How can Mars have big Mars-quakes without plate tectonics? If an impact crater isn't too blame for the Mars quakes what may be the cause. An international collaboration pooled the instruments of many countries Mars Missions to solve a mystery. Even using many different countries space ships, no 'smoking crater' was found that caused a mysterious martian quake. How can we study the ancient martian rivers and oceans using data from old martian missions? ...
Episode 553 - E.coli to the rescue and boosting geothermal power
October 09, 2023 07:12 - 15 minutes - 23.3 MBE.coli is one of the most studied and versatile bacteria, so how can we make it work for us? Bacteria's ability to generate electricity is well known, but often requires complex conditions. How can we use E.Coli to generate electricity without a complicated setup? Geothermal systems seem to promise unlimited power but sometimes a cold water 'short circuit' ruins the plan. How do you carefully control the efficiency of geothermal power in the extreme temperatures and pressures of the earth? ...
Episode 552 - Talking to plants and how a jellyfish learns
October 04, 2023 05:36 - 16 minutes - 25.3 MBHow does a jellyfish manage to see and learn without a large central brain? Like the Scarecrow of Oz, jellyfish are a without a brain but are still able to learn and do great feats. How does the nervous system of a jellyfish learn to dodge and avoid obstacles without a big brain? Plants respond to light, but is it possible to communicate with them about upcoming dangers? Jan Bielecki, Sofie Katrine Dam Nielsen, Gösta Nachman, Anders Garm. Associative learning in the box jellyfish Tripedalia...
Episode 551 - Boosting your immune system to fight back cancer
September 25, 2023 07:13 - 15 minutes - 23.3 MBThere are many different types of treatments for cancer, all of them with pros and cons. Enhancing our anti cancer toolbox requires careful testing to help reduce side effects. CAR-T takes your immune cells and boosts them to help fight cancer, but can have some pretty nasty side effects. By carefully coating CAR-T cells you can fight back against cancer and limit the chance of a cytokine storm or neurotoxicity . Ningqiang Gong, Xuexiang Han, Lulu Xue, Rakan El-Mayta, Ann E. Metzloff, Marga...
Episode 550 - Cosmic Collisions and galactic devouring
September 10, 2023 15:38 - 16 minutes - 36.6 MBWhat happens when two massive planets collide? How can you end up with a gas giant that's super dense and heavy? how can a planet the size of Neptune be as dense as steel? What happens when two giant planets collide at high speed? Watching a black hole devour a star, one bite at a time. Luca Naponiello, Luigi Mancini, Alessandro Sozzetti, Aldo S. Bonomo, Alessandro Morbidelli, Jingyao Dou, Li Zeng, Zoe M. Leinhardt, Katia Biazzo, Patricio E. Cubillos, Matteo Pinamonti, Daniele Locci, Anton...
Episode 549 - Water infrastructure and Archaeology
September 01, 2023 08:46 - 18 minutes - 43.4 MBInfrastructure projects and large engineering projects can lead to archaeological discoveries. When you start digging a large sewer network, the last thing you suspect to find is 1,000s of fossils. Large water projects in Auckland managed to discover new species and shed light on New Zealand 3 million years ago. We often think of modern plumbing as being a sign of the modern era, but in ancient China, a community banded together to build their own drainage network. References: Bruce W. H...
Episode 548 - A paradise for Octopi at the base of a volcano
August 27, 2023 13:17 - 16 minutes - 24 MBAt the depths of the ocean, in freezing waters there is somehow a paradise for Octopi. Off the coast of Monterey, an extinct underwater volcano creates just the right conditions for an absurd number of octopi to breed, nest and survive despite the freezing temperatures. With water near freezing, an octopi egg would normally take 8 years to hatch, but how are they managing to survive in huge numbers? References: James P. Barry, Steven Y. Litvin, Andrew DeVogelaere, David W. Caress, Chris...
Episode 547 - Concussions - How long do you really have to wait?
August 17, 2023 12:33 - 16 minutes - 23.7 MBHow long do you really have to wait after a concussion? Athletes are always keen to get back in the game after a head knock, but how long do they really need to wait? When trying to assess and track a concussion getting hard data is difficult. Using special headbands and measuring the pulse of the brain you can get an insight into concussion recovery. Concussion symptoms can disappear long before the brain has truly recovered. If you are slowly recovering fro a concussion how long will you n...
Episode 546 - What’s going on with whale’s behaviour
August 11, 2023 02:18 - 14 minutes - 33.3 MBWhen whales and humans interact the results can be confusing and messy for both sides. Whether it be noisy boat propellers, or orcas on a collision course, humans and whales don't always get on. How can we monitor and track how whales respond to humans. The best ways of monitoring animals is often with tags, but the very act of tagging can ruin what you're trying to study. Lars Reiter Nielsen, Outi M. Tervo, Susanna B. Blackwell, Mads Peter Heide‐Jørgensen, Susanne Ditlevsen. Using quantil...
Episode 545 - Phages taking the fight to bacteria
July 31, 2023 12:48 - 10 minutes - 16.2 MBAntibiotic resistance is a global challenge, but the solution may come from the natural predator of bacteria. Bacterial infections can be nasty, but you can engineer a phage to help better identify and treat them. Knowing exactly which bacteria is causing problems can help doctors target treatment more precisely and tailor antibiotic courses. Using bacteriophages you can quickly identify and then eliminate common types of bacterial infections. Jiemin Du, Susanne Meile, Jasmin Baggenstos, T...
Episode 544 - Metals recovering from fatigue
July 24, 2023 07:05 - 14 minutes - 20.6 MBCracks in metal can ultimately lead to fatigue failure, but is there a way to unwind the damage? Fatigue failure is a serious problem for everything from bridges to phones so finding a way to tackle it is important. One microcrack can turn into another as a metal fatigues, but what if the cracks could close themselves up again? Can a metal piece itself back together again? Maybe if its in a vacuum. Christopher M. Barr, Ta Duong, Daniel C. Bufford, Zachary Milne, Abhilash Molkeri, Nathan M. ...
Episode 543 - Monitoring vital signs without getting in the way
July 20, 2023 01:41 - 15 minutes - 36.3 MBGetting an accurate picture of someone's health or vital signs is essential in medicine, but hard to physically do without wires. Invasive health monitoring systems can't provide insights into 'everyday' scenarios. Trying to assess someone's posture, gait and rehabilitation is hard if they're wired into a harness. Smart Pants using fibre optics can help rehabilitation by fully understanding the problem points in high detail. Non-contact monitoring of breathing and other vital signs is import...
Episode 542 - Evolving multicellular life in the lab
July 10, 2023 08:55 - 15 minutes - 35.8 MBIts a huge leap from a single celled organism to a complex multicellular beast. So how does evolution manage it? You can evolve humble yeast from a single celled organism into a complex interwoven multicellular one. Over 3,000 generations in the lab, the humble yeast was evolved from microscopic to macroscopic with super strength. Grouping together or splitting apart can offer benefits for organisms, but what environmental pressures cause an organism to go one way or the other? G. Ozan Boz...
Episode 541 - The building blocks chemistry
July 03, 2023 12:20 - 15 minutes - 36.3 MBChemistry is complicated but it had to start somewhere. The origins of complex chemistry had to be built up from scratch. How did complex compounds form on early earth. How can we replicate the conditions of early earth and watch complex chemistry develop? Peering into chemical reactions is tricky because they can happen so fast. Zhong Yin, Yi-Ping Chang, Tadas Balčiūnas, Yashoj Shakya, Aleksa Djorović, Geoffrey Gaulier, Giuseppe Fazio, Robin Santra, Ludger Inhester, Jean-Pierre Wolf, Hans...
Episode 540 - On the shoulders of giants
June 30, 2023 13:43 - 16 minutes - 38.2 MBThe universe scaling work of the NANOGrav team stands on the shoulders of giants to understand giants lurking in our universe. Huge decade spanning scientific projects like NANOGrav are built of ideas and concepts which we can trace back to earlier pioneers. NANOGrav relies on Pulsars to map the universe but the discovery of them can be traced back to one key woman, Jocelyn Bell Burnell. This week we dive into the discovery of Pulsars and how they have been used to make a new way of looking ...
Episode 539 - Dangerous but beautiful space weather
June 20, 2023 12:52 - 16 minutes - 38.2 MBWeather in space, can seem far away but it's dazzling effects come with some danger. Aurora localised entirely around a satellite can cause a steamy situation for communications. Analysing space weather can lead to better designed satellites capable of withstanding 1-100 year solar storms. It's a balancing act when protecting satellites from solar weather, too much and too little protection can lead to disaster. Meteor showers are beautiful but how do you get one without an icey comet? The o...
Episode 538 - Colossal volcanic eruptions taking out satellites
June 12, 2023 12:57 - 14 minutes - 22 MBWhen a volcano erupts we're used to imagining damage from lava, ash and even tsunamis. So why were satellites taken out? The colossal eruptions at Hunga-Tonga in 2022 caused pressure waves that caused damage 1000s of km away and even to satellites. Satellites, long distance radio and GPS all rely on the ionosphere, but large eruptions can wreck havoc and cause disruptions. When a pressure wave spreads out from a volcanic eruption, we can also get similar disruptions to the ionosphere. Someti...
Episode 537 - Better batteries that last even in subzero temperatures
June 06, 2023 12:12 - 15 minutes - 22.4 MBBatteries power the modern world, but how can we make them more sustainably and last longer. Lithium powers most of our modern batteries but it doesn't cope with the cold. The electrolytes inside lithium ion batteries are powerful but weak when its cold, so what can we use instead? Extracting lithium is carbon intensive and difficult, are there more abundant materials we can use? Calcium based batteries have a higher power density than lithium but finding a suitable electrolyte is a challeng...
Episode536 - Taking pollution out of the atmosphere
May 29, 2023 14:53 - 17 minutes - 18.2 MBHumans are filling the atmosphere with more and more pollution. How does it get out of the air and where does it go? For complex pollutants in the atmosphere, having a bit of hydroxide around helps break it down but where does it come from? Hydroxide can spontaneously generate in droplets but it doesn't seem to need sunlight's or photo-chemistry. Spontaneous generation of hydroxide in water droplets helps clean up our atmosphere. Which trees are best at cleaning up the air around them? From ...
Lagrange Point Episode 535 - Trees growing faster during droughts
May 24, 2023 13:53 - 12 minutes - 13.1 MBAs our climate changes extreme weather events become more common, but what does this mean for ecosystems? Ecosystems and plants that have adapted to on extreme climate, can thrive in another. An adaption that helps you survive in extreme cold can be very helpful when there is a drought. There is a balancing act between choosing when to grow and when to conserve energy. Plants carefully manage their resources in extreme drought and extreme cold. Joan Dudney, Andrew M. Latimer, Phillip van M...
Episode 534 - Finding a rocky asteroid belt around another star
May 15, 2023 15:04 - 13 minutes - 13.7 MBAsteroid belts are harder to find than Sci-fi would have you believe. Spotting an asteroid belt is easier in the outer solar system, but closer in it gets a bit more blurry. Using the JWT we can use more than just visible light to find tricky interstellar objects. Asteroid belts are messy but they can tell us a lot about a solar system by what they leave in their wake. Reference: András Gáspár, Schuyler Grace Wolff, George H. Rieke, Jarron M. Leisenring, Jane Morrison, Kate Y. L. Su, Kimb...
Episode 533 - Bacteria melting ice and changing the planet
May 11, 2023 14:35 - 12 minutes - 13.9 MBHow can tiny bacteria change the entire planet? Greenland is beautiful and covered in glaciers, but they are turning more and more dark and black. Black algae is tinting glaciers in Greenland darker, and causing changes in our climate. The more our climate changes, the easier it is for algae to thrive in glacier runoff and change the colours of the glaciers. Algae can survive in strange locations on earth, what can that teach us about microorganisms across the solar system? James A. Bradle...
Episode 532 - Bacteria reviving themselves when the time is right
May 04, 2023 12:23 - 11 minutes - 15.9 MBBacteria are masters of survival, pausing and shielding themselves when times get tough. So how do they know when to wake up? The mechanisms bacteria use to survive harsh conditions are one of the reasons they're able to survive so well. The protective layers and pausing all activity inside the cell enable the bacteria, as a spore, to survive very long periods of time. After suspending themselves through a tough period of time,how do bacteria wake themselves up? Yongqiang Gao, Jeremy D. ...
Lagrange Point Episode 531 - Measuring the expansion of the universe
April 24, 2023 10:00 - 18 minutes - 27.7 MBUnderstanding the future of the universe requires peering into the past. How quickly the universe is expanding has been an active area of science since the 1920s, with several prizes and breakthroughs. Each time we get new or more accurate measurements it forces scientists to re-evaluate the assumptions and formulas. These breakthroughs then need to be confirmed with follow up studies. The measurement of Hubble's constant using supernova won a Nobel Prize in 2011, and new gravitational lensi...
Episode 530 - Fully recyclable electronics
April 17, 2023 09:05 - 18 minutes - 27.8 MBElectronics power the modern world, but they come at a high environmental and energy cost. E-waste a serious problem as many of the elements in modern electronics cannot be easily recycled. Is there a way to produce electronics that are more environmentally friendly? Is it possible to make a circuit board or more simply even a transistor that doesn't rely on silicon? Can you imagine a Silicon Valley without actual silicon? Its possible to make recyclable electronics without silicon and inste...
Episode 529 - Listening in on conversations inside your body
April 10, 2023 13:17 - 17 minutes - 25.6 MBYour body is constantly communicating about what's happening outside and inside of it, but how can we listen in. When your immune system is responding to a virus, or a wound is healing, there are lots of signals to decode if only we could hear them. By amplifying the signals inside your body with special folding DNA and transistors we can understand how our body responds. The brain's neural networks are a treasure trove of information if we're able to blend in and listen. Using a microbot yo...
Episode 528 - How our senses pass information to our brains
April 06, 2023 12:25 - 17 minutes - 25.3 MBHow does your body pass information along to your brain? The thalamus connects those sensory inputs back to your cerebral cortex but it's a lot sparser than you'd think. The synapses that link your senses to your cortex are often weak and rare, but their diversity gives them a boost. Lots of diverse synapses with different strengths help you perceive the world more clearly. Do both your eyes get equally treated by your brain? Aygul Balcioglu, Rebecca Gillani, Michael Doron, Kendyll Burnell...
Episode 527 - Concrete in space from blood, sweat, tears and chips
March 27, 2023 07:06 - 14 minutes - 22.6 MBBuilding a habitat on Mars or the Moon is hard work, but it's a lot easier if you can make your own building materials. Animal blood has historically been used as a binding agent for mortar, so could human blood help on Mars? You can make your own building materials on the Moon or Mars that are far stronger than on earth especially if you add tears and blood. Maybe you don't want to use blood in when building your martian home, but would you sacrifice your potato chips? Potato chips and some...
Episode 526 - Capturing biological process in action
March 20, 2023 06:42 - 18 minutes - 27.2 MBSeeing how something happens makes it much easier to understand. Biological process can be very hard to capture with images or video. Understanding how a protein requires thinking in 3D but to take images of them we often have to 'snap freeze' them in place. How can lasers, ions and quantum mechanics be used to help capture a protein in motion. PCR based diagnostics tests are accurate but require a lot of setup and expertise. Can you make a PCR test more like a point of care test using bio-l...
Episode 525 - Life in a radiation exclusion zone and #2023MMM
March 13, 2023 07:57 - 16 minutes - 25.5 MBLife in a radiation exclusion zone is challenging but not impossible. We find out about tales of survival, endurance and adaption in radiation zones and in March Mammal Madness. How does life adapt to high exposure of toxic chemicals, radiation and heavy metals? Studying the DNA of differing animal populations in Chernobyl helps researchers understand how life responds to environmental disasters. What's more stressful for wild boar - humans or a radiation disaster zone? Around Fukashima wil...
Episode 524 - Bacteria’s sneaky 1-2 punch to get into your brain
March 06, 2023 07:35 - 18 minutes - 27.9 MBBacteria uses a clever 1-2 punch to make it through our central nervous systems defenses. The way bacteria can get through the outer layers of the meninges relies on knowing exactly what how the brain will respond to infection. Painful headaches are a key part of meningitis, but that pain response is actually opening the door for a sneak attack. Understanding how bacterial infections get into the brain will help develop new treatment pathways for meningitis. When bacteria come under attack t...
Episode 523 - Sinking carbon out of seawater and carbon storage in wood
February 27, 2023 11:27 - 18 minutes - 20.3 MBOur oceans and waterways are our largest carbon sinks and they're overflowing with CO2. Too much CO2 in our waterways can cause tremendous local damage, but there may be ways to clean that up. Using a cyclic process without messy membranes you can get water to release the CO2 captured inside. Extracting excess CO2 from oceans could be possible with only some clever chemistry cells with no waste byproducts. Now that you've got CO2 out of the ocean, what are you going to do with it? Make it wo...
Episode 522 - Making hydrogen greenly from Seawater
February 20, 2023 06:21 - 14 minutes - 15.6 MBHydrogen comes in all kinds of colours but what does that mean? Hydrogen has a role to play in a decarbonised world as long as we can produce it greenly. It's no good producing green hydrogen if you use up another valuable resource or create another kind of waste. Water water everywhere, but not a drop to electrolyse. Using seawater to make hydrogen has challenges. How can we use the abundant seawater resource to make green energy sources without producing nasty by products? Suraj Loomba,...
Episode 521 - Galaxies at the Cosmic Dawn
February 13, 2023 23:49 - 14 minutes - 21.5 MBUsing the JWST to peer into the Cosmic dawn of the universe. The JWST enables researchers to peer into the earliest galaxies in our universe. 250 Million years is not a long time when it comes to a star or galaxy. With JWST researchers can see galaxies formed 250 million years after the Big Bang. To peer into the earliest universe you must use infrared to capture the faintest light. Using new instruments on the JWST researchers are able to see galaxies from 13.25 billion years ago. JWST also...
Episode 520 - There and back again - tales from a wandering space probe
February 06, 2023 03:48 - 18 minutes - 26 MBHayabusa2 had an exciting voyage across our solar system, getting into dust ups and even coming back home again with data to share. We've been tracking the long journey of Hayabusa2 over the 10 years of this podcast, and we're now getting interesting data from the returned samples. The Hayabusa2 probe shot at the asteroid Ryugu and brought back proof for JAXA to study and it tells tales of a very early time in our solar system. Ryugu is much much older than we thought, born only 1.8 million ...
Episode 519 - Evolving beaks and wild chickens
January 30, 2023 11:28 - 17 minutes - 25.3 MBHow did birds end up with their trademark beaks? You can broadly group birds into two categories, ancient and modern jaws or beaks. We thought mobile beaks were a modern invention but new fossils overturn this idea. Just when did birds first develop their modern mobile beaks? Wild jungle fowl were domesticated to become the chickens we love today. But wild chickens are not isolated completely from modern ones. Gene transfers between wild and domesticated chickens are eroding the genetic dive...
Episode 518 - Aurora on Jupiter and on Earth
January 23, 2023 06:19 - 17 minutes - 26.2 MBAurora are stellar examples of high energy physics. You need to be at the right spot to find Aurora on earth, but its not quite the same on Jupiter. What governs where and how an aurora will form? Earth and Jupiter are very different in size and speed, but why are our Auroras so different? How does Jupiter's magnetosphere bring all it's moons into line? What happens when an small independent moon brushes up against a super sized neighbour? Ganymede has it's own indepedent magnetic field. So ...
Episode 517 - Cute green balls of algae and a changing climate
January 16, 2023 11:34 - 14 minutes - 20.7 MBIn the northern reaches of Japan in a idyllic lake, cute green balls of algae are battling for survival. It sounds like an anime, but cute green algae balls, Marimo, are battling stellar forces. Too much sunlight can endanger the cute green algae balls, the Marimo. Having too much sunlight can be just as bad for algae as too little. How can brown algae help fight back against climate change? Algae have changed the climate once before, so can they do it again? If you were to quantify the carb...
Episode 517 - How our body senses and interacts with the world
January 09, 2023 07:24 - 15 minutes - 23.2 MBUnderstanding how our body senses and interacts with the world. Scientists are only now beginning to understand how our body senses the world, hence the '21 Nobel Prizes. This Nobel prize wining research helped others find a connection between the gut and our sense of touch. Internal organ pain can be crippling and require side effect laden treatments. How do organs like the gut detect and transmit pain signals? The same mechanism to detect soft touch is used by your organs to send pain sign...
Episode 516 - How plants handle too much or too little light
January 02, 2023 08:23 - 18 minutes - 26.9 MBToo much or too little light can cause serious problems for plants. Light levels are not simply a feast or famine equation when it comes to photosynthesis. Plants must carefully manage the amount of light coming in to ensure smooth photosynthesis. The way genes in leaves responding to rapidly changing light conditions help them make the most of photosynthesis. Your eyes have to rapidly respond to opening curtains in a dark room, just like leaves of a plant. What about plants that have aband...
Episode 515 - Do you really need oxygen for oxidation
December 26, 2022 12:12 - 13 minutes - 19 MBHow does chemistry change when you travel to another planet? When it comes to scientific experiments often we can be hampered by our own experience. Just because something is abundant on earth does not meant that it's a universal constant. Out of this world chemistry is hard to get your head around and it requires thinking outside the box. Is it possible to have oxidize minerals without oxygen? Kaushik Mitra, Eleanor L. Moreland, Greg J. Ledingham, Jeffrey G. Catalano. Formation of mangan...
Episode 514 - Pushing water to the limits on earth and in space
December 19, 2022 13:01 - 11 minutes - 16.4 MBWhat happens when you push water to the limits on earth and in Space? Water has really weird properties especially when it gets really cold. How can we understand and model the behaviour when it moves to fast for us to capture? How do droplets form and why do you need the ISS to study it? What can microgravity tell us about the way droplets form? Thomas E. Gartner, Pablo M. Piaggi, Roberto Car, Athanassios Z. Panagiotopoulos, Pablo G. Debenedetti. Liquid-Liquid Transition in Water from Fir...
Episode 513 - An eerie glow in the Solar System
December 12, 2022 05:13 - 16 minutes - 23.5 MBHow do you measure the solar system and the universe whilst being inside of it? Too much light is a problem for astronomers and our solar system has it's own glow. If you take away all known light sources form the solar system, there is still a faint glow. We know about background radiation, but what about the solar systems background lighting? How can you test the curvature of the universe? To answer universal scale questions you need to start small. Really small. Using Bose Einstein conden...
Episode 512 - Analyzing aftershocks and predicting earthquakes
December 05, 2022 05:37 - 18 minutes - 27 MBForecasting an earthquake is serious business, but it's not like the weather. Why are earthquakes so hard to predict? Knowing when an earthquake will occur is hard enough, but what about predicting aftershocks? Aftershocks can create huge stress and compound damage after a quake so what can be done to predict them? Building huge scale models out of granite can help researchers better understand aftershocks. Sliding slabs of granite, plastic blocks and quartz dust help researchers understand ...
Episode 511 - How the earliest brains developed and handle touch
November 28, 2022 12:31 - 16 minutes - 24.4 MBPeering into the history of brains with some amazing tiny fossils. How did the earliest brains develop? Is a head just an extension of a segmented body or something else entirely? How did the first brains and nervous systems evolve in arthropods. How does your body process the sense of touch? The faintest sensations of touch are handled by specialist cells in your spinal cord. How do your brain stem and spinal cord help your body process the senses? Nicholas J. Strausfeld, Xianguang Hou, M...
Episode 510 - Fungi spreading across the planet and wiping out toxic soils
November 21, 2022 11:38 - 17 minutes - 24.6 MBFungi have an amazing ability to spread across continents but stay linked as a family lineage. Fungi can adapt to specific geographic niches in the same way as grapes. Different families of highly specialized mushrooms grow side by side across continents. How can fungi protect the plants it's attached to? Fungi often get a bad rap in farming, but they can be used to detoxify soils. Removing mercury and boosting crops; is there anything fungi can't do? Keaton Tremble, J. I. Hoffman, Bryn T....
Episode 509 - What connects spicy food, proteins and your gut
November 14, 2022 06:00 - 17 minutes - 26.7 MBHow is your gut connected to the rest of your body? How does your nervous system connect to your gut? How can you sense pain inside of your gut? The bacteria that live inside your gut can call for help when under pressure. With the wrong balance of bacteria or signalling proteins our guts can be more prone for inflammation and damage. How can bad bacteria escape from the gut and evade detection? What enables some bacteria to sneak out of the intestine and wreck havoc. Wen Zhang, Mengze Lyu,...
Episode 508 - Finding your way as a fish along rivers and into the deep
November 07, 2022 07:50 - 17 minutes - 25.5 MBHow can fish keep themselves stable in a fast flowing river? What's the best way to stay on track as a fish? To swim straight ahead fish often end up staring downwards. The riverbed is way easier to track than a fast flowing current. How did fish manage to make their way into the deepest parts of the ocean? What climatic factors drove fish to explore deeper and deeper? What changed in Earth's history to encourage fish to thrive in the deepest parts of oceans? Emma Alexander, Lanya T. Cai, S...
Episode 507 - Peering beneath Mars’ surface
October 31, 2022 08:07 - 16 minutes - 23 MBHow does a single sensor help change your outlook on a planet? A single small seismometer on Mars can help understand Mars' past, present and future. What do an ultrasound and Mars have in common? Both can use a single sensor to peer deep inside. Listening to the echoes of marsquakes helps researchers understand what's in Mars' core. Modelling the inside of Mars' core helps researchers understand its past and future. Mars is often thought to be volcanically dead, but there are signs of some...