Naked Scientists Special Editions Podcast

How has the pandemic affected the global food supply? That's the subject of a recent report by the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation. Their message is that while there have been a few industry issues so far - overripe fruit left unpicked, spoiled batches of milk left undelivered - that's only a taste of what's to come if there's a huge global recession around the corner. Chris Smith and spoke to Maximo Torero - the organisation's chief economist - as well as University of Cambridge land economist Shailaja Fennell... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

Do you consider yourself something of a Dr Doolittle? According to new research from the University of Amsterdam, we're all actually pretty good at understanding what animals are trying to express - at least, animals that we are closely related to like chimpanzees. Eva Higginbotham spoke to Roza Kamiloglu, the lead author on the study, about her research... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

This month on the eLife Podcast we look at how sugar takes away the pleasure of consuming and makes you eat more, we find out what loneliness does to the brain, uncover new insights into how HIV infects females, and explore sex bias in biomedical research... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

Astronomers have taken what might be the first ever picture of a baby planet being formed. It looks like a beautiful tornado-shaped spiral of light, and there's a tiny twist visible inside one of the arms of the spiral. Why is this an achievement? And how can you actually tell whether there's a planet inside that tiny point of light? Phil Sansom asked Anthony Boccaletti, who led the team from the European Southern Observatory in taking this picture - as well as University of Cambridge astronomer Carolin Crawford... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

You might think that when you're choosing a partner to have children with that your decision is entirely yours. However it turns out that biology has an interesting trick up its sleeve, which may surprise you. It turns out that there are guidance mechanisms that, like homing beacons, can help swimming sperm get to the eggs. It's because cells in women's bodies release special attracting chemicals into the fluid surrounding the eggs, and, according to a recent paper, these chemicals seem to prefer some sperm over others, taking the decision making completely out of your hands! In reproductive... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

Everyday in the UK over 40 people die from liver disease, some of whom could be saved by having a liver transplant - but there aren't enough donor livers to go around. But what if we could grow livers in a laboratory, and use those instead? A team in Pittsburgh has now done just that in rats. The livers were transplanted into animals genetically modified to prevent them from rejecting the transplant. Eva Higginbotham heard from Alejandro Soto-Gutierrez how they did it... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

Where are we now, six months into the COVID-19 pandemic? The official global death toll is over 380,000 with well over 6 million confirmed cases according to the World Health Organisation. Are we deceiving ourselves that we really understand it? Jonathan Ball is a virologist at the University of Nottingham who's met some exotic viruses in his time - so for an update, Chris Smith asked his thoughts on the coronavirus and its weird symptoms... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

A few weeks ago some stork babies made the news as the first white stork chicks to hatch in the UK for over 600 years. Despite the very long gap, here in the UK a legacy of these large, white, migratory birds has persisted. I'm Eva Higginbotham, and I spoke to Dr Alexander Lees, senior lecturer in Conservation Biology at Manchester Metropolitan University, about the new arrivals, monogamous dating for storks, and the history of white storks in Europe. Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

Phase 2 of the hydroxychloroquine debacle, how the race to publish is leading to rapid retractions, whether Sweden's having second thoughts, did Covid come out of a lab, innate immunity and antibody responses, and how many tests prove I'm negative? Virologist Dr Chris Smith talks to Radio new Zealand National's Kim Hill... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

Donald Trump got a lot of stick when he talked about using disinfectant and light to kill off COVID-19 - seemingly implying people should drink bleach or shine a torch down their throats. Now a team at Columbia University has indeed discovered a narrow wavelength within UV light that they call 'far-UVC', that as well as killing viruses on surfaces, is also safe for humans because it can't get through our skin. Eva Higginbotham heard more from David Brenner... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

In this week's coronavirus update, the impact of blood groups on Covid risk, progress towards a vaccine, and the UK still has 8000 cases a day: what does this mean for herd immunity? Also, is Sweden's approach the wrong one, has hydroxychloroquine died a death, what actually is the Covid syndrome, what role may genes play, and how do we calculate Covid excess mortality? Dr Chris Smith talks to Radio New Zealand National's Kim Hill... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

A herd of fluffy wild Kashmiri goats made the news back in March at the onset of the lockdown when they descended on the Welsh town of Llandudno to explore where all the people had got to. Now, after an investigation by a scientist in London, it turns out that goats are not only curious creatures, but, as the first domesticated livestock species some eleven thousand years ago, they are also able to understand human gestures like pointing. Eva Higginbotham spoke to Alan McElligott from the University of Roehampton about his research... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

The UK government has come under fire for failing to protect care homes from the spread of the coronavirus. The facilities have seen more than 14,000 coronavirus-related deaths so far - that's over a quarter of the UK's total mortality, in just a tiny fraction of the population. And these figures echo a similar situation across European countries. Chris Smith spoke to Julienne Meyer - a nurse, an emeritus professor at City University of London, and an adviser to the National Care Forum... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

Progress in vaccine trials, the longevity of immune responses to Covid-19 and coronavirus vaccines, animal models of Covid-19, genetic stability of SARS-CoV-2, is hydroxychloroquine a good gamble, coronaviruses on clothes, why do death rates vary, and how is Sweden faring? Kim Hill talks to Chris Smith to find out... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

A special Covid-19 news update: Have you had a test for COVID-19? Some results from the symptom tracker app. Also, how blood plasma from Covid-recoverees is being used to treat patients acutely ill with the virus. Do hospital and office aircon systems need a rethink to prevent disease spread in future? What happens if you catch coronavirus during pregnancy? And what are the future impacts of Covid-19 on transport? Chris Smith, Katie Haylor, Phil Sansom and Eva Higginbotham report... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

Will SARS-CoV-2, the cause of Covid-19, continue to circulate for years to come? What's the story with infection in children, and how is Kawasaki Disease involved? Are separate strains of the virus spreading in different countries and accounting for differences in severity? And will the virus mutate to sidestep a vaccine? Radio New Zealand National's Kim Hill talks to Chris Smith to find out... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

If, before a date, you like to spritz yourself to smell great for that special someone, you could be in good company, as this week, scientists in Japan have published a paper looking at ring-tailed lemurs who might be doing a similar thing. There's much debate about whether sex pheramones actually exist in humans - that is, whether we exude chemicals to stimulate some sort of sexual behavioural response in someone else. But could this be what's happening in our distant primate cousins? And what could this mean for us? Primate expert Jacob Dunn, who wasn't involved in the study and is from... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

Sometimes scientists try to study one thing and end up accidentally discovering something else. Cancer researcher Cathy Wilson from the University of Cambridge recently experienced such good fortune. While trying to understand the function of cancer gene 'myc' in mice, a gene that goes haywire in almost all human cancers, she accidentally ended up achieving the holy grail of heart disease research - making heart cells start dividing to make more cells. Eva Higginbotham spoke to her about the happy accident... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

Scientists discover why Covid-19 causes some people to lose their sense of smell and taste, that patients probably don't catch coronavirus for a second time soon after their first encounter, why children probably are equally infectious, and remdesivir - does it make a difference? Dr Chris Smith joins Radio New Zealand National's Kim Hill for another coronavirus conversation... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists