Naked Scientists Special Editions Podcast

The third week of June had everyone searching for the suncream as temperatures reached record breaking heights. But while most of us enjoy fun in the sun, prolonged heatwaves can have significant health risks and can even be life-threatening. Izzie Clarke investigated just what is causing the surge in dangerous heatwaves and how we can stay cool as things start to heat up. Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

In May 2017 hundreds of thousands of computers across the world were hit by a massive ransomware attack called Wannacry. The perpetrators encrypted the contents of users' computers and demanded payment to unscramble their data. What made the threat worse was that it had the ability to literally spread virally across the Internet by exploiting connections between computers on networks. But where did it come from, what can we do to mitigate the threat, and who is at risk of attacks like this? Chris Smith, Kate Feller and Andrew Holding put these questions to cybersecurity expert Paul Harris,... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

When viruses attack our crops they can wipe them out, and in some parts of the world, this can be a death sentence. So naturally, scientists are keen to find a way to provide protection against these infections. Viruses usually attack by using parts of the victim's own cell machinery against it, so in theory, if you can change this component or protein, the virus won't recognise it, and its attack will have been neutralised. But, if you fiddle about with the stuff inside a cell too much, the cell won't be able to use it and will die anyway. Now, a group from the University of Granada in Spain... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

Methane is 20 times worse than C02 as a greenhouse gas, so when it's created as a byproduct in oil rigs it's burned. This is better than releasing the methane into the atmosphere but it's not an ideal solution as it creates more C02. Jeroen Van Bokhoven and his team at ETH Zurich have found a new way to convert the methane into something cleaner, and a bit more useful. Tom Crawford found out what it's being turned it into Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

Looking at biochemical markers found in blood samples of those with autism and those without, researchers are looking to develop a blood test that could serve as a diagnosis tool for autism spectrum disorders. Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

How the plaque found on the teeth of Neanderthals sheds light on their diets and lifestyles. Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

Promoting social causes online can mobilise millions and raise huge sums of money. But it only leads to long term changes if the campaigns don't fizzle out prematurely. Social psychologist, Sander van der Linden, University of Cambridge, thinks he's found the formula for social media campaigns to be effective in the long run, detailing what he calls "viral altruism" in a study published in Nature Human Behaviour. Ricky Nathvani went to go find out exactly what it is... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

A tiny sensor capable of transmitting information from inside the body and powered by stomach acid has been unveiled by US scientists. The device was tested in a pig over the course of a week wirelessly transmitting its body temperature every twelve seconds to an external receiver. The MIT and Harvard-based team behind the work, which was published this week in Nature Biomedical Engineering, say this represents a step towards safer, cheaper ingestible sensors that could even be used to dispense drugs inside the body. Dr Giovanni Traverso of the Brigham and Women's Hospital at Harvard Medical... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

Some viral infections are more lethal in men than in women. This is usually linked to differences between male and female immune systems. However, mathematical modelling of the different ways some viruses can spread in men and women suggests it may, in fact, benefit the virus to tailor its aggression based on who it is infecting, as Vincent Jansen from Royal Holloway University explains to Tom O'Hanlon... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

2016 was another record-breaker in terms of global temperatures, and it's part of a longer-term trend which has seen 15 of the hottest years on record occur since 2001. One victim of this warming is the Artic, where sea ice is steadily retreating, which means that the habitats for species that live there are also radically altering. So are these organisms equipped to cope with the change? Thomas Mock, from the University of East Anglia, has been studying one marine species which use a genetic trick to achieve considerable resilience, as he explained to Tom Crawford... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

A chemical found in sharks can block the process that leads to Parkinson's Disease, scientists at Cambridge University have found. Know as squalamine, the substance prevents a protein called alpha-synuclein from accumulating on and damaging the membranes of nerve cells in the brain. Dosing with squalamine protected cells cultured in a dish as well as microscopic worms that have been genetically altered to make them develop a Parkinson's-like syndrome. Chris Dobson explains... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

Us humans boast about our big brains but until now, evidence has been scant to suggest that animals also benefit from having larger brains. Cambridge University's Corina Logan measured the skulls of 1314 red deer from the Isle of Rum to see if the brainy stags and does were more successful. She explained her results to Naked Scientist Tom O'Hanlon... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

What's your usual Thursday night out? The cinema maybe, or a gig? Well how about a live cheetah dissection at the Royal Veterinary College in London? Don't worry if that's not quite your cup of tea because we sent Connie Orbach along for you... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

As the saying goes, "if you don't learn from the past you're doomed to repeat it," or words to that effect; which is why understanding what has happened to the Earth's climate in the past is critical if we are to make accurate predictions about our the effects of climate change in future. So how might clams help? Well, they are among the oldest living animals on Earth, surviving for 500 years in some cases. Georgia Mills spoke to lead researcher David Reynolds from Cardiff University... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

Carbon monoxide poisoning is the common form of poisoning worldwide. Just in the US tens of thousands of people are killed or hospitalised every year by this odourless and colourless gas, which in is boiler, stove and vehicle exhausts and is also produced during house fires. At the moment, the only treatment is oxygen, but it's not very effective and often is administered too late. Now researchers at the University of Pittsburgh have developed an antidote molecule that can circulate in the bloodstream and pull the carbon monoxide from tissues to make it safe. Mark Gladwin told Chris Smith how... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

An area of rainforest the size of Panama is lost every year to deforestation and we know habitat loss is probably the leading factor driving extinction today. However, another potential problem could be an increase in certain disease-causing organisms which benefit from the changing habitat. Ecosystems are complex and changes to the conditions each species needs to survive can impact on each other and throw it out of balance. Aaron Morris, from Bournemouth University and the IRD in France, has been looking at how changes in the local environment have affected populations of the bacterium... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

Dark energy, the mysterious unknown entity which permeates all of space makes up 68% of the universe's total energy. Despite being such a large proportion of existence we still can't directly detect it. An international group of scientists is trying to map dark energy in our night sky. But how do you map something that you can't see and what precisely is dark energy? Liam Messin spoke to Joe Zuntz from the University of Edinburgh who is involved in the project Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

2D materials are objects that are only one or two atoms thick. Graphene is the most well known of these but many incredibly thin substances exist. These exotic materials are strong, flexible, semi-transparent and great conductors of electricity. But before they can be used in novel technologies we need efficient ways of making them. Graphite, as found in pencil leads, is made up of many layers of graphene and to isolate graphene all these layers have to be peeled away one by one until only a single layer is left. Researchers at UCL have found a new method of obtaining single 2D sheets from... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

We've just come to the end of anti-bullying week and with 25,000 children using Childline's counselling sessions in 2015 to talk about bulling it clearly is still a problem for the UK. This problem appears to go beyond playground trauma with research published this week showing that bullied children are more likely to be overweight at age 18. The study's lead author, Jessie Baldwin, explained to Liam Messin what they did Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

Malaria parasites in Cambodia are showing resistance to the front line drug Piperaquine making current treatment useless and putting lives at risk. Dr Roberto Amato, and his team, uncovered the genetic basis for this resistance; he took Liam Messin through the study starting with how they collected parasite samples Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists