Synopsis
Probing the weird, wacky and spectacular, the Naked Scientists Special Editions are special one-off scientific reports, investigations and interviews on cutting-edge topics by the Naked Scientists team.
Episodes
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Invisible allies: the future of satellites
25/03/2016 Duration: 04minWithout satellites operating above us, we would be in considerable trouble; even ATM machines don't work without them! So this week, Graihagh Jackson has been at the Royal Academy of Engineering, where leaders in satellite and space technology have been meeting to discuss what's up there Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists
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New Horizons reveals Pluto's secrets
23/03/2016 Duration: 04minThis week, we've had a first glimpse at the wealth of data sent back by the New Horizons probe, which reached Pluto and its largest moon, Charon, last summer. Open University space scientist David Rothery has been taking a look at the papers charting some of the discoveries, which were unveiled this week in the journal Science, and he went through the findings with Chris Smith... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists
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New stroke rehabilitation technique
22/03/2016 Duration: 05minStrokes are a major cause of permanent disability and they affect millions of people every year. The cause is usually a lack of blood flow to one part of the brain, which destroys the affected brain area and robs the victim of the ability to perform whatever tasks that brain area used to process. But an electrical current applied to the head for a short time, even years after a stroke, appears to open up new circuits in the brain, restoring some of the lost abilities, as Oxford University's Heidi Johansen-Berg explained to Chris Smith... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists
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ExoMars spacecraft launches successsfully
21/03/2016 Duration: 04minExoMars 2016 launched successfully last week, but why are we going back to the red planet? This mission aims to seek out methane, which could be a crucial clue to whether there is life on Mars. Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists
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What's killing the bees?
26/02/2016 Duration: 05minIt is that time of year again when we should start to see bees buzzing around gardens but populations of bees have been declining recently as disease and lack of food stores are hitting them hard. With a third of global food supply coming from crop species that are to some extent dependent on bees it's important that we halt this decline. Felicity Bedford went to Cambridge University's King's College to meet Kristen Treen, who looks after the honeybees there, and see how their beehives have been getting on this winter Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists
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Coercion - It's easy to be bad
25/02/2016 Duration: 05minBack in the 1960s, US researcher Stanley Milgram stunned the world with a study showing that members of the public were prepared to inflict potentially lethal electric shocks on supposedly innocent volunteers, if a lab-coated scientist ordered them to do so. In fact the recipients of the shocks were actually actors, who escaped unharmed. Milgram's experiments raised many ethical questions - not least about whether it was right to do them at all - and Patrick Haggard from UCL is now trying to find out to what extent people feel a sense of responsibility or control when they're ordered to do... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists
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Game changing cancer cure?
24/02/2016 Duration: 05minResults that scientists are describing as "unprecedented" in the treatment of cancer have been announced at a conference this week. A team led by Stanley Riddell, a researcher at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in the US, have developed a method to reprogramme the immune system to selectively target cancer cells. This means that, unlike traditional chemotherapy, which can't tell healthy and tumour tissue apart - and this is what causes unpleasant side effects - the immune system acts with surgical precision, selectively weeding out rogue cancer cells while leaving healthy tissue... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists
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Mapping climate change
19/02/2016 Duration: 03minMany people make the assumption that climate change means that places will become warmer; and indeed some will. But more important in some ways is how the climate in a particular geography might become more variable. Because, if the temperatures, cloud cover and rainfall become less predictable and operate over a greater range than they have historically, this could affect how the ecosystems - the web of plant and animal life - in those areas can operate. And this week scientists took the first steps towards studying whether this is a real risk and highlighting those areas we need to worry... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists
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Here Comes Science: They Might be Giants
18/02/2016 Duration: 03minAmerican band They Might be Giants, famous for charting singles 'Birdhouse in your Soul' and 'Istanbul', have also made an album all about science. It's called 'Here Comes Science', and aims to teach children about things like biology and physics, featuring songs like 'My Brother the Ape' and 'I Am a Paleontologist'. The band dropped by Cambridge as part of a tour promoting their new album 'Glean', so Naked Scientist Georgia Mills took the opportunity to speak to founding member John Linnell about songs, science and controversy... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists
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Gravitational Waves Discovered!!
12/02/2016 Duration: 02min100 years after Einstein predicted them, scientists have finally discovered gravitational waves. For 25 years, hundreds of scientists across 16 countries have been trying to detect these elusive ripples and yesterday, the LIGO team announced they had finally detected them. Graihagh Jackson went to the announcement and met with the British scientists on the LIGO team... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists
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Zika declared public health emergency
10/02/2016 Duration: 05minLast week, the outbreak of Zika virus in Brazil prompted the World Health Organisation to declare a global health emergency. The virus is spreading fast and has been linked to microcephaly, in which children are born with underdeveloped brains. Consultant virologist Tim Wreghitt spoke to Chris Smith about the situation... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists
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Gene editing human embryos
08/02/2016 Duration: 03minThis week, a British researcher got the green light to genetically modify human embryos - this is the first time that gene editing has been approved in embryos. However, it hasn't been met with open arms by everyone, with some arguing this is the first step to 'designer babies.' Graihagh Jackson spoke to Geneticist Andrew Wood to find out what exactly gene editing involves... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists
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What beached the sperm whales?
03/02/2016 Duration: 04minSperm whales are renowned for being the biggest toothed whales of our seas, migrating thousands of miles every year. But this week, photos of cetacean carcasses were splashed across the media.16 of these majestic creatures have beached across the UK, the Netherlands and Germany Some arrived alive, some were already dead and there's a lot of speculation as to what caused it to happen Graihagh Jackson's been investigating with the help of marine ecologist Bill Amos Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists
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Could conspiracy theories be true?
02/02/2016 Duration: 05minScience is full of conspiracy theories, the moon landings were faked and climate change is a hoax, but how many of them are likely to be true? Felicity Bedford spoke to Dr. David Robert Grimes from Oxford University who has given conspiracy theorists the benefit of the doubt and built a mathematical model to test whether, if these conspiracies were real, they would still be a secret... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists
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Behind the scenes at Call the Midwife
27/01/2016 Duration: 05minCall the Midwife is one of the UK's best loved TV shows, and the new series has just started on the BBC. But as well as its empathetic characters and gripping story-lines, what makes the show special is its attention to detail when it comes to historical and medical accuracy, such as when it tackled the Thalidomide scandal from the late 1950s. Ginny Smith recently had the opportunity to visit the set of Call the Midwife and talk to those who make the show happen, both on and off the screen. She started by asking Executive Producer Dame Pippa Harris about just what it is that makes the show so... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists
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Free radicals - a miracle cure?
25/01/2016 Duration: 05minHibernating animals put their bodies through huge amounts of stress but seem to remain unharmed. Professor Rob Henning from Groningen University explained to Connie Orbach how mimicking their protective mechanisms might be the key to human health. Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists
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New Leukemia Therapy
18/01/2016 Duration: 05minLeukemia is a cancer of the white blood cells that normally fight infection. About one person in every 200 will develop the disease, a common form of which is called AML, or acute myeloid leukemia. At the moment it tends to have a relatively poor prognosis and over the past 40 years there have been relatively few new treatments for the disease. A bone marrow transplant is often the only chance an individual has. But this week an international team of scientists led by researchers in the UK announced the discovery of a new way to control the disease by blocking the signals that drive the growth... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists
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National Security Algorithm
18/01/2016 Duration: 05minThe current threat level from terrorism in the UK and many other countries is set to severe, and police and security forces acknowledge that their jobs are being made much harder because today's terrorists have at their disposal a range of communications and social network tools to help them to form alliances, attract new recruits and orchestrate terror campaigns. But, the associations that terrorists make through these channels can also help to identify them, if police are able to screen this sort of data routinely. Most people, though, are justifiably concerned about privacy. Now Michael... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists
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Why Do Dogs Slurp So Sloppily?
22/12/2015 Duration: 04minDogs drink in a very distinctive way, lapping up water and, more often than not, making a huge mess. But, until now, the exact way they did this has been a mystery. Thankfully, scientists at Virginia Tech wouldn't let sleeping dogs lie and they've worked out the physics behind how dogs drink. Georgia Mills caught up with lead researcher Sunny Jung, who explained how they did it. Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists
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COP21 The Results
21/12/2015 Duration: 05min"195 Nations Set Path to Keep Temperature Rise Well Below 2 Degrees Celsius" were the headlines issuing from Paris in the wake of the Conference of the Parties - or COP21 - meeting. So how will this be achieved, can it be achieved at all, what has the UK signed up to do? Manchester University climate scientist Alice Bows-Larkin was there to hear the verdict... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists