Naked Scientists Special Editions Podcast

FameLab is a competition where scientists battle it out to be the best at giving engaging short talks on their favourite areas of research. Six Cambridge-based finalists have been chosen by a panel of judges and we're hearing from a selection of them. In this episode we meet Daphne Ezer and hear about the fascinating (and terrifying) snapping shrimp... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

Using a new super powerful electron microscope, scientists have discovered tiny holes are responsible for giving brown diamonds their colour. Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

Worms are about to help scientists to boldly go where no researcher has been before, by venturing into space to help us to understand how changes in gravity might affect our DNA. Although scientists don't think that the physical genetic letters of DNA can be altered by low-gravity space travel, or living on the Moon or another planet, there are signs that chemical markers, called epigenetic modifications, which control the activity of certain genes and can be passed on from parents to their offspring, can be altered by exposure to low gravity environments. Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

It makes up most of the stuff in our universe, but we can't see it or weigh it - but we know it has to be there. This elusive substance is dark matter, and according to a new paper in the journal Nature Physics this week, it's all around us in our own galaxy - the Milky Way. To find out more about dark matter, and what this new map of the dark matter in our galaxy might tell us, Kat Arney went to speak to UCL astrophysicist Chamkaur Ghag, who's working on ways to detect dark matter here on earth. Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

Has anyone ever told you to lose a few pounds? Get a bit more active? Work harder in school? We can sometimes become a bit defensive when given this type of advice even if we know it's probably the right thing to do. Now scientists have revealed how a simple activity - called self-affirmation - can improve the way we react to this type of advice, which can have positive effects on our health. Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

A novel approach to detecting interactions between scorpion venom and its target molecule could aid in the discovery of new drugs for treatment of a wide range of nerve disorders. Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

Your brain is more complex and powerful than the world's biggest supercomputer, built while you're a baby growing in the womb from the recipes encoded in your genes. But how do your growing brain cells know which genes to use? The answer comes from epigenetic modifications - the special chemical markers that are put on your genes that help cells switch them on or off at the right time and in the right place. Helen Spiers from Kings College London has been finding out how these epigenetic changes are involved in building the brain, and how they could explain some of the differences between... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

What are so-called "3 parent embryos", and what are the arguments for allowing it? Hannah Critchlow discussed the issues with MP Julian Huppert, who supported the recent motion to permit the process in the House of Commons... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

Around 250 million years ago our world was a very different place. Rather than the different continents we know today, there was only one giant land mass - Pangea - covered with plants and animals. But then something went horribly wrong. Over a few million years, more than 95 per cent of all species on the early earth were wiped out in an event known as the Permian mass extinction. So what caused it? One researcher who thinks he might know is Mark Sephton from Imperial College London and, as he explained to Kat Arney, this wasn't the first time that our world has come to the brink of disaster. Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

Humans do it. Primates do it. And now it's been found out that birds can also do it - 3 day old chickens have been shown to order numbers low to high, from left to right - just like on a ruler! The findings, published in Science, could indicate that this numerical ability is a feature of evolution, rather than culture - and could help explain why we pay more attention to things presented to our left... Zoologist Hannah Rowland from the University of Cambridge put Graihagh Jackson's numerical skills to the test... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

Quill pens might be about to make a comeback - but not in a stationers! Because researchers have developed a nano-scale ink pen that can be used to control the shapes of polymers that can be used to make superfast computers. Polymers are are giant chemical structures made by linking lots of smaller molecules together, and what Imperial College's Alex Perevedentsev and his colleagues have discovered is that, with a dab of nano-ink delivered in the right way from their nib-pen, they can make polymers adopt specific shapes that alter the way light passes through them. And as he explained to Kat,... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

A new breed of super metals, that are extremely water repellent have been created. Their potential applications range from rust and frost free aircraft to self-cleaning toilets. Danielle Blackwell spoke to Prof. Chunlei Guo from the University of Rochester to find out more... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

Sea turtles follow unique magnetic signatures to return to their home beaches to lay their eggs. Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

Bar-headed geese reach altitudes of several thousand meters in their annual migration across the world's highest mountain range. A new study shows that they have a peculiar way to save energy on this long journey, as Khalil Thirlaway finds out from Dr. Charles Bishop of Bangor University... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

Over 3000 people are killed on the world's roads every day with further 20-50 million people left injured or disabled. And whilst the number of serious injuries have come down - one type of injury -damage to the spinal cord - has remained stubbornly high. The car company Volvo have announced that are aiming to reduce the number of people killed or seriously injured in one of their vehicles in exactly five years time - to zero by 2020. Graihagh Jackson went to their HQ in Gothenberg, Sweden, to hear how... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

A common New year's resolution is to hit the gym and get fit. But while most people might give up and return to the comfort of the sofa by February, research suggests that being physically active for your whole life has big health benefits. But can it slow down the ageing process? One problem with studying this is that most older people are pretty inactive, or sedentary, and tend to do little if any physical exercise at all. As a result, it's difficult to know whether some of the health issues seen in ageing, such as heart and lung problems or loss of muscle and bone, are just the result of... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

Could a brain scan predict your weight, your school grades and your happiness levels two years down the line? Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

Whether it's an outing to the cinema or gathered in the living room, films are a great way to spend time as a family at Christmas. If children are involved, the choice of title will often be made with them in mind. Reservoir Dogs might be shelved in favour of Shrek, perhaps. We tend to assume that films aimed at children are less likely to involve complex, frightening or upsetting themes, such as death. Not so, according to a recent study published in the British Medical Journal which found two and a half times more death in children's cartoons than grown-up films. Khalil Thirlaway talks to... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

Last week scientists attending the American Geophysical Union meeting in California unveiled measurements made on Mars by the Curisoity rover, which has been exploring the red planet for the last 2 years. What Curiosity has uncovered are organic molecules and also periodic puffs of methane gas, both of which might be signs that life is, or once was, present on Mars. Chris Smith spoke with the Open University's Professor of Planetary Science David Rothery to hear more about what these findings might mean... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

People often talk about feeling their age, but how old you say you feel is strongly linked to your life expectancy. A new study at UCL in London has shown that people who feel their age, or feel even older than their real chronological are almost 40% more likely to die than someone of the same age who - in their head at least - feels younger, as Andrew Steptoe explains to Chris Smith... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists