Naked Scientists Special Editions Podcast

Traditionally, when someone says "vaccine", the image of a syringe and needle usually springs to mind. But injections need trained staff to administer them, and they're unpleasant, even for people who are not scared of needles. So vaccines you can inhale sound altogether more attractive. And that's what researchers at Rutgers University in the US have been working on. They've found a particular clutch of chemical compounds that are very good at passing harmlessly through the lungs and entering the bloodstream where they can interact with the immune system. What's exciting is that these... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

When we nod off we often dream, but many people have reported that, over the course of the pandemic, what they dream about has changed dramatically. It seems to be a real claim, and scientists are studying it. Eva Higginbotham spoke with dream scientist Alejandro Ezquerro-Nassar from the University of Cambridge... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

The AstraZeneca Oxford University Covid-19 vaccine results were announced recently, but something wasn't quite right: it turned out that some people in the trial had received the wrong vaccine dose, although with surprising results. Chris Smith joins RNZ's Kim Hill to review the AZ and other vaccines... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

Recently news was published of an artificial intelligence system which has analysed bits of speech from participants of a long-running study on dementia. These participants were cognitively normal, didn't have signs of dementia, at the time. The system managed to predict the onset of dementia up to 7 years earlier than human doctors. Katie Haylor asked Susan Kohlhass, director of research at Alzheimer's Research UK what she made of the announcement... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

Let's dive into the depths and consider the octopus. As well as being famous for its 8 arms, and 3 hearts, octopus vision is also impressive: it helps them spy out dinner, among other things. But light isn't always in great supply when you're hunting around on the seabed, so these creatures have a fascinating ability to taste their surroundings and therefore make decisions about what to eat or not, simply by touching things. Now, a paper from scientists at Harvard explains how this touch-taste system actually works on a molecular level. By studying the cells in the suction cups of the... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

As part of their obesity strategy the UK government announced plans to restrict the advertising of unhealthy foods on TV. And in a paper out recently, Oliver Mytton, of Cambridge University, and colleagues have modelled the potential impact of the TV ban on rates of obesity and overweight among children in the UK. Katie Haylor spoke to Oliver. Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

Join Chris Berrow for this extended chat with Carlos "Ocelote" Rodriguez about running one of the biggest eSports teams in the world - G2. From League of Legends to Hearthstone, the team have had a huge amount of success across the board. So what has coronavirus and lockdown meant for the business? Find out how long a typical player's career lasts, and what happens after you retire from competitive play. Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

When we think of drug discovery we might conjure up images of scientists in white lab coats holding test tubes, but a new study searching for drugs to kill dangerous disease-causing fungi had researchers wearing wetsuits and holding fishing nets, and so far, it's all been worth it. Eva Higginbotham spoke with Tim Bugni and David Andes, two leaders on the project... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

If you've ever wondered what's going on in your brain when choosing what you want for lunch, look no further. Researchers from Washington University School of Medicine in St Louis recently published a paper in Nature where they used an experimental trick to show what was happening in the brains of monkeys as they chose which beverage they wanted to drink. Eva Higginbotham spoke with lead scientist on the project, Camillo Padoa-Schioppa, about how it works... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

Tired of just seeing and reading about history? Soon you'll be able to experience its smells as well! This is thanks to an ambitious project called ODEUROPA, which has just received a big EU grant that brings together researchers from a range of disciplines including historians, computer scientists and chemists to reconstruct the pongs of the past. Marieke van Erp is one of them; she's from the Dutch Digital Humanities Lab, and spoke to Eva Higginbotham... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

Pfizer and BioNTech have concluded the Phase 3 trial of their coronavirus vaccine. The results appear to show an efficacy rate of 95%, and the developers hope to win FDA approval as soon as possible. This vaccine - a promising hope for many - works via a new methiod that's never been tried before in humans. Chris Smith asked Cambridge University immunologist Clare Bryant for her reaction... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

Could an injection of your own brain cells be a way to halt multiple sclerosis - MS? That's what researchers in the US are finding in mice with the disease. In MS, the immune system attacks the brain and spinal cord, damaging a material called myelin. An extract of this myelin material, injected into the bloodstream, can permanently deactivate the immune cells that cause MS... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

What do we know about Pfizer and bioNTech's new RNA-based COVID-19 vaccine, preliminary results for which were announced this week? Who was tested in the trial? And what is a genetic vaccine, why were vaccinees innoculated twice, what does 90% effective mean, and what's the reason it needs to be stored at -80º C? Joining RNZ's Kim Hill, virologist Dr Chris Smith explains... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

There's been a lot of discussion about the Swedish approach to the coronavirus pandemic, and back in September, Jonas F Ludvigsson, a paediatrician and clinical epidemiologist at the Karolinka Institute, published a paper describing in detail what happened in Sweden during the first 8 months of the pandemic, so between January and August 2020. Eva Higginbotham spoke to Jonas back in October... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

This month we hear about an artificial intelligence (AI) breakthrough for infertility, how ketamine can mimic some of the decision-making difficulties seen in schizophrenia, a new device to observe and document mosquito feeding behaviour, the key to scar-free wound healing, and how open is open access publishing at the moment? Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

Have you ever heard of the condition known as "heart failure with preserved ejection fraction"? If not, then you're not alone; despite it representing hundreds of thousands of heart failure cases every year in the UK alone, a new study shows that many doctors don't really understand it, and many patients don't even know they have it. In order to better understand the condition they call "heff peff", Emma Sowden from the University of Manchester and her colleagues have been speaking to people living with it - like Mancunian Mike Wardle - as well as to Phil Sansom... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

Virologist Dr Chris Smith joins Radio New Zealand National's Kim Hill to talk Covid-19. Why is the UK back in a lockdown, and did the measure come too late? How are we testing for the virus and how many cases are we missing? What is the incubation period, and what's the prospect for long term immunity? Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

There's been lots of talk over the last several months over how best to both protect people from coronavirus and protect the economy, and economist Quentin Grafton from Australian National University has been crunching the numbers. Back in September, he combined epidemiological models of how the virus spreads with models of the Australian economy, and found results that lockdown-sceptics might consider surprising, as he told Eva Higginbotham... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

Would you like to make more money? Understand your relationships better? Know when to trust someone, or something, or not? Well, David Sumpter's got an equation for you in his new book 'Ten equations that rule the world" as he explained to Eva Higginbotham... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

Were you waking up too early this week? Across Europe, we recently left summer Daylight Light Saving time and re-entered standard time. But where does this practice of changing the clocks come from, and is it still a good idea? Eva Higginbotham reports... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists