Nuclear weapons are at the forefront of news but what are they and how do they work? Anoushka Handa reports... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

As NASA aims to send humans back to the moon in the upcoming years, research on how to supply oxygen to future settlements on the moon are underway. Oxygen can be genearted from lunar resources such as ice. A team of researchers including Mark Symes, from the University of Glasgow and the European Space Agency, have been studying the effects of low gravity environments on oxygen production... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

Washing our hands has become paramount during the pandemic, but the Romans didn't seem to bestow any importance to this, leading to parasites and infections. Anoushka Handa spoke to Sophie Rabinow, to tell us more... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

Blood clotting is important in preventing excessive bleeding, but for millions of people, it can also mean increased risk of mortality due to certain medical conditions. Blood thinning medication is required for those suffering theses conditions as well as constant blood clot monitoring. A team from the University of Washington, including Justin Chan, has developed a method to take blood clot tests at home, using only a smartphone and a small drop of blood... Like this podcast? Please help us...

Have you ever got a horrible mosquito bite whilst on holiday and wondered 'why me again?' And was your travel buddy someone who never got one? It could very well be to do with their fashion sense. Anoushka Handa spoke to Jeff Riffell to find out more... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

There's a growing body of evidence that birds can detect magnetic fields like the one around the Earth, possibly by "seeing" them. And this, researchers think, accounts for how migrating birds, like reed warblers, manage to find their way, seemingly unerringly, half way around the planet. But it's more subtle than just using the magnetic field like a compass. What Oxford University's Joe Wynn thinks is happening is that the birds are pre-programmed by their upbringing to fly in a certain...

Greenfield housing developments are residential communities built upon land which was not previously occupied by anything else. These modern homes are often very energy efficient, but a new report by Transport for New Homes has found that these developments are offsetting their positive contribution to reducing greenhouse gas emissions because of a lack of planning around sustainable modes of transport. James Tytko went to see for himself... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the...

Krzysztof wrote in to ask 'Why don't plants freeze to death during Winter?' and James Tytko tracked down Professor Howard Griffiths, from the University of Cambridge, to break the ice on this question. Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

Black holes are known for their awesome destructive powers, ripping stars apart piece by piece. But now, scientists have seen evidence of a black hole helping to form stars. Using the Hubble Telescope, researchers at Montana State University have seen a massive black hole at the centre of a small galaxy called Henize 2-10 triggering star formation around it. Robert Spencer spoke to Zachary Schutte to find out more... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

Planting trees has a great impact on creating a greener environment. The Queen's Green Canopy is an initiative to encourage people to plant a tree in honour of the Her Majesty's Platinum Jubilee. Robert Spencer and Anoushka Handa take a dive into the science of trees to find out more about these fantastic plants and to discover what they can do around Cambridge to help... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

Mathematicians Ville Salo and Ilkke Toermae from Finland have solved a long-standing problem in the field of cellular automata (The Game of Life). Despite being quite simple systems to describe, these automata often show quite complex behaviour. Now, though, we are starting to find out more about situations when these systems aren't quite so dynamic. Robert Spencer has more... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

Memories form a large part of human interaction. Scents, tastes and touch all can invoke us to remember particular events. But how do we know the order of these events? How do you remember that this time last week you were listening to our show... or at least we hope so! New research has shown that the human brain contains time cells to understand when an event has occurred. Anoushka spoke with Dr. Leila Reddy from the French National Center for Scientific Research... Like this podcast?...

Blood smear analysis is a repetitive, laborious, and time consuming job. Research at the University of Cambridge has led to developing a 3D printed device which both speeds up the smearing process and the quality of the blood smears. Julia Ravey talks to Samuel McDermott... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

It's the new year, and with that comes a tradition to commit to new year's resolutions. But the typical goals of giving up drinking, or losing weight, can be hard to achieve, especially without support from friends and family. Tricia Smith asked sport psychologist Helen Davis whether there was a smarter way to go about achieving her goal to "get fit" in 2022... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

The astonishing discovery of this jurassic era creature has been covered on our show before, but this recording features special insight into the dig itself. Mark Evans from the British Antarctic Survey and Emily Swaby from The Open University describe the significance of finding the skeletal remains of this marine reptile to Harry Lewis... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

Tropical rainforests are deforested at an alarming rate to make way for cultivating crops and rearing livestock. But what happens when these forest areas are abandoned and left to recover in their natural way? Research published in the journal Science gives a message of hope, explaining how forests are able to recover to their original state on a much faster time-scale than first thought. Katie King spoke to lead author, Loorens Poorter, to find out more. Like this podcast? Please help us by...

Changing the way the brain controls how we sleep, as a new study suggests, might be a way to cut the risk of Alzheimer's Disease. Alzheimer's is the commonest form of a group of conditions known as senile dementia. They occur when brain cells are lost, progressively robbing us of our mental faculties. In Alzheimer's Disease it's caused by a buildup of a toxic chemical called a-beta; also known as beta amyloid. This naturally accumulates during the day and gets flushed out during a restful...

Katie King interviews Huw James, from the Royal Astronomical Society, about the reality of the chances planet-killing asteroids could collide with Earth. What these objects are, how they are found, and what methods are being trialled to prevent any potential collisions... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

Hearing and listening... is there a difference? I am sure that we have all been guilty of letting our minds drift out of a conversation before realising and immediately trying to tune back in. New research published in Cell Reports describes how brain activity varies during listening and hearing and how this work sheds light on neural pathways linked to attention. Katie King spoke with author Tania Barkat to find out the difference between hearing and listening... Like this podcast? Please...

Understanding the human brain and how it completes complex tasks, like processing other people's speech as well as producing its own, is a complex task in and of itself. As it stands, neuroscience isn't able to tell us the underlying computations that lead to human language. New research from the US has taken an interesting approach to working this out: instead of just studying how real, human intelligence deals with language, these researchers have been looking at how artificial intelligence...

Astronomers believe that nearly every galaxy has a supermassive black hole at its centre, this being true for our very own Milky Way. These objects exert such strong gravitational forces on the matter contained within them that it cannot escape the black hole's pull. Scientists using the LOFAR telescope in the Netherlands have been studying the impact that such black holes have on the Universe on a mind-bogglingly large scale. One of the scientists working on the project, Marisa Brienza from...

During IVF or in-vitro fertilisation, sperm and eggs are mixed together in a dish to produce fertilised embryos, one or two of which are placed in the uterus where the hope is they will trigger a successful pregnancy. Previously, embryologists would pick out and use only what they judged to be the most promising looking embryos. But now new research from the reproductive genetics company, Igenomix, has found that a large proportion of embryos that were previously being overlooked can in fact...

While the coronavirus pandemic is at the forefront of our minds, it's not the only health crisis looming on the horizon. Antimicrobial resistance has been called the "hidden pandemic". One of the ways to counteract resistance is by developing drugs that make current antibiotics more effective, and new research published by the University of Oxford reveals some promising candidates. Tricia Smith spoke with John Tregoning, a researcher in infectious diseases, but not affiliated with this...

Dr Chris Smith joins Indira Naidoo on the ABC's Nightlife programme to discuss the latest developments in science and answer questions from listeners. This time they look at the difficult decisions confronting politicians and policymakers internationally and how they should react to the omicron new variant, which appears super transmissible but potentially a lot less lethal than other existing forms of SARS-CoV-2... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

Us humans are thought to have appeared on Earth around 300,000 years ago. But how much have we changed since then? New research from Shanghai Jiao Tong University has found many of our most complex traits have continued to be tweaked, even in the past two to three thousand years. Julia Ravey spoke to Guan Ning Lin about our ancestors and how alike we really are. Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists