Discovery Podcast
Explorations in the world of science.
Episodes to download
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Fluorine—In Their Element
Mon 3 Sep 2018
1/3 How the feared element ended up giving us better teeth, mood and health
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Mary Anning and Fossil Hunting—Science Stories: Series 6
Mon 27 Aug 2018
5/5 How a poor woman became one of 19th-century Britain's most successful fossil finders
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Hypatia: The Murdered Mathematician—Science Stories: Series 6
Mon 20 Aug 2018
4/5 Naomi Alderman on the life and death of Hypatia, the ancient Greek mathematician
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Descartes' "Daughter"—Science Stories: Series 6
Mon 13 Aug 2018
3/5 Philip Ball goes back to the 17th Century to talk about Descartes and his "daughter"
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Making Natural Products in the Lab—Science Stories: Series 6
Mon 6 Aug 2018
2/5 How 19th century chemist Wohler made a natural product in the lab
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The Real Cyrano de Bergerac—Science Stories: Series 6
Mon 30 Jul 2018
1/5 Philip Ball on the real Cyrano de Bergerac and his 17th century space ship.
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The Nun鈥檚 Salamander—A Tale of Two Axolotls
Mon 23 Jul 2018
2/2 Why are Mexican nuns breeding a rare salamander? Could they save this remarkable species?
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The Aztec Salamander—A Tale of Two Axolotls
Mon 16 Jul 2018
1/2 Saving a cultural icon and biomedical marvel from extinction.
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Gateway to the Mind—The Second Genome
Mon 9 Jul 2018
3/3 Could our microbiome have an influence on our mood and behaviour?
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Dirt and Development—The Second Genome
Mon 2 Jul 2018
2/3 How the microbes in us set us on a path of health or chronic disease
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Manipulating Our Hidden Half—The Second Genome
Mon 25 Jun 2018
1/3 New research into manipulating our microbiome to stay healthy and beat chronic disease
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Do Insects Feel Pain?—Killing Insects: The Rights and Wrongs
Mon 18 Jun 2018
2/2 Do insects experience pain and suffering?
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What鈥檚 the Tiniest Dinosaur?
Mon 4 Jun 2018
And how do bats differentiate their own echolocation signals?
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Can Anything Travel Faster Than Light?
Mon 28 May 2018
Plus, how can we measure the age of the Universe?
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Why Do We Dream?
Mon 21 May 2018
And are machines better than humans when it comes to recognising faces?
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Behaving Better Online—Crossing Divides
Mon 30 Apr 2018
2/2 Gaia Vince meets the scientists studying our built in human behaviour
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Bringing Schrodinger's Cat to Life
Mon 16 Apr 2018
Roland Pease meets the quantum scientists hoping to bring Schrodinger's cat to life
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Barbara McLintock—Science Stories: Series 5
Mon 9 Apr 2018
Philip Ball tells the story of US geneticist and 1983 Nobel prize winner Barbara McLintock
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D'Arcy Thompson—Science Stories: Series 5
Mon 2 Apr 2018
A man who put maths into biology and saw physics in shells, seeds and bees 100 years ago
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The Far Future
Mon 26 Mar 2018
What fragments of our civilisation will persist 10,000 years in the future?
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Killing Insects for Conservation
Mon 19 Mar 2018
Killing insects in the name of research upsets some people. How do scientists justify it?
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Why We Cut Men
Mon 19 Mar 2018
Across the world, 1 in 3 men are circumcised. Mary-Ann Ochota investigates why we cut men
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Phosphorus—In Their Element
Mon 5 Mar 2018
7/8 How a discovery in boiled urine led to the trade union movement and chemical weapons.
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The Power of Sloth
Mon 19 Feb 2018
Lucy Cooke discovers the joy of sloth and sloths and the benefits of being really slow.
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Pain of Torture—The Anatomy of Pain
Mon 12 Feb 2018
4/4 Does knowing that someone is inflicting pain on you deliberately make the pain worse?
Space
The eclipses, spacecraft and astronauts changing our view of the Universe
The Curious Cases of Rutherford and Fry
A pair of scientific sleuths answer your perplexing questions. Ask them anything!
