Science On Top

Hosts: Ed Brown, Penny Dumsday, Lucas Randall 00:00:30 A team in Kenya and the UK have discovered a microbe that completely protects mosquitoes against the malaria parasite. 00:10:17 Everybody poops, but if you don't it's very bad as one unfortunate record-breaking lizard found out. 00:14:22 This year we've seen three big records broken in solar power efficiency.

An update on what's happening with the show. The quick version: we're still here, but the world's on fire and things are a bit tough. We'll be back. Stay safe everyone.   Wednesday 5 August 2020

Hosts: Ed Brown, Penny Dumsday, Lucas Randall 00:00:28 Good news in quarantine, two pandas in Hong Kong have finally mated! It only took them ten years! 00:04:29 Lots of moons in our solar system seem to have subsurface oceans, and now it looks like Pluto does too! 00:13:59 Soy is everywhere these days, but there are environmental concerns with it. Now a new study suggests fava beans could be a more environmentally friendly source of plant protein. This episode contains traces of Trevor Noah discussing pandas mating in Hong Kong.

Hosts: Ed Brown, Penny Dumsday, Lucas Randall 00:00:39 When it comes to giving birth in the animal world, there's mostly only two options: live babies, or eggs. But very rarely, it can be both! Such is the case with the yellow-bellied three-toed skink. 00:06:37 Imagine solar power that worked at night! That's (kind of) the promise of a new type of solar cell being developed by two American researchers. 00:19:50 If you want to train a robot dog, there's the hard way and there's the easy way. The hard way is manually coding everything you want the dog to do. The easy way is to develop machine learning software that learns from watching other dogs! This episode contains traces of Michael Rowland and Lisa Miller discussing Singapore's robot dog technique of enforcing physical distancing, on ABC News Breakfast.

Hosts: Ed Brown, Penny Dumsday, Lucas Randall 00:00:40 Researchers at the Max Planck Institute in Germany have used a machine-learning algorithm to finally answer one of science's most confounding puzzles: Is that mouse over there happy? Or afraid? Or disgusted? 00:07:54 Astrophysicists from the University of Florida and Columbia University have figured out that a violent collision of two neutron stars released many of the heavier atoms that went on to form our solar system. This episode contains traces of Greg Milam, US correspondent for Sky News, on the Pentagon's release of videos showing unidentified flying objects.

Hosts: Ed Brown, Penny Dumsday, Lucas Randall, Dr. Helen Maynard-Casely 00:03:36 NASA's Mars InSight probe has finally managed to drill into the Martian rock and soil - thanks to a traditional repair technique! 00:13:04 The idea that glass is a liquid that flows is largely a myth.... sort of. It's an amorphous solid, so it does flow but very very slowly. Now an analysis of amber has shed some light on the disordered molecules that make glass a "liquid in suspended animation". 00:26:36 When our fishy ancestors slithered onto land nearly 400 million years ago, they had hands and feet. But fingers and toes took a little longer to develop. The discovery of a complete skeleton of a fish from around that time gives some clues about the evolution of fingers. Dr. Helen Maynard-Casely is a planetary scientist working at ANSTO, Australia’s Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation. She is the co-author of the children's book I Love Pluto. This episode contains traces of the panel on Have I Got News For You discussing an astrophysicists attempts to make a device to stop you touching your face.

Hosts: Ed Brown, Penny Dumsday, Lucas Randall 00:00:35 Professor Maria Croyle from the University of Texas in Austin has been working on alternative delivery mechanisms for vaccines without giant needles. And one promising method she's developed is a lot more palatable! 00:08:15 The formation of our moon is something of a mystery to astronomers. But now new research into the moon's composition further strengthens the most widely accepted theory. This episode contains traces of the SARS-COV-2 virus translated into "surprisingly beautiful" music.

Hosts: Ed Brown, Penny Dumsday, Lucas Randall 00:00:27 How do you study wibbly wobbly jellyfish, without damaging them or stressing them out? You give them a noodly hug, of course! 00:08:27 When a satellite runs out of fuel, it's sent up into a graveyard orbit where it can pose a threat to any spacecraft leaving Earth. But a recent test of the Mission Extension Vehicle could mean satellites can be refuelled, extending their lifespan significantly. 00:21:25 People are attaching sensors to plants, and translating the electrical conductivity of the plants into "music". It's not very good music, but the idea is to change how people think about plants as living organisms. 00:29:45 Astronomers have found a new planet outside our solar system, with a new technique. They looked for the radio signals from aurorae on the exoplanet! This episode contains traces of ABC science journalist Tegan Taylor and physician Dr. Norman Swan answering children's coronavirus questions on Coronacast.

Hosts: Ed Brown, Penny Dumsday, Lucas Randall 00:00:28 An Australian research team has come up with a luxurious plan to save endangered seahorses. 00:04:54 A more precise method of determining the methane produced by human activities draws a timeline of industrialisation. 00:15:07 Remains dating back 65,000 years ago demonstrate that the earliest Australians enjoyed slow-cooking. 00:20:28 Have you thought about the environmental impact your death and burial or cremation will have? There could be more planet-friendly options when it comes to 'deathcare'. This episode contains traces of Bill Gates, speaking to Vox four years ago, about his greatest fear.

As the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 sweeps the world, the only thing spreading quicker is panic and misinformation. So we caught up with Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz, an epidemiologist, writer and podcaster to find out what's really going on with COVID-19. For more information, we recommend: Australian Department of Health World Health Organisation Centers For Disease Control This Week In Virology podcast Coronacast podcast   And you can follow Gideon on Twitter.

Hosts: Ed Brown, Penny Dumsday, Lucas Randall 00:01:14 A team at Howard Hughes Medical Institute has been working with Google, and has just announced that they have mapped the “connectome” in the central region of brain of a fruit fly. That's means they've worked out the precise meanderings of 25,000 neurons and their 20 million connections. 00:15:14 About 2 billion years ago, a giant meteorite smacked into the thick glaciers that then were covering Western Australia. The result could have been the end of a 'snowball event' and the beginning of complex life! 00:24:15 Parkinson's Disease affects more than 10 million people worldwide, yet we know so little about it. But we do know that a build of a protein, alpha-synuclein makes it worse. Now researchers in the US claim to have developed a compound that can target and reduce the levels of alpha-synuclein. 00:28:40 Usually one of the top ten brightest stars in the night sky, the orange giant Betelgeuse has been dimming a lot in the last few months. So is it, like many media outlets have proclaimed, on the verge of going supernova? This episode contains traces of This episode contains traces of actress Taraji P. Henson, who played NASA mathematician Katherine Johnson in the film "Hidden Figures", describing some of the highlights of a remarkable life. Johnson passed away on February 24, 2020, aged 101.

Here's a little taste of the sort of thing to expect when Science on Top returns very soon - on hot days are you better off drinking hot or cold drinks?

Have you missed us? Looking forward to another season of Science on Top? Here's something to whet your appetite - a story of cute cephalopods, curious scientists and 3D glasses!

Hosts: Ed Brown, Penny Dumsday, Lucas Randall, Ass/Prof Mick Vagg 00:00:48 The switch to agricultural societies 12,000 years ago may have changed how we talk, introducing the 'f' and 'v' sounds. 00:04:58 The cane toad is an introduced pest in Australia, with no real natural predators. Until recently, when a small group of water rats learned how to eviscerate them with surgical precision! 00:06:38 The search for Planet Nine continued this year, and a new hypothesis was proposed: it might not be a planet, but a tiny primordial black hole. 00:11:28 The first ever image of a black hole's accretion disk was revealed this year. 00:15:30 NASA's InSight lander has been trying to drill a heat probe into the Martian surface, but it's been a heartbreaking story of progress and setbacks. 00:19:38 DNA testing has found that the same variety of grapes used 9,000 years ago to make wine are still being used today by some winemakers in France. 00:25:29 Researchers painted cows to look like zebras to find out if they were less likely to be bitten by flies. They were! 00:28:47 Scientists found that rats who had been taught to drive tiny electric cars were 'happier' and less stressed. 00:31:34 Australian scientists have developed an artificial intelligence algorithm that developed a new flu vaccine. 00:36:59 Some people can smell when other people have early stages of Parkinson's Disease. Thanks to the help of one of these “super-smellers", researchers were able to identify volatile compounds produced by sufferers. 00:40:39 A crater on Hawaii's Kilauea volcano has begun to fill up - but with water, not lava. Associate Professor Mick Vagg is a consultant in rehabilitation and pain medicine.

Hosts: Ed Brown, Penny Dumsday, Lucas Randall 00:00:56 As unprecedented bushfires ravage Australia, Forbes published an article declaring koalas are "functionally extinct". And while they do face considerable threats, the situation is not quite that dire. 00:11:38 Chinese scientists have discovered a black hole that, according to our current understanding of black-hole formation, is so large it shouldn’t exist. Called LB-1, the black hole has a mass 70 times that of our sun, three times more massive than previously thought possible. 00:25:11 Parked in space and deactivated since 2017, the LISA Pathfinder spacecraft has long finished it's scientific mission. But it's still making discoveries, detecting dozens of tiny impacts on the spacecraft and giving valuable data about cosmic dust. This episode contains traces of the cast and creators of The Expanse, now on Jeff Bezos' Amazon Prime, talking with engineers from Jeff Bezos' space company, Blue Origin.

Hosts: Ed Brown, Penny Dumsday, Lucas Randall 00:01:24 For the first time, doctors at the University of Maryland School of Medicine have purposefully put at least one human patient in suspended animation. This could be a great help to surgeons dealing with traumatic emergencies such as gunshot or stab wounds. 00:10:06 The first geomorphologic map of Saturn's moon Titan has been released. Showing lakes (of liquid methane), dunes (of organic molecule particles) and exposed icy bedrock. 00:12:49 NASA’s Curiosity rover has been analysing the air above Mars’ Gale Crater and found unexpected, and fluctuating, levels of oxygen. 00:20:10 An international team of astronomers have announced the direct detection of water vapor in the atmosphere of Jupiter's fourth largest moon Europa for the first time. This is the strongest evidence yet that liquid water exists beneath the Europa's surface. 00:26:46 Molecular astrophysicist Clara Sousa-Silva has written an article in Scientific American calling for more research into the signatures of gases that could indicate the presence of life on other planets. 00:32:53 Palaeontologists in Argentina have excavated a number of nearly 100 million year old snake fossils. Interestingly, these snakes had hind legs, but not front legs. This episode contains traces of BBC One Breakfast hosts discussing an innovative technique used by the Russian Ministry of Agriculture to boost dairy production.

Hosts: Ed Brown, Penny Dumsday, Lucas Randall 00:01:23 Danuvius guggenmosi was a great ape that lived 11.6 million years ago in southern Germany and it has just been formally described in the journal Nature. But the really interesting thing about this discovery is what it could suggest about bipedalism - our ancestors were walking upright much earlier than previously thought. 00:10:19 Spaceflight is a dangerous endeavour. Astronauts risk muscle atrophy, bone weakness, cardiovascular issues, eyesight disorders, and a host of other ailments. But now, researchers have found another serious health risk: stagnant or backwards blood flow in the internal jugular vein. 00:19:16 Some people who don't like vegetables may have a genetic reason to avoid their greens. (But some people are also just fussy!) 00:25:52 Researchers in Sweden have created a molecule that they claim can trap solar energy and store it for decades. But there isn't a lot of information available about it. This episode contains traces of an ABC News report about a real life "Breaking Bad" situation.

Hosts: Ed Brown, Penny Dumsday, Lucas Randall 00:00:35 Researchers at the University of Richmond taught a group of 17 rats how to drive tiny little plastic cars. The rats found driving to be relaxing! 00:11:28 Why do we like music? It's a question that neuroscientists have wondered about for decades. A paper in the Journal of Neuroscience suggests it's related to learning. 00:18:37 Cows can not only recognise other cows, but they form friendships and bonds that don't align with the social hierarchy of the herd. 00:26:28 Ornithologists in the Amazon have recorded the world’s loudest bird. It's mating call can reach 125 decibels - louder than front row at a rock concert. This episode contains traces of the Have I Got News For You panel discussing the discovery of the world's loudest bird.

Hosts: Ed Brown, Penny Dumsday, Lucas Randall 00:00:32 A zebra's stripes seem to reduce the number of flies that they attract, so what would happen if you painted a cow like a zebra? Japanese researchers did exactly that, and found a similar result. 00:08:10 An intriguing new hypothesis for Planet Nine is not a planet at all. Two astrophysicists have speculated it might actually be a very small black hole in our galaxy. 00:25:43 By analysing cut marks on bones left by humans between 200,000 and 400,000 years ago, archaeologists have determined that the bones were kept for later consumption. Weeks after the flesh of the animal was eaten, it's believed, the marrow in the bones was still nutritious. This episode contains traces of Boeing Communications' Jessica Landa and NASA Public Affairs' Dan Huot immediately after the successful Pad Abort Test of Boeing's Starliner Spacecraft.

Hosts: Ed Brown, Penny Dumsday, Lucas Randall 00:00:34 Snails are a French delicacy that has led to the near extinction, and now revival, of tiny culturally and scientifically important snails in French Polynesia. 00:06:45 3.5 million years ago, something in our galaxy exploded. As more evidence comes in, it's looking like the black hole in the centre of the Milky Way gobbled up some young stars. 00:16:04 The scourge of cane toads continues to spread across Australia. But could a native rodent have learned how to slaughter and eat them? Yes, and they have. This episode contains traces of 12-year-old Tai Poole, host of popular podcast Tai Asks Why, talking with Natasha Mitchell about the importance of curiosity in school.

Hosts: Ed Brown, Penny Dumsday, Lucas Randall 00:00:29 A new hypothesis in the quest to explain the bizarre dimming patterns of Tabby's Star: could it be a moon getting shredded? 00:18:36 It's a belief that's been widely held since 1971: women who live together sync their periods together. But many attempts to replicate the original study have failed, so why is it still such a prevalent belief? 00:28:13 Take a computer algorithm, teach it to read scientific papers, feed it thousands of journals, and watch it predict future discoveries. This could be a new field of scientific endeavour. This episode contains traces of The President of the United States talking with astronauts Christina Koch and Jessica Meir while they participated in NASA's first ever all-female spacewalk.

Hosts: Ed Brown, Penny Dumsday, Lucas Randall, Peter Miller The Ig Nobel Prizes honour achievements that first make us laugh, then make us think. We take a look at this year’s winners: from the benefits of pizza to the temperature of French postal packages! You can watch the award ceremony here. 00:01:16 MEDICINE PRIZE which was awarded to Silvano Gallus, for collecting evidence that pizza might protect against illness and death, if the pizza is made and eaten in Italy. 00:08:26 MEDICAL EDUCATION PRIZE was won by Karen Pryor and Theresa McKeon, for using a simple animal-training technique — called “clicker training” — to train surgeons to per[form orthopedic surgery. 00:13:54 BIOLOGY PRIZE went to a team with members from Singapore, China, Germany, Australia, Poland, USA, and Bulgaria for discovering that dead magnetized cockroaches behave differently than living magnetized cockroaches. 00:19:20 ANATOMY PRIZE was award to two Frenchmen for measuring scrotal temperature asymmetry in naked and clothed postmen in France. 00:24:11 CHEMISTRY PRIZE Went to a team from Japan, for estimating the total saliva volume produced per day by a typical five-year-old child. 00:27:30 ENGINEERING PRIZE was won by Iranian Iman Farahbakhsh, for inventing a diaper-changing machine [for use on human infants. 00:30:54 ECONOMICS PRIZE went to three researchers from Turkey, the Netherlands, and Germany for testing which country’s paper money is best at transmitting dangerous bacteria.. 00:36:42 PEACE PRIZE went to an international team of seven researchers, for trying to measure the pleasurability of scratching an itch. 00:40:40 PSYCHOLOGY PRIZE was awarded to German Fritz Strack, for discovering that holding a pen in one’s mouth makes one smile, which makes one happier — and for then discovering that it does not. 00:46:17 PHYSICS PRIZE was won by seven researchers from the USA, Taiwan, Australia, New Zealand, Sweden, and the UK for studying how, and why, wombats make cube-shaped poo.

Hosts: Ed Brown, Penny Dumsday, Lucas Randall 00:00:33 The large holes in T-Rex's skull might not have been for muscles, but thermoregulating blood vessels according to a paper published in the Anatomical Record. 00:06:13 An Australian team has developed a flu vaccine they believe could be the first human drug to be completely designed by artificial intelligence. 00:18:49 A team at Howard Hughes Medical Institute is painstakingly building a detailed map of a mouse brain - one neuron at a time. This episode contains traces of Andrew Lund for 9News Australia, reporting on the naming of RRS Sir David Attenborough.  

Hosts: Ed Brown, Penny Dumsday, Lucas Randall 00:00:47 After a British teenager went blind, media reports came thick and fast about the dangers of a junk food diet. But was he just a fussy eater, or was there a lot more to it than the headlines suggested? 00:07:50 Is climate change making spiders more aggressive? Well, yes - but only one species was studied and not aggressive in way that you'd expect. 00:20:39 After a spectacular wall collapse last year, a crater on Hawaii's Kīlauea volcano was left empty. And now it's starting to refill, but not with lava. 00:27:31 Could the search for extra-terrestrial life be easier if the aliens glowed? Under the right circumstances, bioluminescence could help us find life on other worlds. This episode contains traces of KHON2 News' Brigette Namata and Justin Cruz discussing the teenager who went blind from junk food.

Hosts: Ed Brown, Penny Dumsday, Lucas Randall 00:00:26 Tiny, often-overlooked "cryptobenthic" fish are much more plentiful than we realised, and could therefore explain how reefs can thrive despite a lack of nutrients. 00:08:30 Astronomers using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory data have been able to measure how fast five supermassive black holes are spinning. One was spinning faster than 70% of the speed of light! 00:17:26 A new analysis of skull fragments found in Greece is leading archaeologists to reassess how and when the earliest humans moved out of Africa, suggesting it could have been as far back as 210,000 years ago. 00:25:12 The media loves to proclaim the dangers of our obsession with smartphones, but there may actually be some evidence to support curbing our digital immersion. This episode contains traces of Rice University anthropologist Cymene Howe talking about a plaque commemorating Okjokull, the first Icelandic glacier lost to climate change.

Hosts: Ed Brown, Penny Dumsday, Lucas Randall, Jo Benhamu 00:00:26 A seemingly successful treatment of a nasty genetic disease would not have been possible without zebrafish. 00:10:52 It may seem counterintuitive, but a strain of virus linked to the common cold has been used to treat patients with a type of bladder cancer. 00:20:44 Fast Radio Bursts - the strong blasts of radio waves from distant galaxies - have mystified astronomers since they were first detected in 2007. But now for the first time, an FRB has been traced back to its host galaxy, 3.6 billion light years away! 00:33:39 Psychologists have conducted a large survey of nearly 2,000 volunteers to determine which animals and insects people are most afraid of, and most disgusted by. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it didn't go well for spiders. This episode contains traces of astronaut Buzz Aldrin talking about the meaning of the Apollo 11 moon landing.

Hosts: Ed Brown, Lucas Randall, Jo Benhamu 00:00:25 Dogs have evolved - mostly through artificial selection - to be our best friends. And a part of that evolution, according to a study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, meant developing special muscles to help them give us those "puppy dog eyes". You can test your own dogs "dognition" at dognition.com! 00:15:27 It's widely believed that at the centre of every large galaxy there's at least one supermassive black hole - a black hole that's millions or even billions of times more massive than our Sun. But earlier this year a group of astronomers announced a discovery that means the accepted theory of how a they're formed is wrong. But there are some plausible new theories that could explain it. 00:25:08 Media reports that mobile phone use could be causing teenagers to develop horns on the back of their heads were alarming and widespread. But perhaps unsurprisingly, those reports were flawed interpretations of bad science. This episode contains traces of business journalist and Sunrise breakfast television show presenter David Koch discussing external occipital protuberances with lead author and chiropractor Dr. David Shahar.

Hosts: Ed Brown, Penny Dumsday, Lucas Randall, Jo Benhamu 00:00:39 Winemaking in France dates back more than 12,000 years. But new research looking at the DNA of ancient grapes has found one particular variety that's remained unchanged for over 900 years. 00:09:13 The largest crater in the solar system, the South Pole-Aitken basin, is on the far side of the moon. And astronomers have found an unexpected very dense mass there, deep below the surface. 00:19:08 Positron Emission Tomography - better known as PET scans - show levels of chemical activity in the body and are useful, for example, for detecting cancer cells. Now new modified PET scanners have been demonstrated that drastically speed the process up and reduced the amount of radiation used. This episode contains traces of a BBC News report and surprise guest on stage at Glastonbury Festival 2019.

Hosts: Ed Brown, Dr. Shayne Jospeh, Penny Dumsday, Jo Benhamu 00:00:54 After many months away from the show, Shayne discusses his depression and how he's been dealing with it. 00:11:26 Two astronomers published a paper that seemed to suggest our hominid ancestors switch to walking on two feet as a result of a supernova exploding around 8 million years ago. And while that may be plausible, it wasn't really what the paper was about. 00:21:09 Dr. Susan Mackinnon, from Washington University in St. Louis, recently faced an ethical dilemma while in surgery. To save her patient's leg, she needed to rely on controversial Nazi-made illustrations. 00:43:51 In a large fake village in Burkina Faso, entomologists have used a genetically engineered fungus to almost eradicate an entire population of mosquitoes. This could be an exciting project to end malaria and other mosquito-borne diseases. 00:51:40 Science on Top This episode contains traces of WCNC-TV's Wake Up Charlotte hosts discussing a fan's Mariah Carey birthday cake.

Hosts: Ed Brown, Penny Dumsday, Lucas Randall, Jo Benhamu 00:00:23 For bonobo males, sex is often done under mother's watchful eye. But it's not quite that creepy - the mother's are helpful, allowing the primates to copulate in peace! 00:04:33 Detecting lung cancer in the early stages can be tricky even for very experienced radiologists. But a huge test using Google's AI computers found that the algorithms performed better than humans, and made fewer false positives. 00:18:45 There's a climate change emergency, as atmospheric carbon dioxide levels are increasing rapidly. Fortunately, the trees are adapting to help us out, and a new study has found that the amount of carbon dioxide being absorbed by plants is also increasing. But it's not keeping up and won't won't last. 00:28:35 The contents of a small pouch, made from three fox snouts stitched together, have been analysed and may be the earliest evidence of the use of ayahuasca, a hallucinogenic plant preparation. This episode contains traces of Leo Laporte, Jeff Jarvis and Mathew Ingram discussing Elon Musk's Starlink project, on This Week in Google.

Hosts: Ed Brown, Penny Dumsday, Lucas Randall, Jo Benhamu 00:00:34 Penny gives us a trip report on her recent trip to Lake Mungo - a dry lake in remote Australia that's known for the discovery of 20,000-60,000 year old human remains. 00:09:58 All we know about Denisovans - a species of hominid that split off from the human lineage alongside the Neanderthals - comes from a little finger bone, three teeth and a sliver of bone. But now the discovery of a jawbone, found two and a half thousand kilometers away suggests they might have been quite widespread throughout Asia. 00:15:50 Scientists at University College London accidentally invented a material that could revolutionise a wide range of technologies, such as batteries. 00:27:41 As the antibiotic resistance crisis deepens, scientists are turning to genetically modified viruses as a treatment for bacterial infections. 00:49:57 Millions of species of fungi and bacteria work together to form a vast, interconnected web of organisms throughout the world's forests. Now scientists have mapped this “wood wide web” using a database of more than 28,000 tree species in more than 70 countries. This episode contains traces of Megan Dice from News12 reporting on the declaration of New Jersey's official state microbe.

Hosts: Ed Brown, Kirsten Banks 00:00:49 For the first time ever, astronomers have taken a photo of the silhouette of the event horizon of a black hole! 00:06:39 The Event Horizon Telescope captured 5 petabytes of data - which is a lot! 00:09:08 XKCD compared the size of the event horizon of M87 with the size of our solar system. 00:11:36 Veritasium expertly described how the photo was taken, and all the permutations that could have happened to give us different photos. Kirsten Banks is an astronomer, science communicator and Physics student. This episode contains traces of Alan Duffy "losing his mind" talking about the Black Hole image on ABC Breakfast News.

Hosts: Ed Brown, Dr. Kate Naughton, Peter Miller 00:00:40 An extraordinary must-read article in the New Yorker has an in-depth look at the few hours after a meteor hit the Yucatán Peninsula and probably wiped out the non-avian dinosaurs. It also follows an amazing discovery that could answer many questions about the appearance of dinosaurs and whether or not they were already dying out. 00:18:51 A study led by a team at the Duke University Clinical Research Institute has found that treatment recommendations that US doctors use when managing heart patients - less than 10 per cent of those recommendations are based on the best available evidence. 00:33:52 As computer graphics and robotics get more and more realistic, there's a point where an avatar or android is so close to real but not quite, and it's unsettling. That's the Uncanny Valley. But we don't often talk about it's auditory counterpart, and how there's an Uncanny Valley for artificial voices as well. 00:47:19 "Pumpkin toadlets" are tiny poisonous frogs in Brazil's Atlantic Forest. They're only about 15mm long, and their skeletons are fluorescent under a UV lamp! This episode contains traces of Q, a 'genderless' artificial voice.

Hosts: Ed Brown, Penny Dumsday, Chris Curtain-Magee 00:01:22 In 450 B.C., the "Father of History", Herodotus, wrote a 23 line account of a type of Egyptian cargo vessel. This was widely thought to be a fabrication, but a discovery in an ancient Egyptian port city indicates the account was truthful. 00:08:03 The earliest undisputed evidence of humans in Australia comes from a rock shelter in northern Australia and dates back to 65,000 years ago. Now investigations at an ancient midden - a trashpile - in the country's South could potentially double that time-frame. 00:14:18 Lots of animals, from birds to turtles to fish, can detect magnetic fields. But until now we've never thought humans had that ability. A new study suggests that a small number of people may be able to register magnetic field changes, but on a subconscious level. 00:21:03 Science on Top This episode contains traces of Mark Robinson narrating 'Why is Herodotus called "The Father of History'?" from Ted-Ed.

Hosts: Ed Brown, Penny Dumsday, Lucas Randall 00:00:32 Some fish can survive the freezing cold waters of Antarctica thanks to a gene that makes anti-freeze. But how do fish in the Arctic, in the Northern hemisphere, also have the same gene? 00:08:33 Some people can smell when people are sick. Could these 'super-smellers' help diagnose Parkinson's Disease early on? 00:21:26 DNA is made of four nucleotides: G, A, T, and C. Now an interdisciplinary team of researchers has doubled that genetic code by creating synthetic DNA that uses eight letters. 00:27:55 NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft is currently orbiting the asteroid 101955 Bennu. But it turns out Bennu is no ordinary asteroid... it spits!   This episode contains traces of 6abc Action News hosts Brian Taff and Jeannette Reyes discussing a cheesy Swiss experiment.

Hosts: Ed Brown, Penny Dumsday, Lucas Randall, Sean M Elliott 00:01:11 Science educator, communicator and performer Sean M. Elliott has a new show at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, Tesla: Death Rays & Elephants! 00:11:00 For a long time it's been believed that having some potted plants around the house will help filter out pollutants and toxins. But now the evidence suggests that houseplants do very little or even nothing at all when it comes to cleaning the air. 00:17:56 There's around 200 billion stars in our galaxy alone, and probably least one planet orbiting each of them. But a new study suggests there could be an additional 50 billion rogue planets, that aren't orbiting any stars at all. 00:27:17 Our nearest big galactic neighbour, Andromeda, has long been thought to be the much larger and more massive than the Milky Way. Now, new data from the Gaia mission and the Hubble Space Telescope indicates the Milky Way could be significantly bigger than we thought. 00:39:48 A new study published in the journal Science finds that before agriculture, when humans were nomadic hunter gatherers, languages didn't have the same sounds that they do now - in fact some sounds just weren't even possible. Sean M. Elliott is a science educator, communicator and performer with a new show starting this weekend at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, Tesla: Death Rays & Elephants! This episode contains traces of TMRO's Jade Kim giving yet another reason why space travel might not be such a great thing for humans.

Hosts: Ed Brown, Penny Dumsday, Lucas Randall, Dr. Helen Maynard-Casely 00:01:16 NASA's InSight probe begins drilling into the Martian surface - and stops. 00:17:11 Twins are either identical (one egg splits into two copies) or fraternal (two eggs fertilised at the same time). But that's not always the case - as a mother in Queensland found out when she had sesquizygotic twins. 00:25:44 Timothy Ray Brown, who was known as The Berlin Patient, was the first person to be "cured" of HIV. Now a second man appears to have also been cured, using the same bone marrow transplant technique. 00:33:32 Saturn's largest moon, Titan, is also the only moon known to have a thick, dense atmosphere. But now, thanks to the Rosetta probe's studies of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, the origins of Titan's atmosphere may have been revealed. Dr. Helen Maynard-Casely is an instrument scientist for the WOMBAT high-intensity powder diffractometer at ANSTO, Australia's Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation. This episode contains traces of Loudwire's Toni Gonzalez reporting on an Australian study of people who listen to Death Metal.

Hosts: Ed Brown, Penny Dumsday, Lucas Randall 00:00:57 As the world becomes more and more urbanised, we hear a lot about the dangers to wildlife from humanity's sprawl. But new research finds Australia's koalas may actually be less stressed in cities - provided adequate green spaces are provided. 00:07:43 For the first time ever, a spacecraft built by a private company and designed to carry people has docked with the International Space Station. The success of SpaceX's "Crew Dragon" sets the stage for an alternative to the Russian-made Soyuz capsules. 00:19:54 Researchers have been looking at the family dynamics stressed meerkat mothers. They've found the daughters become more helpful - at their own expense - but the sons don't. 00:25:28 Two new papers provide even more weight to the Planet Nine hypothesis - that a large planet, more than ten times the mass of Earth, could be lurking on the distant edges of our solar system, well beyond the orbit of Pluto. This episode contains traces of the NASA stream and enthusiastic commentary of the SpaceX Crew Dragon module being opened in space for the first time.

Hosts: Ed Brown, Penny Dumsday, Lucas Randall 00:01:18 Hyabusa 2, Japan's latest sample return mission, has briefly landed on the asteroid Ryugu. It's an ambitious mission looking at the building blocks of the solar system. 00:16:14 And what's the point of dragging samples all the way back to Earth, when we can send whole labs to celestial bodies? 00:20:59 Echidnas are cute but spiky Australian native animals, with rather strange mating habits. But they're in high demand on the illegal pet trade, so wildlife forensic scientists have developed a technique to track where they've been smuggled from. 00:28:34 The commercial arm of the Mars One plan to colonise the red planet has filed for bankruptcy. Was this an interplanetary Fyre Festival? 00:35:56 Australian scientists may have found a way of developing a universal flu vaccine, that would work against all strains and eliminating the need for yearly flu shots. This episode contains traces of Mars One CEO Bas Lansdorp answering questions in a company-produced interview back in 2015.

Hosts: Ed Brown, Penny Dumsday, Lucas Randall, Dr Cameron Webb 00:00:58 A review study published in the journal Biological Conservation has found that over 40% of insect species are threatened with extinction. 00:29:06 Queensland has seen record-breaking floods this year, and everyone knows that mosquitoes love water. But what do floods mean for mosquito-borne diseases? 00:36:10 By studying sleepless flies, scientists have identified a gene that puts them to sleep when they need it the most. And interestingly, it doubles as part of their immune system. 00:42:32 From our immune system to taste and even our emotions - our guts have a big influence on our brains. And now new research shows that gut bacteria can affect our our mental health. Dr. Cameron Webb is a medical entomologist from the University of Sydney and NSW Health Pathology primarily interested in mosquitoes, mosquito-borne disease management, insect repellents and wetland rehabilitation. This episode contains traces of Abigail Fraeman, Mars Exploration Rover (MER) deputy project scientist at JPL.

Hosts: Ed Brown, Penny Dumsday, Lucas Randall 00:01:48 When researchers from the Max Planck Institute were looking at the teeth of an 11th or 12th century German woman they found tiny bright blue specks. This was a clue that illuminated the role women may have played in the history of book production. 00:09:19 What if plants could be trained just like pet dogs? Spoiler alert: they can! Sort of. 00:12:12 Also, plants can hear you with their ear-flowers. 00:21:29 For spiders, their webs are also sensory organs. And depending on their body position, they can tune their webs to specific vibrations. 00:28:29 No longer aimlessly drifting, the Earth's magnetic North Pole seems to be moving determinedly towards Siberia.   This episode contains traces of Harrison Ford addressing the 2018 Global Climate Action Summit.

2018 was a big year for science. Is saw the launch of the largest privately built reuseable rocket, the discovery a new organ, and understanding of the wombat's cubic poops. And we talked about all these stories and more on Science on Top. But not everything goes to plan, and this year was no exception! We had all sorts of Skype troubles, we forgot things, we were interrupted by dogs and phones… lots went wrong! But instead of losing the hilarious moments of chaos, we’ve saved them all for our traditional end of year bloopers episode. All the rants, the tangents, the swearing and the brain farts all put together for one long blooper reel! You must download or play the bloopers episode from our site: https://scienceontop.com/bloopers18 or on YouTube or Soundcloud!

Hosts: Ed Brown, Penny Dumsday, Peter Miller 00:01:10 There's a planet orbiting star HD26965, exactly where Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry said Spock's homeworld Vulcan would be. 00:04:16 A fresh analysis of 10 year old data finds the best evidence yet of water vapor venting from Jupiter's fourth largest moon, Europa. 00:05:17 Watch Peter Miller's artistic imagining of life on Europa here. 00:06:11 The oldest example of abstract art, from 73,000 years ago, resembles a hashtag. 00:10:14 Scientific debate has erupted over what could possibly be the world's oldest fossils ever found - or they could be just rocks. 00:14:09 Eating a California Reaper is probably a bad idea, as one man found out when he tried what was then the world's hottest chili. 00:18:06 Hurricanes Irma and Maria devastated the Caribbean, but they also provided a unique glimpse at evolution. The research involved a lot of measurements, some lizards, and a leaf blower. 00:21:16 This year, we found out how wombats make cubed poops. 00:25:02 Ice cores have long been used to track global climate change, but a team from Oxford have studied ice cores for a more archaeological purpose – detailing the economic booms and busts of the ancient Roman empire. 00:28:48 Geneticists around the world were shocked when Professor He Jiankui announced he'd created the world's first ever gene edited babies. His claims of HIV immune babies are extraordinary, but mired in contention amongst ethical and procedural controversy.

Hosts: Ed Brown, Penny Dumsday, Lucas Randall 00:01:24 The giant tortoise Lonesome George, the last of his species, was possibly as old as 102 when he died in 2012. Now sequencing of his DNA has revealed a number of genes that could give us clues about human life expectancy and particularly cancer. 00:08:10 Research into epilepsy has accidentally led to some exciting new developments in the treatment of depression and mood disorders. This is a serendipitous line of inquiry that came from observations of electrical stimulation of areas of the brain. 00:16:01 When it comes to hormonal birth control, it's pretty much a ladies-only club. But for decades researchers have been trying to develop a male pill, and now a reasonably large-scale trial is about to get underway looking at a contraceptive gel. 00:23:39 It's one of the greatest cosmological mysteries of our time - what makes up 95% of the universe. But the "Dark Fluid" theory could potentially solve the questions of both dark matter and dark energy. Perhaps.   This episode contains traces of ABC10's "Geek Labs" segment playing sounds recorded by the Mars InSight lander.

Our latest episode, 319 - Number Five Is Alive, had a pretty major glitch in that Lucas' track wasn't there at all. I realised the mistake shortly after posting it, and thought I had replaced it with the correct version, but obviously it didn't replace the file. I've re-uploaded it and tested it now, it definitely works! So if you had any trouble playing that episode - specifically if it sounds like Lucas is being rude and not talking - then you may have to re-download that file again. Or, you can listen on our website, YouTube, Stitcher or SoundCloud.   This is what happens when you upload the podcast late on a Friday night after a few drinks... :-(

Hosts: Ed Brown, Penny Dumsday, Lucas Randall, Jo Benhamu 00:02:27 NASA's InSight probe lands on Mars, with a slew of instruments to analyse what the red planet is made of. 00:17:43 Against all conventional knowledge, mitochondrial DNA is sometimes inherited from the father. 00:28:01 Professor He Jiankui announced he's created the world's first ever gene edited babies using the CRISPR-Cas9 technique. His claims of HIV immune babies are extraordinary, but mired in contention amongst ethical and procedural controversy.   Jo Benhamu is a Clinical Research Nurse with a Masters in Bioethics.   This episode contains traces of Sir David Attenborough speaking at the COP24 UN conference in Katowice, Poland.

Hosts: Ed Brown, Penny Dumsday, Lucas Randall 00:01:10 Wombats - the cute, pudgy marsupials in Australia, have cubic poops. Square, angular blocks of poop. But how and why? We may now have a better understanding. 00:08:25 HD186302 is a star 184 light-years from Earth. And it's so similar to our sun, it could be long lost twin. 00:16:49 A team of researchers have studied the genomes of a group of microbes called Hemimastigotes and found that they are so bizarre, they deserve their very own kingdom in the tree of life. 00:26:02 Using the Keck observatory telescopes in Hawaii, astronomers have detected water in the atmosphere of a planet 179 light years away.   This episode contains traces of WNYC's On The Media looking at CNN's coverage of the U.S. Global Change Research Program's National Climate Assessment.

Hosts: Ed Brown, Penny Dumsday, Lucas Randall 00:02:00 There's a stream of stars hurtling through our region of the Milky Way galaxy, and they're bringing with them a "dark matter hurricane". It's probably nothing to worry about, though. 00:12:16 For the first time since 1889, the kilogram has been redefined according to a natural constant, instead of a lump of metal in a vault in Paris. The actual mass, for all intents and purposes, remains the same. 00:23:51 Previous studies of Neanderthal skulls found high rates of head injuries leading experts to believe they were a violent, savage people. But a new study finds that our human ancestors had a similar injuries and might not have been much different.   This episode contains traces of Professor Brian Greene explaining Dark Matter to CNN's Fareed Zakaria.

Hosts: Ed Brown, Penny Dumsday, Mick Vagg 00:02:13 How serious is the opioid crisis in Australia? What's being done about it, and what new painkillers are on the horizon? Pain Specialist Professor Mick Vagg gives us the run down. 00:22:15 20 million years ago, dolphins had really long snouts - the question is why? What evolutionary pressures led to their evolution, and what caused them to become extinct? 00:28:11 Are chimpanzees selfish? Do they readily cooperate? A study on chimpanzees in the Republic of Congo found they often make decisions that benefit others faster than ones that help themselves.   Associate Professor Mick Vagg is Clinical Senior Lecturer at Deakin University School of Medicine, and Pain Specialist at Barwon Health.   This episode contains traces of John Oliver talking shady business practices which have contributed to the US Opioids Crisis.  

Hosts: Ed Brown, Penny Dumsday, Lucas Randall 00:01:10 When a newborn baby smiles, there's always some spoilsport ready to tell you it's not a genuine smile, it's just a reflex. But new research finds that infant smiles are a lot more complex than that. 00:07:34 For the first time, astronomers have observed the clumps of gas orbiting the supermassive black hole in the center of our galaxy using four large telescopes linked together. The observations are in extremely high detail and reveal super hot flares or "magnetic thunderstorms" orbiting the black hole at nearly a third of the speed of light. 00:16:31 Scientific debate has erupted over a set of cone-like formations in Greenland. One popular school of thought is that they're the oldest fossils ever found, and the other is that they're just rocks.   To help us make the show, please consider donating on Patreon.   This episode contains traces of CBC News Now host Heather Hiscox talking with Dominic Valitis about a big science auction.

Hosts: Ed Brown, Penny Dumsday, Lucas Randall 00:01:11 It's an old computer trick, but a gyroscope on the Hubble Space Telescope has been fixed - with a shake and a reboot. 00:08:22 The tiny worms in dung beetle brood sacks - which are sexually transmitted - are beneficial for the beetle larvae. 00:14:33 Polychlorinated biphenyls - better known as PCBs - are industrial chemicals that have been banned in most countries for decades. But their legacy remains and has dramatic consequences for orcas and other marine mammals. 00:23:38 Humpback whales go quiet, and sometimes even silent, when large boats are around. 00:24:37 Why do male gorillas seem to enjoy babysitting so much? One possibility is that females choose good carers to mate with.   To help us make the show, please consider donating on Patreon.   This episode contains traces of Michael J. Fox talking to Alan Alda on the Clear and Vivid podcast.