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On this edition of the Naked Scientists Podcast, what are the potential environmental impacts of the ship crash in the North Sea? Also, we find out what's being done to reduce the risk from engineered pandemics, and reveal what's going on inside the best electric vehicle batteries on the market. Then, it's off to Lincolnshire to profile the bruise-resistant, quicker-cooking potatoes of the future... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists
This episode of Naked Neuroscience is co-published on the Naked Scientists Podcast. James Tytko examines one of the largest causes of disability amongst the young: multiple sclerosis. We hear from Lara Kingsman who is living with MS, doctors at the University of Cambridge take us inside the brain to help guide interventions, and the MS Society tell us about their innovative drug trial in collaboration with UCL to help find new treatments... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists
Dr Chris Smith and the Naked Scientist team present the latest science news, analysis and breakthroughs.Including the news that the US has recorded their first human death from bird flu, and should we be concerned? Plus a new drug to treat drug resistant prostate cancer, and new research on how the Roman Empire was responsible for widespread lead pollution in Europe.In Part 2, Titans of Science returns with Marc Abrahams, the originator of the Ig Nobel Prize and the master of making science funny.This is the final episode of 5 Live Science in this feed, but you can still hear Dr Chris Smith regularly on BBC Radio 5 Live with Naga Munchetty on a Tuesday afternoon at 1pm. You can also search for “The Naked Scientists Podcast” online for more from Dr Chris and the team.
This week on Big Biology we're sharing an episode from The Naked Scientists Podcast about how humans lost their tails. Humans, chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans do not have tails. It sets us apart from other primates, but suggests that our shared evolutionary ancestors had them. So why did we lose them, and how? Speaking with Chris Smith, from The Naked Scientists Podcast, NYU Grossman School of Medicine's Itai Yanai explains that the way this study began was literally a pain in the "tail" for one of his colleagues... Credit: The Naked Scientists Podcast --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bigbiology/support
Today's Flash Back Friday comes from Episode 56, originally published in April 2012. Joining Jason Hartman from Barrington, England, is Dr. Chris Smith, creator of the popular podcast, “The Naked Scientists.” Dr. Smith shares the fascinating tale of how he and his colleagues began their radio show in 2000, which then led to creating one of the world's first podcasts. They were one of the first podcasts listed on iTunes when it first launched in 2005. Adding their podcast to iTunes literally broke their server with the huge surge in their listening audience, which is known as the “iTunes Effect.” Dr. Smith relates that the first interview they did, which they thought would be around a 5-minute interview, turned into a two-hour interview. With the success the group achieved, Dr. Smith was able to raise money from grant-awarding bodies, such as The University of Cambridge, Research Councils of England, Rolls Royce, etc, which enabled them to put together a strong production team of scientists with skills in journalism. The podcast has grown by being repurposed to specialty shows around the world, five broadcasts per week. Dr. Smith explains the process he and his team employ to bring their show to a large listening audience from all around the globe. Website: www.TheNakedScientists.com
Gudrun talks to Jousef Murad about the computing platform SimScale. Jousef is currently studying mechanical engineering at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) and focuses on turbulence modelling and computational mechanics in his Master's studies. He first learned about the existence of SimScale early in the year 2015 and started as a FEA (finite element analysis) simulation assistant in November 2016. Meanwhile he switched to Community Management and now is Community and Academic Program Manager at the company being responsible for user requests and Formula student teams all over the world. Formula student is a name for design competitions for teams of students constructing racing cars. SimScale is a cloud-based platform that gives instant access to computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and finite element analysis (FEA) simulation technology, helping engineers and designers to easily test performance, optimize durability or improve efficiency of their design. SimScale is accessible from a standard web browser and from any computer, eliminating the hurdles that accompany traditional simulation tools: high installation costs, licensing fees, deployment of high-performance computing hardware, and required updates and maintenance. Via the platform, several state-of-the-art open solvers are made available like,e.g., OpenFOAM and Meshing with SnappyHexMesh. More information about the packages being used can be found at https://www.simscale.com/open-source/ . On top of having easier access to open source software, the connected user forum is very active and helps everybody to enter the field even as a person without experience. Founded in 2012 in Munich (Germany), nowadays SimScale is an integral part of the design validation process for many companies worldwide and individual users. It is mainly used by product designers and engineers working in Architecture, Engineering & Construction or Heating, Ventilation & Air-Conditioning. Also in the Electronics, Consumer Goods and Packaging and Containers industries SimScale is useful for testing and optimizing designs in the early development stages. SimScale offers pricing plans that can be customized, from independent professionals to SMEs and multinational companies. The Community plan makes it possible to use SimScale for free, with 3000 core hours/year using up to 16 cloud computing cores. Simulation around Burj Khalifa using SimScale References Turbulence models on the English Wikipedia S. Pope: Turbulent Flows. Cambridge University Press, 2000. P. Sagaut, C. Cambon: Homogeneous Turbulence Dynamics. Cambridge University Press, 2008. Related Podcasts G. Thäter, M. Hofmanová: Turbulence, Gespräch im Modellansatz Podcast, Folge 155, Fakultät für Mathematik, Karlsruher Institut für Technologie (KIT), 2018. N. Vercauteren, S. Ritterbusch: Lokale Turbulenzen, Gespräch im Modellansatz Podcast, Folge 144, Fakultät für Mathematik, Karlsruher Institut für Technologie (KIT), 2017. P. Allinger, N. Stockelkamp, G. Thäter: Strukturoptimierung, Gespräch im Modellansatz Podcast, Folge 53, Fakultät für Mathematik, Karlsruher Institut für Technologie (KIT), 2015. B.Valsler, D. Ansell: The Science of Turbulence, The Naked Scientists Podcast, 2010.
Gudrun talks to Jousef Murad about the computing platform SimScale. Jousef is currently studying mechanical engineering at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) and focuses on turbulence modelling and computational mechanics in his Master's studies. He first learned about the existence of SimScale early in the year 2015 and started as a FEA (finite element analysis) simulation assistant in November 2016. Meanwhile he switched to Community Management and now is Community and Academic Program Manager at the company being responsible for user requests and Formula student teams all over the world. Formula student is a name for design competitions for teams of students constructing racing cars. SimScale is a cloud-based platform that gives instant access to computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and finite element analysis (FEA) simulation technology, helping engineers and designers to easily test performance, optimize durability or improve efficiency of their design. SimScale is accessible from a standard web browser and from any computer, eliminating the hurdles that accompany traditional simulation tools: high installation costs, licensing fees, deployment of high-performance computing hardware, and required updates and maintenance. Via the platform, several state-of-the-art open solvers are made available like,e.g., OpenFOAM and Meshing with SnappyHexMesh. More information about the packages being used can be found at https://www.simscale.com/open-source/ . On top of having easier access to open source software, the connected user forum is very active and helps everybody to enter the field even as a person without experience. Founded in 2012 in Munich (Germany), nowadays SimScale is an integral part of the design validation process for many companies worldwide and individual users. It is mainly used by product designers and engineers working in Architecture, Engineering & Construction or Heating, Ventilation & Air-Conditioning. Also in the Electronics, Consumer Goods and Packaging and Containers industries SimScale is useful for testing and optimizing designs in the early development stages. SimScale offers pricing plans that can be customized, from independent professionals to SMEs and multinational companies. The Community plan makes it possible to use SimScale for free, with 3000 core hours/year using up to 16 cloud computing cores. Simulation around Burj Khalifa using SimScale References Turbulence models on the English Wikipedia S. Pope: Turbulent Flows. Cambridge University Press, 2000. P. Sagaut, C. Cambon: Homogeneous Turbulence Dynamics. Cambridge University Press, 2008. Related Podcasts G. Thäter, M. Hofmanová: Turbulence, Gespräch im Modellansatz Podcast, Folge 155, Fakultät für Mathematik, Karlsruher Institut für Technologie (KIT), 2018. N. Vercauteren, S. Ritterbusch: Lokale Turbulenzen, Gespräch im Modellansatz Podcast, Folge 144, Fakultät für Mathematik, Karlsruher Institut für Technologie (KIT), 2017. P. Allinger, N. Stockelkamp, G. Thäter: Strukturoptimierung, Gespräch im Modellansatz Podcast, Folge 53, Fakultät für Mathematik, Karlsruher Institut für Technologie (KIT), 2015. B.Valsler, D. Ansell: The Science of Turbulence, The Naked Scientists Podcast, 2010.
Martina Hofmanová has been working as a professor at the University of Bielefeld since October 2017. Previously, she was a Junior Professor at TU Berlin from February 2016 onwards, and before that an Assistant Lecturer, there. She studied at the Charles University in Prague, and got her PhD in 2013 at the École normale supérieure de Cachan in Rennes. Her time in Germany started in 2013 when she moved to the Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in the Sciences in Leipzig as a postdoc.Gudrun and Martina talk about randomness in the modeling of fluid motion. This topic is connected to the study of turbulent flow. Of course, we observe turbulence all around us, i.e. chaotic behaviour of the pressure and the velocity field in fluid flow. One example is the smoke pattern of a freshly extinguished candle. Its first part is laminar, then we observe transitional turbulent flow and fully turbulent one the further away the smoke travels. A second example is Rayleigh Bénard convection. Under the influence of a temperature gradient and gravity, one observes convection rolls when the temperature difference between bottom and top becomes large enough. If we look more closely, one can prescribe the motion as a mean flow plus random fluctuations. These fluctuations are difficult to measure but their statistical properties are reproduced more easily. A general procedure in physics and science is to replace expensive time averages by ensemble averages, which can be calculated together on a parallel computer. The concept why this often works is the so-called ergodic hypothesis. To justify this from the mathematical side, the main problem is to find the right measure in the ensemble average. In the model problem one can see that the solution is continuously dependent on the initial condition and the solution operator has a semigroup property. For random initial conditions, one can construct the solution operator correspondingly. Already with this toy problem one sees that the justification of using ensemble averages is connected to the well-posedness of the problem. In general, this is not apriori known. The focus of Martina's work is to find the existence of steady solutions for the compressible flow system, including stochastic forces with periodic boundary conditions (i.e. on the torus). At the moment, we know that there are global weak solutions but only local (in time) strong solutions. It turned out that the right setting to study the problem are so-called dissipative martingale solutions: Unfortunately, in this setting, the velocity is not smooth enough to be a stochastic process. But the energy inequality can be proved. The proof rests on introducing artificial dissipation in the mass conservation, and a small term with higher order regularity for the density. Then, the velocity is approximated through a Faedo-Galerkin approximation and a lot of independent limiting processes can be carried out successfully. The project is a collaboration with Dominic Breit and Eduard Feireisl. References M. Hofmanová: Stochastic partial differential equations, Lecture notes, Technical University of Berlin, 2016. D. Breit, E. Feireisl, M. Hofmanová, B. Maslowski: Stationary solutions to the compressible Navier-Stokes system driven by stochastic forces, preprint, 2016. D. Breit, E. Feireisl, M. Hofmanová: Local strong solutions to the stochastic compressible Navier-Stokes system, preprint, 2016. D. Breit, E. Feireisl, M. Hofmanová: Compressible fluids driven by stochastic forcing: The relative energy inequality and applications, Comm. Math. Physics 350, 443-473, 2017. D. Breit, M. Hofmanová: Stochastic Navier-Stokes equations for compressible fluids, Indiana Univ. Math. J. 65 (4), 1183-1250, 2016. Podcasts N. Vercauteren: Lokale Turbulenzen, Gespräch mit S. Ritterbusch im Modellansatz Podcast, Folge 144, Fakultät für Mathematik, Karlsruher Institut für Technologie (KIT), 2017. http://modellansatz.de/lokale-turbulenzen B.Valsler, D. Ansell: The Science of Turbulence, The Naked Scientists Podcast, 2010.
Martina Hofmanová has been working as a professor at the University of Bielefeld since October 2017. Previously, she was a Junior Professor at TU Berlin from February 2016 onwards, and before that an Assistant Lecturer, there. She studied at the Charles University in Prague, and got her PhD in 2013 at the École normale supérieure de Cachan in Rennes. Her time in Germany started in 2013 when she moved to the Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in the Sciences in Leipzig as a postdoc.Gudrun and Martina talk about randomness in the modeling of fluid motion. This topic is connected to the study of turbulent flow. Of course, we observe turbulence all around us, i.e. chaotic behaviour of the pressure and the velocity field in fluid flow. One example is the smoke pattern of a freshly extinguished candle. Its first part is laminar, then we observe transitional turbulent flow and fully turbulent one the further away the smoke travels. A second example is Rayleigh Bénard convection. Under the influence of a temperature gradient and gravity, one observes convection rolls when the temperature difference between bottom and top becomes large enough. If we look more closely, one can prescribe the motion as a mean flow plus random fluctuations. These fluctuations are difficult to measure but their statistical properties are reproduced more easily. A general procedure in physics and science is to replace expensive time averages by ensemble averages, which can be calculated together on a parallel computer. The concept why this often works is the so-called ergodic hypothesis. To justify this from the mathematical side, the main problem is to find the right measure in the ensemble average. In the model problem one can see that the solution is continuously dependent on the initial condition and the solution operator has a semigroup property. For random initial conditions, one can construct the solution operator correspondingly. Already with this toy problem one sees that the justification of using ensemble averages is connected to the well-posedness of the problem. In general, this is not apriori known. The focus of Martina's work is to find the existence of steady solutions for the compressible flow system, including stochastic forces with periodic boundary conditions (i.e. on the torus). At the moment, we know that there are global weak solutions but only local (in time) strong solutions. It turned out that the right setting to study the problem are so-called dissipative martingale solutions: Unfortunately, in this setting, the velocity is not smooth enough to be a stochastic process. But the energy inequality can be proved. The proof rests on introducing artificial dissipation in the mass conservation, and a small term with higher order regularity for the density. Then, the velocity is approximated through a Faedo-Galerkin approximation and a lot of independent limiting processes can be carried out successfully. The project is a collaboration with Dominic Breit and Eduard Feireisl. References M. Hofmanová: Stochastic partial differential equations, Lecture notes, Technical University of Berlin, 2016. D. Breit, E. Feireisl, M. Hofmanová, B. Maslowski: Stationary solutions to the compressible Navier-Stokes system driven by stochastic forces, preprint, 2016. D. Breit, E. Feireisl, M. Hofmanová: Local strong solutions to the stochastic compressible Navier-Stokes system, preprint, 2016. D. Breit, E. Feireisl, M. Hofmanová: Compressible fluids driven by stochastic forcing: The relative energy inequality and applications, Comm. Math. Physics 350, 443-473, 2017. D. Breit, M. Hofmanová: Stochastic Navier-Stokes equations for compressible fluids, Indiana Univ. Math. J. 65 (4), 1183-1250, 2016. Podcasts N. Vercauteren: Lokale Turbulenzen, Gespräch mit S. Ritterbusch im Modellansatz Podcast, Folge 144, Fakultät für Mathematik, Karlsruher Institut für Technologie (KIT), 2017. http://modellansatz.de/lokale-turbulenzen B.Valsler, D. Ansell: The Science of Turbulence, The Naked Scientists Podcast, 2010.
NASA's David Blake from the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) Curiosity rover team and the Open University's Cassini-Huygens space probe pioneer John Zarnecki answer your questions about planetary exploration. This special podcast is an addendum to the August 5th 2012 episode of the Naked Scientists Podcast and contains extra material not included in the published programme. Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists
NASA's David Blake from the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) Curiosity rover team and the Open University's Cassini-Huygens space probe pioneer John Zarnecki answer your questions about planetary exploration. This special podcast is an addendum to the August 5th 2012 episode of the Naked Scientists Podcast and contains extra material not included in the published programme. Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists
Joining Jason Hartman from Barrington, England, is Dr. Chris Smith, creator of the popular podcast, “The Naked Scientists.” Dr. Smith shares the fascinating tale of how he and his colleagues began their radio show in 2000, which then led to creating one of the world's first podcasts. For details, listen at: ww.SpeakingofWealth.com. They were one [...]
Does exercise lead to a more muscular heart? Why can an unfit cyclist cycle faster than an olympic runner runs? How do kinetic watches work? We answer your questions in this week's Naked Scientists Podcast, and find out why so many dead bugs end up on their backs, how salmonella gets into an egg, and if it's more efficient to fill your freezer than run it half empty? In the news we hear how farming migrated across Europe, why distant stars might have influenced life on Earth, and why rogue DNA can cause heart failure. Plus, we home in on the parts of the pigeon brain that respond to magnetic fields...
Does exercise lead to a more muscular heart? Why can an unfit cyclist cycle faster than an olympic runner runs? How do kinetic watches work? We answer your questions in this week's Naked Scientists Podcast, and find out why so many dead bugs end up on their backs, how salmonella gets into an egg, and if it's more efficient to fill your freezer than run it half empty? In the news we hear how farming migrated across Europe, why distant stars might have influenced life on Earth, and why rogue DNA can cause heart failure. Plus, we home in on the parts of the pigeon brain that respond to... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists
Does exercise lead to a more muscular heart? Why can an unfit cyclist cycle faster than an olympic runner runs? How do kinetic watches work? We answer your questions in this week's Naked Scientists Podcast, and find out why so many dead bugs end up on their backs, how salmonella gets into an egg, and if it's more efficient to fill your freezer than run it half empty? In the news we hear how farming migrated across Europe, why distant stars might have influenced life on Earth, and why rogue DNA can cause heart failure. Plus, we home in on the parts of the pigeon brain that respond to... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists
Smart sensors can open a window into the environment. In this week's Naked Scientists Podcast we find out how networks of sensors around Heathrow airport can study how planes alter the atmosphere, and how a similar network can monitor an Oxfordshire floodplain. Plus, we find out how the tools of a surgeon are helping to keep jet engines in flying form. In the news, we hear how gut bugs promote blood vessel growth, why fresh fruit and veg gives you a healthy hue and how scientists are analysing antimatter with microwaves...
Smart sensors can open a window into the environment. In this week's Naked Scientists Podcast we find out how networks of sensors around Heathrow airport can study how planes alter the atmosphere, and how a similar network can monitor an Oxfordshire floodplain. Plus, we find out how the tools of a surgeon are helping to keep jet engines in flying form. In the news, we hear how gut bugs promote blood vessel growth, why fresh fruit and veg gives you a healthy hue and how scientists are analysing antimatter with microwaves... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists
Smart sensors can open a window into the environment. In this week's Naked Scientists Podcast we find out how networks of sensors around Heathrow airport can study how planes alter the atmosphere, and how a similar network can monitor an Oxfordshire floodplain. Plus, we find out how the tools of a surgeon are helping to keep jet engines in flying form. In the news, we hear how gut bugs promote blood vessel growth, why fresh fruit and veg gives you a healthy hue and how scientists are analysing antimatter with microwaves... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists
In today’s episode I talked to Dr Chris Smith who has been podcasting since 2001 (predating even the mighty Adam Curry)! Now that’s early. Chris produces and presents the Naked Scientists Podcast - which started as a radio show. Chris tells how he put the show on the Internet for people to download and how the podcast audience exploded in 2005 as iTunes opened its Podcast Directory. Chris gives some interesting insights into content creation and getting feedback from your listeners - including setting up core samples of your audience as focus groups. He also covers how great content can carry your content even if you’re not a big name brand.
How big can aeroplanes get? Will we ever teleport? And When we lose weight, where does it go? We take on all these brainteasers and more in this Ask the Naked Scientists Podcast. Plus, Did dogs evolve from wolves? Why do roads need resurfacing after an accident? And what are clouds made of? Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists
How big can aeroplanes get? Will we ever teleport? And When we lose weight, where does it go? We take on all these brainteasers and more in this Ask the Naked Scientists Podcast. Plus, Did dogs evolve from wolves? Why do roads need resurfacing after an accident? And what are clouds made of? Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists