Science On Top – Détails, épisodes et analyse

This podcast has come to an end. So long, and thanks for all the fish!

Links to download the archive of all our episodes can be found here: https://scienceontop.com/goodbye

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.

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.