Avsnitt
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Ever wondered what society would look like if we lose our entire infrastructure? Antonia, Jasmin and Ellie discuss how they might survive based on their own science and engineering knowledge combined with inspiration from film and TV. They discuss movies such as Water World, consider where they would look for information if the internet were affected, and examine how global society could be rebuilt in the absence of modern infrastructure that many of us take for granted. It turns out there isn’t a lot of science or engineering to learn from fiction so, perhaps consider this a review of how not to rebuild society.
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Do you ever think about how technology like your smartphone has improved with time and wonder how science made it happen? In this episode with an audience from the Engineering Development Trust, Antonia, Laura and Jasmin talk about metals needed in clean energy technology as well other technologies such as hard disk drives and display screens. They debate whether we're replacing fossil fuels with other finite resources and consider efforts to start mining on the moon.
Antonia refers to a report from the International Energy Agency. Laura mentions critical elements identified by the American Chemical Society and by Birmingham University.
Read more about ruthenium used to increase data storage density at Science Daily, Tanaka Precious Metals and a metals trading company. For other uses, see Johnson Matthey's excellent overview,
For uses of indium, see the Royal Society of Chemistry, an overview from a coatings company, and research published in the journals ACS Nano and Nature Electronics.
To find out more about Yttrium, read research published in the journal Nanoscale Advances.
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Saknas det avsnitt?
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They're used in lots of things but you don't often hear about it. Antonia, Laura and Emma discuss their use in medicine for radiation therapy, electronics and sun screen. They also explain why these tiny particles are so interesting to scientists.
References:
The study about zinc nanoparticles and lung cells was summarised for the media in 2012 but advice from experts explains why you should wwar suncreen.
The Antibacterial Mechanism of Silver Nanoparticles and Its Application in Dentistry, published in the International Journal of Nanomedicine in 2020
The fascinating world of nanoparticle research, published in Materials Today in 2013
Nanoparticle-based radiosensitization strategies for improving radiation therapy, published in Frontiers In Pharmacology in 2023
A review on nanoparticles: characteristics, synthesis, applications, and challenges, published in Frontiers in Microbiology in 2023
Gold Nanoparticles as Radiosensitizers in Cancer Radiotherapy, published in the International Journal of Nanomedicine in 2020
Biological mechanisms of gold nanoparticle radiosensitization, published in Cancer Nanotechnology in 2017
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Do you find activists like Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil annoying or do you support their fervour? Laura, Antonia and Jasmin discuss whether there is any evidence that their disruptive tactics will convince companies and governments to take more drastic action to curb the climate emergency. They look at why people might join a cause and whether facts or emotion are the most powerful tool an activist can use to persuade.
The team mention a report from the Tyndall Centre for Friends of the Earth which shows that plans for expansion of air travel contradicted targets for greenhouse gas emissions and became the basis for a peer-reviewed journal publication and was also used by protestors at the Heathrow Airport Climate Camp in 2007.
They also mention expert insight from social scientists shared in a news article, a commentary in a journal and analysis of the anti-vaccination movement as well as how celebrities like Joe Lycett hold organisations to account.
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We've seen lots of news stories about a global sand shortage but what's really going on? Ellie, Antonia and Laura (joined by Ellie's cat Sparkles) analyse the facts, look at what sand is used for, discuss the effect that sand supplies have on people and the environment and speculate on what should be done next.
Read some of the news coverage, digest some sandy facts explained using handy graphics, read the most recent report from the United Nations, or read the research that uncovers how sand mining is affecting porpoise.
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Many breakthroughs in medicine have been made from studying rats. Antonia, Laura and Ellie discuss several studies of rat behaviour that have mapped how parts of the brain work and discuss how the results could be applied to humans to develop prosthetic limbs or help recover memory after a brain injury. They look at studies where rats are tickled until they laugh, learn to drive cars, navigate virtual reality and perform a Jedi mind trick.
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Ever watch an action movie where someone is hurled across the screen during an explosion and wondered how likely that is? Antonia, Laura, Nick and Ellie talk about movie portrayals, nuclear weapons, disaster investigations, and exploding animals.
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To help tackle the climate crisis, we'll need a lot of new technology to reduce the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Ellie, Jasmin and Laura share a load of facts about the chemicals, energy requirements and land use involved in technology to capture carbon dioxide from the air. They also look at how planting trees compares to this technology and answer questions from a live audience from the Engineering Development Trust about Taylor Swift's private jet and why we're spending money on projects that aren't tackling the climate emergency.
Read the review article that Laura mentions in the journal MRS Energy & Sustainability.
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If you could take a pill to halt ageing and become immortal, would you? Laura, Jasmin and Ellie take a look at some long-lived species, discuss just some of the science behind ageing and decide, if they could, whether they'd want to stay in their biological bodies forever or upload themselves to live digitally.
Read more about the science stories they discuss:
Determining how long the Greenland shark lives forJonathan the tortoiseMing the clamEarth's longest living organismSome other long-lived animals and plantsBenefits of intermittent fasting studied by Cambridge scientistsGenetics studies based on a tiny wormhttps://dogagingproject.org/https://www.quantamagazine.org/cells-across-the-body-talk-to-each-other-about-aging-20240108Blue zonesAn anti-ageing pill for dogsRead some of the books they've read:
Jellyfish Age Backwards: Nature's Secret to LongevityThe Code Breaker -
We've been around for a while and we have a lot of influence over our environment but are we really better than a lion or an orca? Antonia, Jasmin and Ellie discuss whether humans the top of the food chain or whether nature still does it better than we do.
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You might be surprised to know that new species are discovered pretty much every day. Laura and Ellie talk about how these discoveries are made and debate whether it's easier to find an exctinct, fossilised species or one that's still alive.
You can send your spare pennies to our ko-fi fund to support the podcast here.
Read about the discoveries that Ellie and the team at IFL Science have reported on including the Carlsberg beetle, a dinosaur in Utah, a dinosaur hand, the golden mole, a fossilised baby turtle that was mistaken for a plant, and Attenborough's rediscovered echidna.
The Natural History Museum publishes annual stats on discoveries.
The article from Scientific American that Laura mentions is What Makes Us Different.
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The COVID pandemic led to rapid development of vaccines. Laura, Emma and Antonia look at the history of vaccine development, the rapid development of the mRNA vaccine, and speculate on whether future vaccines could be so quickly developed.
Read about how viruses are weakened to be used as vaccines, some mechanisms of vaccination, how smallpox vaccines were developed in the 18th century, whether mRNA vaccines could be used to fight HIV, and the recent Nobel prize for the mRNA vaccine used against SARS-COV-2.
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We may not know it, but pop culture is pretty good at influencing our views. Antonia and Laura discuss several action films that rely on radiation for plot points and discuss whether these plot points could be backed-up by science. They talk about using radiation to trace chemical leaks, environmental changes and to find things in the human body. Is there any way of using radiation to trace money the way thta Batman does? Can injecting yourself with a substance protect you from radiation like they do in Star Trek? Is there any way you could use a spray to neutralise radiation like they do in Die Hard 5?
Read about some uses of radiation to trace aspects of engineering projects in this report by the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Read about uses in medicine and more.
Read about the use of radioiodine in medicine.
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It's contributing to the climate emergency but you don't usually hear about it. Laura, Jasmin and Antonia discuss where it comes from, why it's important, and what can be done to reduce emission of this gas into the atmosphere.
Jasmin's research involves methane. Check out her research profile at Imperial College London.
Antonia mentions the gates of hell firepit in Turkmenistan.
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AI is rapidly evolving and we want to know what will happen next. Antonia, Ellie and Jasmin discuss their experience of AI, what intelligence actually means, how AI works, and how it could affect their individual careers as zoologists, science communicators and analysts.
Jasmin talks about her experience with chatbots and references a study on whether people trust them.
Antonia references some opinions of experts shared by Pew Research Centre, The World Economic Forum and AI Experts as well as a video from Answers in Progress.
Ellie mentions a bot that was trained to discover new supernovae.
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Like it or not, plastic is a big part of our lives. Laura, Jasmin and Antonia discuss how different plastics are made, how bioplastics are different to ones made from fossil fuels, what is really meant by biodegradable plastics, and whether plastic can be sustainable. The discussion is also peppered with more weird offshoots than normal as real-life examples add to the conversation. Did you know that lots of clothes include plastic fibres? Ever wondered how easy it is to recycle them? Are you better off just burning them for energy? And what does the great British tradition of bonfire night have to do with it?
To find out a little bit more about the market for different types of plastic, check out this article on European-bioplastics.org.
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The dinosaurs might take all the glory but well before they existed there was a very important period. Laura and Ellie discuss the 'explosion' in animal biodiversity that started around 541 million years ago and how we know it happened. They also speculate on what sort of animal might be missing from the fossil record and somehow come to the strange conclusion that balloon animals might have been real.
Sources of information for the factual stuff:
Rocks (iron) absorbed free oxygen from britannica.comThe study suggesting that animals left the seas as their eyes evolved and got bigger was reported on quantamagazine.comThe study on the oldest animal (the floppy sea-dwelling bath mat) was reported on inverse.com -
Whether you're a scientist or engineer you'll probably handle a lot of data. Laura, Emma and Antonia discuss how they use various data analysis techniques in their different disciplines of energy analysis and physics. They highly recommend towards data science as a resource to learn more and discus a specific example of principal component analysis (the rotating graph) from builtin.com.
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A lot of effort goes in to studying birds and their habits. Laura, Ellie and Antonia talk about nesting habits, what we can learn from them and why it’s important for scientists to know about them. They also talk about what you can do at home to help birds survive as climate and their environment changes.
- Visa fler