Special Editions
Probing the weird, wacky and spectacular, the Naked Scientists Special Editions are special one-off scientific reports, investigations and interviews on cutting-edge topics by the Naked Scientists team.
Bird societies
You might think we are special as humans for forming societies with complex structures. But we are not actually so different from other species in this regard. It was believed that complex social structures were a trait of large mammals only - but a recent study has shown that birds…
Voyager 2: leaving the Solar System
In recent months the satellite Voyager 2, launched in 1977, became the second man-made object to escape from our Solar System and begin its journey into interstellar space. We know it's done that because it's crossed the heliopause, a bubble made by particles, called a plasma, that stream off the…
Oil wastewater makes earthquakes stronger
Oil production has multiple environmentally-devastating consequences - including creating of billions of gallons of salty, chemical-filled wastewater. Typically, companies dispose of this wastewater by pumping it deep underground. But a growing body of evidence shows that this pumping causes 'injection-induced earthquakes', most notably the Jones earthquake swarm: thousands of earthquakes…
Glass recognises numbers just by looking
We have smartphones, smart watches, even smart fridges. But now, from a paper published in the journal Photonics Research, we could be seeing smart glass. Researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison created a piece of glass that can mimic machine visual perception, basically how smart phones recognize your face to…
Brain changes in obese children
One in five UK children are obese. The biological and social factors behind this are complex, but the long term consequences range from cardiovascular and liver disease to diabetes. Now, according to a new study, it may even affect the development of a child's brain too, with overweight children showing…
Old books reveal how happy we once were
Considering people's wellbeing in making policy decisions is becoming more and more important, but it's only in recent years that governments have started to record the subjective satisfaction of the population. A team of researchers is looking to fill in the historical gap for national mood by analysing the text…
Gene boost makes cancer more visible
Immunotherapy is the term used to describe techniques that provoke the immune system to attack and remove cancer. The argument goes that because the immune system is extremely specific in what it targets, and because it has a memory and can learn and improve its action as it goes along,…
Robots in blood vessels
You're probably familiar with the 1966 science fiction film "Fantastic Voyage", where a submarine crew are shrunk to microscopic size and venture into the body of an injured scientist to repair damage to his brain. They're not quite at the stage of shrinking scientists yet, but engineers in America have…
Cooling that comes with a twist
What if the next refrigeration technology could be based on twisting and untwisting strands? A new paper published in Science by an international team of researchers explored how twisting and stretching can change the temperature of certain types of fibres, leading them to propose a new method for building fridges…
Prostheses that can restore lost sensation
Can we help people who've lost a leg to feel it again? Mariana Marasoiu has this report... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists
Are phone masts going to get larger?
Mobile phone companies could be set to erect bigger and taller phone masts as part of government plans to roll out 5G networks and improve coverage in rural areas. How might taller masts help with connectivity - and what is 5G anyway? Tech-xpert and Angel Investor Peter Cowley explains to…
Antimicrobial resistance and future plastics
Bacteria are becoming increasingly resistant to many of the agents we use to deal with them, including antiseptics. The bacterium Acinetobacter baumannii is one example and causes hard to treat skin, chest, and urine infections in hospitals. Now, a team at the University of Newcastle, Australia have discovered a gene…
Stronger earthquakes from oilfield wastewater
A research team from Virginia Tech, led by Ryan Pollyea, has found that earthquakes 8 kilometres below the earth's surface are increasing in intensity. Published in the journal Nature Communications, the team's work has found that a super-dense liquid called oilfield wastewater is seeping deep into the sheets of the…
The science behind heatwaves
A heatwave has been sweeping across Europe recently, causing record temperatures across the continent and creating a lot of consternation in the Naked Scientist office. But where do heatwaves come from. And what's going to happen in the future. Adam Murphy spoke to Manoj Joshi, professor of climate dynamics from…
Decoding the Minimal Genome
Your genome contains all of your genetic information, and it's pretty long - the Human Genome Project estimated that humans have between 20,000 and 25,000 genes. But according to synthetic biology, you can survive on only 473! At least a very simple bacterium can. Of this "minimal genome", scientists previously…
The Largest Seaweed Bloom on Earth
The world's largest patch of seaweed appears every summer in the mid-Atlantic. Since 2011, the Great Atlantic Sargassum Belt has been growing to monstrous sizes - thousands of kilometres long - and it's been clogging up beaches along the Americas with metres of stinking brown sludge. Now, scientists in Florida…
The nervous system of worms
The nervous system is a complicated network of specialized cells, called neurons, that allow the transfer of information from one part of our body to another. To help our understanding of the nervous system in humans, scientists have been mapping the connections between neurons in a type of round worm,…
Oumuamua is alien technology no mua-more
You might remember from a year or so ago stories of an alien fly-by. The unidentified object was famously referred to as Oumuamua, which means "scout" in Hawaiian. Now a paper just out in the journal Nature Astronomy has revisited the story to probe whether Oumuamua really is alien technology,…
Extremely Fast: The Future of Electric Racing
In June, Izzie Clarke explored the extremely fast science of speed and headed to the race tracks with McLaren in their 600LT Spider supercar. But whilst Formula 1 and petrol racing have a huge fan base, we're also seeing the rise of electric racing, Formula E. In this bonus interview,…
Making crops more light sensitive
With a rising global population, and the impending impacts of climate change, we need more food, and reliable food sources safeguarded for the future. But varying light levels mean that plant growing conditions aren't always consistent, as Katie Haylor has been finding out... For information regarding your data privacy, visit…