Special Editions

This month we look into the light to discover how Diamond's new Imaging and Coherance beamline is helping scientists see with greater clarity than ever before! We hear how the beamline works to provide greater resolution imaging, how rocks deep beneath the earths surface can be analysed for potential storage…

19 Sep 2011 33 min

This week in the Planet Earth Podcast: in a geoengineering special edition, we take a closer look at some of the technologies we may have to resort to using to avert dangerous climate change.

14 Sep 2011 21 min

This week in the Planet Earth Podcast, why scientists are working with the National Trust to restore the chalk grasslands around Stonehenge; how researchers are using satellites to study microscopic plants; and the etiquette of dining and bullying in baboons.

23 Aug 2011 19 min

This week in the Planet Earth Podcast, how scientists are using fish scales to figure out why the UK salmon population is falling; and how carbon dioxide emissions from power stations could be used to make household bricks.

12 Aug 2011 17 min

A species of tropical vine attracts its bat pollinators using acoustic signals, rather than bright colours or smells, according to a study published in the journal Science this week. In this special podcast, Dr Marc Holderied discusses this unique discovery.

29 Jul 2011 5 min

This week in the Planet Earth Podcast: why scientists are planning on drilling three kilometres beneath the Antarctic ice sheet in one of the most ambitious exploration projects ever undertaken; and how worms that feed on dead whale bones at the bottom of the ocean may be distorting the whale…

26 Jul 2011 19 min

This week, why understanding rip currents at Perranporth in north Cornwall could help save lives; how exactly does carbon capture and storage (CCS) work and how can scientists be sure that carbon will be stored forever?

12 Jul 2011 18 min

This month, we venture into the synchrotron along with members of the public to bring you a glimpse of the Inside Diamond open days. We meet the engineers and technicians that design the components of the synchrotron to keep it running smoothly, hear from Diamond CEO Gert Materlik about the…

8 Jul 2011 30 min

This week in the Planet Earth Podcast, why weathermen are using a converted World War II bunker to monitor clouds; how thug species such as bramble, nettle and bracken can be just as damaging to woodlands as alien plants; and why scientists are going to Greenland to deploy a network…

7 Jul 2011 19 min

Professor Jenny Morton provides new insight into the cognitive abilities of the supposedly dim-witted sheep and explains how these quick learning animals can be used to model Huntington's Disease…

28 Jun 2011 17 min

This week in the Planet Earth Podcast - what UK farmers are doing to protect the country's vanishing bumblebees, butterflies and other pollinating insects; how scientists are trying to figure out how many types of microbes there are on our planet and why they all matter; and why birds are…

17 Jun 2011 20 min

Anything in the deep sea, whether that's the microbes that live down there, or the research vehicles sent down to take samples of them face the same challenges from being way down deep. So why study the deep ocean depths? And how do we do it? For this naked scientists…

10 Jun 2011 26 min

This week in the Planet Earth Podcast - the cunning tricks the cuckoo uses to get another bird to do the parenting, why researchers are studying snow in Sweden, and how an improved radiocarbon dating technique may put a few scientists' noses out of joint.

3 Jun 2011 20 min

One of the biggest problems when it comes to caring for the ocean realm is that it is out of sight and out of mind. It's hard to care about something you don't know about, and most people, most of the time, don't have a chance to see ocean life…

2 Jun 2011 11 min

How do marine animals hear, see, touch, and smell the world around them? Life underwater is obviously very different to life on land and it can be difficult for us air-breathing humans to imagine what goes on down there beneath the waves. But understanding how animals find their way around…

2 Jun 2011 17 min

The saying goes that we known more about the surface of the moon than we do about the deep sea - and that's probably true. But modern technologies are opening up the mysterious depths allowing scientists to venture further than ever before into this alien realm. In this special podcast,…

2 Jun 2011 15 min

Zero Degrees of Empathy

This month, Professor Simon Baron-Cohen explores human empathy and explains what empathy is, how it differs amongst the population and the neurological and environmental causes of these differences…

1 Jun 2011 21 min

This week in the Planet Earth Podcast, why removing some man-made coastal flood defences might not be such a harebrained idea, what it's like studying gas exchange in the wilds of the Southern Ocean, and, in what could be the first case of 'natural' geoengineering, how forests could be whitening…

24 May 2011 18 min

This week in the Planet Earth Podcast: how a specially-designed twin turboprop research plane is helping scientists in a huge range of subjects from archaeology to ecology, and why a violent space storm could spell trouble for communications systems across the world.

5 May 2011 21 min

This week in the Planet Earth Podcast, how last year's eruption of the Eyjafjallajkull volcano in Iceland gave scientists an unparalleled opportunity for research, and why sediment from rivers like the Thames can act like time machines to bygone eras.

26 Apr 2011 19 min