Science On Top
The Australian Podcast putting Science on Top of the agenda

Continental drift could have been started by a massive meteorite impact 3 billion years ago.

Fossilised daddy longlegs reveal the arachnids had an extra pair of eyes 305 million years ago. And weren't cute then, either.

A new study suggests that even if there was liquid water on the surface of Mars billions of years ago, there wasn't enough atmospheric pressure to keep it liquid for long.

The UK Government has stockpiled over £500m worth of the antiviral drug Tamiflu. A study now finds that the drug would have little to know effect on the spread of influenza or the duration of flu symptoms. According to medical journalist Ben Goldacre, this finding is symbolic of substantial transparency issues within the pharmaceutical industry.

Ten world-class violinists tested expensive 'Old Italians' - Stradivarius and del Gesu violins - against modern, much cheaper instruments. The modern instruments were overwhelmingly preferred.

Direct download: SoT_0144.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 10:16pm AEDT

We have six basic facial expressions, but computer software has shown we combine them to display hybrid emotions, like 'happily surprised' or 'angrily surprised'.

Scientists have long suspected that Saturn's sixth largest moon, Enceladus, held large amounts of water beneath its icy surface. But now gravity measurements have found a large ocean below the southern polar region.

Genetic modification could allow us to grow plants that are more easily broken down to make biofuels and paper.

Contrary to a lot of media reporting, rats might not be completely off the hook when it comes to spreading the Black Death.

On April 21st, NASA plans to crash a recent lunar probe, LADEE, into the moon.

Direct download: SoT_0143.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:53pm AEDT

A woman with a bone disorder has had her cranium replaced with a 3D printed one, and shows no sign of rejection.

Skeletons unearthed last year from a burial ground in London may suggest that the Black Death plague was spread via the air, not tick bites from rats.

The rubber hand illusion is an old trick where your brain is fooled into thinking a rubber hand is your own. Psychologists in Italy have now made people believe the hands were made of marble. Because Italy.

Could the Permian extinction, the largest mass-extinction on Earth, have been caused by the farts of single-celled microbes?

Obakata, lead researcher in the STAP papers, found guilty of fabricating data. And an acupuncture trial gets undue media attention.

Direct download: SoT_0142.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 9:27pm AEDT

Giant pythons in Florida's everglades can navigate vast distances, and we're not sure how.

For the first time ever, an asteroid in our solar system has been discovered with a ring system.

Dark chocolate is good for you, but it's the bacteria in your gut that make it so.

Astronomers have discovered an icy body with an orbit so big it never gets closer than 12 billion kilometers from the Sun!

Direct download: SoT_0141.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 3:18pm AEDT

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