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

Hosts: Ed Brown, Penny Dumsday, Lucas Randall

00:01:24 The giant tortoise Lonesome George, the last of his species, was possibly as old as 102 when he died in 2012. Now sequencing of his DNA has revealed a number of genes that could give us clues about human life expectancy and particularly cancer.

00:08:10 Research into epilepsy has accidentally led to some exciting new developments in the treatment of depression and mood disorders. This is a serendipitous line of inquiry that came from observations of electrical stimulation of areas of the brain.

00:16:01 When it comes to hormonal birth control, it's pretty much a ladies-only club. But for decades researchers have been trying to develop a male pill, and now a reasonably large-scale trial is about to get underway looking at a contraceptive gel.

00:23:39 It's one of the greatest cosmological mysteries of our time - what makes up 95% of the universe. But the "Dark Fluid" theory could potentially solve the questions of both dark matter and dark energy. Perhaps.

 

This episode contains traces of ABC10's "Geek Labs" segment playing sounds recorded by the Mars InSight lander.

Direct download: SoT_0320.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 5:38pm AEDT

Our latest episode, 319 - Number Five Is Alive, had a pretty major glitch in that Lucas' track wasn't there at all. I realised the mistake shortly after posting it, and thought I had replaced it with the correct version, but obviously it didn't replace the file.

I've re-uploaded it and tested it now, it definitely works! So if you had any trouble playing that episode - specifically if it sounds like Lucas is being rude and not talking - then you may have to re-download that file again.

Or, you can listen on our website, YouTube, Stitcher or SoundCloud.

 

This is what happens when you upload the podcast late on a Friday night after a few drinks... :-(

Direct download: 319_mistake.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 11:14am AEDT

Hosts: Ed Brown, Penny Dumsday, Lucas Randall, Jo Benhamu

00:02:27 NASA's InSight probe lands on Mars, with a slew of instruments to analyse what the red planet is made of.

00:17:43 Against all conventional knowledge, mitochondrial DNA is sometimes inherited from the father.

00:28:01 Professor He Jiankui announced he's created the world's first ever gene edited babies using the CRISPR-Cas9 technique. His claims of HIV immune babies are extraordinary, but mired in contention amongst ethical and procedural controversy.

 

Jo Benhamu is a Clinical Research Nurse with a Masters in Bioethics.

 

This episode contains traces of Sir David Attenborough speaking at the COP24 UN conference in Katowice, Poland.

Direct download: SoT_0319.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 9:14pm AEDT

Hosts: Ed Brown, Penny Dumsday, Lucas Randall

00:01:10 Wombats - the cute, pudgy marsupials in Australia, have cubic poops. Square, angular blocks of poop. But how and why? We may now have a better understanding.

00:08:25 HD186302 is a star 184 light-years from Earth. And it's so similar to our sun, it could be long lost twin.

00:16:49 A team of researchers have studied the genomes of a group of microbes called Hemimastigotes and found that they are so bizarre, they deserve their very own kingdom in the tree of life.

00:26:02 Using the Keck observatory telescopes in Hawaii, astronomers have detected water in the atmosphere of a planet 179 light years away.

 

This episode contains traces of WNYC's On The Media looking at CNN's coverage of the U.S. Global Change Research Program's National Climate Assessment.

Direct download: SoT_0318.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 9:05pm AEDT

Hosts: Ed Brown, Penny Dumsday, Lucas Randall

00:02:00 There's a stream of stars hurtling through our region of the Milky Way galaxy, and they're bringing with them a "dark matter hurricane". It's probably nothing to worry about, though.

00:12:16 For the first time since 1889, the kilogram has been redefined according to a natural constant, instead of a lump of metal in a vault in Paris. The actual mass, for all intents and purposes, remains the same.

00:23:51 Previous studies of Neanderthal skulls found high rates of head injuries leading experts to believe they were a violent, savage people. But a new study finds that our human ancestors had a similar injuries and might not have been much different.

 

This episode contains traces of Professor Brian Greene explaining Dark Matter to CNN's Fareed Zakaria.

Direct download: SoT_0317.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 10:57pm AEDT

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