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

Hosts: Ed Brown, Dr. Shayne Jospeh, Penny Dumsday, Jo Benhamu

00:00:54 After many months away from the show, Shayne discusses his depression and how he's been dealing with it.
00:11:26 Two astronomers published a paper that seemed to suggest our hominid ancestors switch to walking on two feet as a result of a supernova exploding around 8 million years ago. And while that may be plausible, it wasn't really what the paper was about.
00:21:09 Dr. Susan Mackinnon, from Washington University in St. Louis, recently faced an ethical dilemma while in surgery. To save her patient's leg, she needed to rely on controversial Nazi-made illustrations.
00:43:51 In a large fake village in Burkina Faso, entomologists have used a genetically engineered fungus to almost eradicate an entire population of mosquitoes. This could be an exciting project to end malaria and other mosquito-borne diseases.
00:51:40 Science on Top
This episode contains traces of WCNC-TV's Wake Up Charlotte hosts discussing a fan's Mariah Carey birthday cake.

Direct download: SoT_0334.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 9:11pm AEDT

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

00:00:23 For bonobo males, sex is often done under mother's watchful eye. But it's not quite that creepy - the mother's are helpful, allowing the primates to copulate in peace!
00:04:33 Detecting lung cancer in the early stages can be tricky even for very experienced radiologists. But a huge test using Google's AI computers found that the algorithms performed better than humans, and made fewer false positives.
00:18:45 There's a climate change emergency, as atmospheric carbon dioxide levels are increasing rapidly. Fortunately, the trees are adapting to help us out, and a new study has found that the amount of carbon dioxide being absorbed by plants is also increasing. But it's not keeping up and won't won't last.
00:28:35 The contents of a small pouch, made from three fox snouts stitched together, have been analysed and may be the earliest evidence of the use of ayahuasca, a hallucinogenic plant preparation.


This episode contains traces of Leo Laporte, Jeff Jarvis and Mathew Ingram discussing Elon Musk's Starlink project, on This Week in Google.

Direct download: SoT_0333.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 2:09pm AEDT

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

00:00:34 Penny gives us a trip report on her recent trip to Lake Mungo - a dry lake in remote Australia that's known for the discovery of 20,000-60,000 year old human remains.
00:09:58 All we know about Denisovans - a species of hominid that split off from the human lineage alongside the Neanderthals - comes from a little finger bone, three teeth and a sliver of bone. But now the discovery of a jawbone, found two and a half thousand kilometers away suggests they might have been quite widespread throughout Asia.
00:15:50 Scientists at University College London accidentally invented a material that could revolutionise a wide range of technologies, such as batteries.
00:27:41 As the antibiotic resistance crisis deepens, scientists are turning to genetically modified viruses as a treatment for bacterial infections.
00:49:57 Millions of species of fungi and bacteria work together to form a vast, interconnected web of organisms throughout the world's forests. Now scientists have mapped this “wood wide web” using a database of more than 28,000 tree species in more than 70 countries.

This episode contains traces of Megan Dice from News12 reporting on the declaration of New Jersey's official state microbe.

Direct download: SoT_0332.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 9:39pm AEDT

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