Hosts: Ed Brown, Penny Dumsday, Lucas Randall

00:00:34 Snails are a French delicacy that has led to the near extinction, and now revival, of tiny culturally and scientifically important snails in French Polynesia.

00:06:45 3.5 million years ago, something in our galaxy exploded. As more evidence comes in, it's looking like the black hole in the centre of the Milky Way gobbled up some young stars.

00:16:04 The scourge of cane toads continues to spread across Australia. But could a native rodent have learned how to slaughter and eat them? Yes, and they have.

This episode contains traces of 12-year-old Tai Poole, host of popular podcast Tai Asks Why, talking with Natasha Mitchell about the importance of curiosity in school.

Hosts: Ed Brown, Penny Dumsday, Lucas Randall

00:00:29 A new hypothesis in the quest to explain the bizarre dimming patterns of Tabby's Star: could it be a moon getting shredded?
00:18:36 It's a belief that's been widely held since 1971: women who live together sync their periods together. But many attempts to replicate the original study have failed, so why is it still such a prevalent belief?
00:28:13 Take a computer algorithm, teach it to read scientific papers, feed it thousands of journals, and watch it predict future discoveries. This could be a new field of scientific endeavour.

This episode contains traces of The President of the United States talking with astronauts Christina Koch and Jessica Meir while they participated in NASA's first ever all-female spacewalk.

Hosts: Ed Brown, Penny Dumsday, Lucas Randall, Peter Miller

The Ig Nobel Prizes honour achievements that first make us laugh, then make us think. We take a look at this year’s winners: from the benefits of pizza to the temperature of French postal packages!
You can watch the award ceremony here.

00:01:16 MEDICINE PRIZE which was awarded to Silvano Gallus, for collecting evidence that pizza might protect against illness and death, if the pizza is made and eaten in Italy.
00:08:26 MEDICAL EDUCATION PRIZE was won by Karen Pryor and Theresa McKeon, for using a simple animal-training technique — called “clicker training” — to train surgeons to per[form orthopedic surgery.
00:13:54 BIOLOGY PRIZE went to a team with members from Singapore, China, Germany, Australia, Poland, USA, and Bulgaria for discovering that dead magnetized cockroaches behave differently than living magnetized cockroaches.
00:19:20 ANATOMY PRIZE was award to two Frenchmen for measuring scrotal temperature asymmetry in naked and clothed postmen in France.
00:24:11 CHEMISTRY PRIZE Went to a team from Japan, for estimating the total saliva volume produced per day by a typical five-year-old child.
00:27:30 ENGINEERING PRIZE was won by Iranian Iman Farahbakhsh, for inventing a diaper-changing machine [for use on human infants.
00:30:54 ECONOMICS PRIZE went to three researchers from Turkey, the Netherlands, and Germany for testing which country’s paper money is best at transmitting dangerous bacteria..
00:36:42 PEACE PRIZE went to an international team of seven researchers, for trying to measure the pleasurability of scratching an itch.
00:40:40 PSYCHOLOGY PRIZE was awarded to German Fritz Strack, for discovering that holding a pen in one’s mouth makes one smile, which makes one happier — and for then discovering that it does not.
00:46:17 PHYSICS PRIZE was won by seven researchers from the USA, Taiwan, Australia, New Zealand, Sweden, and the UK for studying how, and why, wombats make cube-shaped poo.

Hosts: Ed Brown, Penny Dumsday, Lucas Randall

00:00:33 The large holes in T-Rex's skull might not have been for muscles, but thermoregulating blood vessels according to a paper published in the Anatomical Record.
00:06:13 An Australian team has developed a flu vaccine they believe could be the first human drug to be completely designed by artificial intelligence.
00:18:49 A team at Howard Hughes Medical Institute is painstakingly building a detailed map of a mouse brain - one neuron at a time.

This episode contains traces of Andrew Lund for 9News Australia, reporting on the naming of RRS Sir David Attenborough.

Hosts: Ed Brown, Penny Dumsday, Lucas Randall

00:00:47 After a British teenager went blind, media reports came thick and fast about the dangers of a junk food diet. But was he just a fussy eater, or was there a lot more to it than the headlines suggested?
00:07:50 Is climate change making spiders more aggressive? Well, yes - but only one species was studied and not aggressive in way that you'd expect.
00:20:39 After a spectacular wall collapse last year, a crater on Hawaii's Kīlauea volcano was left empty. And now it's starting to refill, but not with lava.
00:27:31 Could the search for extra-terrestrial life be easier if the aliens glowed? Under the right circumstances, bioluminescence could help us find life on other worlds.

This episode contains traces of KHON2 News' Brigette Namata and Justin Cruz discussing the teenager who went blind from junk food.

Hosts: Ed Brown, Penny Dumsday, Lucas Randall

00:00:26 Tiny, often-overlooked "cryptobenthic" fish are much more plentiful than we realised, and could therefore explain how reefs can thrive despite a lack of nutrients.
00:08:30 Astronomers using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory data have been able to measure how fast five supermassive black holes are spinning. One was spinning faster than 70% of the speed of light!
00:17:26 A new analysis of skull fragments found in Greece is leading archaeologists to reassess how and when the earliest humans moved out of Africa, suggesting it could have been as far back as 210,000 years ago.
00:25:12 The media loves to proclaim the dangers of our obsession with smartphones, but there may actually be some evidence to support curbing our digital immersion.

This episode contains traces of Rice University anthropologist Cymene Howe talking about a plaque commemorating Okjokull, the first Icelandic glacier lost to climate change.

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

00:00:26 A seemingly successful treatment of a nasty genetic disease would not have been possible without zebrafish.
00:10:52 It may seem counterintuitive, but a strain of virus linked to the common cold has been used to treat patients with a type of bladder cancer.
00:20:44 Fast Radio Bursts - the strong blasts of radio waves from distant galaxies - have mystified astronomers since they were first detected in 2007. But now for the first time, an FRB has been traced back to its host galaxy, 3.6 billion light years away!
00:33:39 Psychologists have conducted a large survey of nearly 2,000 volunteers to determine which animals and insects people are most afraid of, and most disgusted by. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it didn't go well for spiders.

This episode contains traces of astronaut Buzz Aldrin talking about the meaning of the Apollo 11 moon landing.

Hosts: Ed Brown, Lucas Randall, Jo Benhamu

00:00:25 Dogs have evolved - mostly through artificial selection - to be our best friends. And a part of that evolution, according to a study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, meant developing special muscles to help them give us those "puppy dog eyes". You can test your own dogs "dognition" at dognition.com!
00:15:27 It's widely believed that at the centre of every large galaxy there's at least one supermassive black hole - a black hole that's millions or even billions of times more massive than our Sun. But earlier this year a group of astronomers announced a discovery that means the accepted theory of how a they're formed is wrong. But there are some plausible new theories that could explain it.
00:25:08 Media reports that mobile phone use could be causing teenagers to develop horns on the back of their heads were alarming and widespread. But perhaps unsurprisingly, those reports were flawed interpretations of bad science.

This episode contains traces of business journalist and Sunrise breakfast television show presenter David Koch discussing external occipital protuberances with lead author and chiropractor Dr. David Shahar.

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

00:00:39 Winemaking in France dates back more than 12,000 years. But new research looking at the DNA of ancient grapes has found one particular variety that's remained unchanged for over 900 years.
00:09:13 The largest crater in the solar system, the South Pole-Aitken basin, is on the far side of the moon. And astronomers have found an unexpected very dense mass there, deep below the surface.
00:19:08 Positron Emission Tomography - better known as PET scans - show levels of chemical activity in the body and are useful, for example, for detecting cancer cells. Now new modified PET scanners have been demonstrated that drastically speed the process up and reduced the amount of radiation used.

This episode contains traces of a BBC News report and surprise guest on stage at Glastonbury Festival 2019.

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.