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

Two major reports have highlighted the impending dangers of antibiotic resistance. In the UK a government report estimated that an outbreak of a drug-resistant infection in Britain could cause up to 80,000 deaths, while in the US the CDC issued an alert about a new strain of the common Shigella bacteria that is resistant to the usual antibiotics used to treat it.


New observations suggest that while the universe is still expanding, and that expansion is accelerating, it might not be accelerating as fast as previously thought.


The Large Hadron Collider has been restarted after numerous upgrades have been installed.


Many people use paracetamol, or acetaminophen, as a painkiller for chronic lower back pain. But new research indicates it's ineffective for back pain or osteoarthritis. And it could be doing more harm than good.


A new analysis of photographs of Jupiter's moon Ganymede has found a 'bulge' on the largest moon in the solar system. The bulge is 3km high and hundreds of kilometres wide!

Direct download: SoT_0183.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 11:53am AEDT

A new study has been published in the Lancet which suggests babies who were breastfeed were more likely to have higher IQs, spend more time in school, and end up in higher-paying jobs.

A study by researchers at the University of Notre Dame looked at baboon social structure and how that affected variation in gut microbiota.

A team based in Oxford has published a detailed genetic ancestry map of Great Britain - essentially a country-wide family tree. And that analysis demonstrated waves of migration by different populations into the United Kingdom throughout history.

A serendipitous discovery by scientists at Stanford has found a way to convert leukemia cells into cancer-fighting immune cells.

NASA is taking suggestions to name geologic features on Pluto and Charon when the New Horizons spacecraft flies past in July.

Direct download: SoT_0182.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 11:18am AEDT

For the first time, a salty subsurface ocean on Jupiter's largest moon Ganymede has been detected through the use of auroras. The idea of a subsurface ocean isn't new, but auroras have never before been used as a detection mechanism.

In an elegant experiment, scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology have found that bacteria can share nutrients between each other through tiny feeding tubes.

Researchers in France have modified memories in sleeping mice. My electrically stimulating parts of the brain they were able to associate certain locations with rewards.

A team of scientists at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel were testing the theory that people sniff their hands after handshakes. They secretly filmed 153 volunteers and discovered that handshakes could be responsible for transmitting chemical biosignals between people.

There are 17 regions on Comet 67P that have material that appears to be moving. And now scientists may have figured out how these "wind tails" may be occurring.

Direct download: SoT_0181.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 12:24am AEDT

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