Crowdscience

E-cigarettes and vaping may only have been around for a decade or so but it's estimated more than 35 million people globally have taken it up. Marnie Chesterton heads to a vape show to discover why these gadgets are proving so popular, and hears from one expert who warns they could be damaging lung immune cells. She examines the research behind claims that e-cigarettes can help smokers quit, and finds conflicting evidence about how good they are at giving people the nicotine hit they crave. It's a research field that's in its infancy and with vaping technology constantly changing, it's little wonder some scientists say it's a struggle to keep up.Presenter: Marnie Chesterton Presenter: Marijke Peters(Photo: A woman smoking an e-cigarette. Credit: Getty Images)

Have you ever been out driving and noticed your mind… wandering? CrowdScience listener Sian Gardiner has. When travelling to visit her parents she has to cross a very large, very obvious bridge. But there are times when she finds herself on the other side with no memory of having gone over it. How is that even possible? Presenter Geoff Marsh buckles up to find out. He travels through the science of how driving becomes second nature, brakes sharply when he realises he’s not necessarily in conscious control at 70mph, and tries to refocus when he discovers why drivers don’t always see things that are staring them in the face. He also asks what’s happening when our mind drifts away from the road, and what can be done to help drivers pay more attention and reduce accidents. Presenter: Geoff Marsh Producer: Anna Lacey Sound design: Peregrine Andrews(Photo: A woman sits in her car, looking through window glass with rain drops. Credit: Getty Images)

In humans if you have two X chromosomes you are female and if you have an X and a Y then you are male. It is textbook science. But CrowdScience listener Du in Singapore has done some extra homework and found a piece of intriguing fish research which suggests a different outcome, at least for one species – tilapia, a popular fish on restaurant menus worldwide and as it happens, the first fish to visit space. Whilst humans couldn’t exist without an X-chromosome, tilapia apparently, can. In fact, they are happy with just two Y chromosomes. The existence of this odd breed comes down to the tilapia fish’s ability to change from male to female. Nature has come up with an array of bizarre solutions when it comes to sex determination and what sets you on one genetic path or another. And like with the tilapia fish, the decision isn't always for life. Some species of fish, lizards and even birds sidestep the chromosome system and morph between the sexes to survive a changing environment. How can they have both geneti

It’s the central question for the current generation of Mars missions. Since the first close-up pictures of the red planet back in 1965, decades of space missions have revealed our neighbouring planet to be cold, rocky and sterile. But there are hints of a more dramatic past; of raging volcanoes and flash floods. Could this be a planet where life existed? Could life still exist under the surface? And could humans live there, or even travel the distance to get there safely, at some point in the coming decades? CrowdScience listeners from Australia, Ghana and Canada have been musing on all sorts of Martian matters. Presenter Marnie Chesterton visits a corner of Stevenage, UK, with a distinctly unearthly appearance and takes a virtual tour of the Martian atmosphere. She also puts listeners’ questions to the scientists designing the spacecraft and instruments they hope will unlock the secrets of Mars. (Image: illustration of Mars shot from space. Credit: Getty Images)

The idea of creating underwater habitats has captured the imagination of writers, thinkers and scientists for decades. However, despite numerous grand visions, these dreams of aquatic metropolises have not yet come to fruition. Crowdscience listener and scuba enthusiast Jack wonders whether - given improved technology and the growing environmental pressures facing humans on land - it is time to reconsider the ocean as an alternative permanent living space for humans.Marnie Chesterton dons her flippers for Crowdscience in search of the oceanographers and architects who have dedicated their lives to designing vessels, labs and underwater habitats. She explores whether oceanic cities remain a sci-fi dream or a realistic solution to some of our modern challenges. Can the oceans’ largely unexplored resources be harnessed to support living underwater? (Photo: Illustration of a modern city under the sea. Credit: Getty Images)

What is light and can we trap it in a box? On this edition of CrowdScience, Marnie Chesterton brings you a kaleidoscope of colourful questions from listeners around the world, from Kampala to Chicago. Shireen asks why people have a favourite colour and whether other animals show colour preferences too. Marnie heads to the zoo to see what the birds, bees and butterflies think. There, she meets a colour-changing chameleon to find out how and why it does because of a question from Dramadri in Uganda. Meanwhile, Paul in Melbourne is interested to know more about colour blindness. And finally, Feroze asks why we only see a portion of the electromagnetic spectrum and wants to know if we might, one day, hack our vision to see beyond the seven colours of the rainbow.Presenter: Marnie Chesterton Producer: Graihagh Jackson(Photo: Stardust and magic in a woman hands on a dark background. Credit: Getty Images)

Hedgehogs are the UK’s favourite British mammal. They have cute furry faces, a snuffly nose and the ability to gobble up garden slugs. What’s not to like? Answer: quite a lot if you live in the Outer Hebrides. Hedgehogs were introduced to South Uist in the 1970s as garden pest controllers, but are now serious pests in their own right – munching their way through the eggs and chicks of globally important wading bird populations. This emblem of cuteness is really a killer. So what’s to be done? That’s the quandary facing this week’s CrowdScience thanks to a question from Juan Carlos in Cuba. He wants to know how different parts of the world are dealing with invasive species – one of the biggest threats to global biodiversity. Presenter Anand Jagatia heads to the Uists to hear how having an invader that’s loved by millions can cause a whole host of problems. He also discovers how various warring parties eventually came together to solve this very prickly problem. Also in the programme, Anand travels to South A

Teenagers are known for ignoring their parents’ advice, but is this reputation for rebellion well-founded? If so, is rejecting the advice of previous generations and treading our own path an important part of what it means to be human? Are we successful as a species precisely because of our questioning natures? Listener Hans started pondering these questions after his own adolescent children repeatedly ignored his nagging. Many animals simply follow in their parents’ footsteps – so what makes human children different? Marnie Chesterton and a panel of experts look at the science of taking advice and making decisions, finding out how human curiosity and exploration compare to other animals, learning the best ways to give and take advice, and seeing whether we’re more likely to trust artificial intelligence than the wisdom of our elders. Finally, we give listener Hans some expert advice on whether or not to keep nagging his kids.Presenter: Marnie Chesterton Producer: Cathy Edwards(Image: A father and son havin

This deceptively simple question from listeners Andy, Mike and James is actually one of the hardest questions CrowdScience has ever tackled. Why? Because even scientists struggle to explain the true nature of the magnetic force and to do so in a way that even presenter Marnie Chesterton can understand is a serious challenge. What is a magnet? And just what is going on when magnets exert a force?With the help of Melanie Windridge, Sean Giblin, Steve Bramwell, Charlotte New and Peter Morris we attempt to navigate the oddities of one of the most fundamental phenomena in the universe. (Image: A horseshoe magnet attracting some hammer nails. Credit: Getty Images)

Anand Jagatia heads to the rainbow nation of South Africa, to answer listener Lucy’s deceptively simple question. He follows the path of early human migration to understand the relationship between light skin and latitude, and find out how the world become more multi-coloured as people ventured further away from the equator. And he learns how our genes have helped us adapt to less sunny environments, hearing from the remote KhoeSan tribe in the Kalahari desert, who took part in a massive study aimed at giving scientists a better understanding of pigmentation. Producer: Marijke Peters Presenter: Anand Jagatia(Image: Four diverse women’s arms holding each others wrists in a circle. Credit: Getty Images)

Listener Pogo wants to know why there aren’t any cabbages – or any of the other vegetables – in his local forest. Where did they all come from? And could they someday disappear? Presenter Gareth Barlow goes hunting for wild snacks in a city park and unearths the evolution of our most beloved greens. The vegetables on our supermarket shelves today were not always nicely wrapped and tasty. Humans have been selecting for specific genes in plants for thousands of years by choosing to grow those we liked the most. Tomatoes have been transformed from a small prickly desert plant in Peru into a water guzzler with round, juicy, sweet fruits. But with breeding – and sometimes cloning – of plants we have also created genetic bottlenecks in many of the crops we rely heavily on. This has left many of our vegetables across the world vulnerable to shifts in climate, natural disasters, wars and diseases. To find solutions to this massive breach in food security, CrowdScience heads to the Millennium Seed-bank in England. By

Sex – for most organisms - is about meeting the right partner. But what if you and your mate are stuck far apart with no ability to travel? This dilemma could put a bit of a downer on your sex life, but is faced by plants everywhere. Presenter Anand Jagatia uncovers the happy fact that not only have plants overcome this problem, they positively excel at it. From hay fever to honey, the sexual strategies of plants affect us daily, and we couldn’t live without their success. In this episode, CrowdScience is answering the questions you sent after a previous episode entitled ‘Can plants talk?’ which explored the way plants and trees use a fungal network to communicate. This time, we explore how plants ‘feel’ bees as they fly past, and more complex communication involving the ‘wood wide web’.Presenter Anand Jagatia Producer: Rory Galloway(Image: A yellow dandelion flower attracts a pollinator in the evening sunlight. Credit: Getty Images)

Some of the biggest reserves of freshwater are right under our feet and they're really important for farming as well as providing us with water to drink. However, in some areas of the world, groundwater is being slurped up quicker than it can be replenished. In fact, about 1.7 billion people live in regions where groundwater is under stress, 60% of them in India and China. This figure is set to rise as the climate changes and as the population grows.CrowdScience listener Waheed from Afghanistan wants to know if we will run out of groundwater and what the repercussions might be. Marnie Chesterton trots around the globe to find out, starting with a row on the River Thames before hearing from Afghanistan to understand what’s happening where Waheed lives. She learns of what has happened to London, Mexico and Malta when they over pumped their aquifers. Finally, Marnie looks to Bangalore where the population is booming to understand how they’re coping with increasing demands on water. Presenter: Marnie Chesterton P

What sounds heavenly to one person might sound like boring noise to another - but why are our musical preferences so different? Is it all down to what we hear growing up, or are other factors at play? CrowdScience listener and music lover Jocelyne from Canada wants to know why she has a different song for every mood, and why she likes different music from her friends and family. Meanwhile in Italy, composer Elisabetta Brusa asks us whether the rules of harmony align with the laws of science, and should therefore not be broken. We talk to both musicians and neuroscientists to explore the truth about harmony and discord. We find out how age, personality and experience all affect whether we find certain songs pleasing or offensive, and learn why the search for the true universals of music pleasure is a race against time.Presenter: Marnie Chesterton Producer: Cathy Edwards(Image: A couple laying in the grass listening to music on headphones. Credit: Getty Images)

Hypnosis has a long and controversial history, with its roots in animal magnetism or mesmerism, the theory developed by 18th Century German doctor Franz Mesmer. He believed he had discovered an invisible natural force possessed by all living things, and that he could channel this force for healing purposes. Popularity of hypnosis has since waxed and waned, but was largely denounced as quackery until the 20th Century, when it began to be studied scientifically. However it is only in the last twenty years or so that is has become incorporated into mainstream science and medicine. But is it a real phenomenon, asks listener Gratian from Poland; and Anton from Ireland wants to know how it works and what happens to people’s brains and bodies under hypnosis?CrowdScience speaks to Dr Quinton Deeley, consultant psychiatrist and senior lecturer at the Institute of Psychiatry, who has used it in practice for many years, and Dr Amir Raz, a magician-turned-neuroscientist who is shedding light on how hypnosis works. To see

Electric cars are labelled as ‘zero emissions’ vehicles – but what does that really mean? Jack Stewart puts your questions about EVs to the experts. According to a new report by the Union of Concerned Scientists, just how green your EV is compared to a petrol or diesel vehicle, depends on how the electricity powering the battery was produced, as well as how cleanly the battery itself was manufactured. Jack also explores what could be a compelling alternative to plugging in – filing up with Hydrogen, and creating nothing but water as exhaust.Presenter: Jack Stewart Producer: Rami Tzabar(Image: Electric cars on charge. Credit: Getty Images)

For some it's a way to get closer to God, for others a tried and tested way to lose weight - but listener Amine wants to know if fasting has any other, unexpected health benefits? So presenter Marnie Chesterton cuts down on cookies and investigates the science behind low-calorie or time-restricted eating. She hears how some cells regenerate when we're deprived of food, which one researcher says could reduce breast cancer rates. And she finds out what happens in our brains when our bodies rely on our own fat reserves for fuel. Presenter: Marnie Chesterton Producer: Marijke Peters(Image: Clock on an empty plate. Credit: Getty Images)

Why is it that computers are so much faster than brains at some tasks? Or could human brains one day be used to better effect? Listener Praveen from India was wondering how it can be that supercomputers are so very powerful compared to the human minds that created them. So CrowdScience, with the help of a small voice-activated guest presenter, is off to discover how the first computers remembered what they were told, how a million processors are being connected together to mimic a small percentage of a human brain, and how the mind-boggling speeds of modern computing is enabling the current leaps in artificial intelligence. Producer: Alex Mansfield Presenter: Marnie ChestertonSpeakers: Sarah Baines, David Lewis - Museum of Science and Industry, Manchester James Sumner, Steve Furber - University of Manchester Aldo Faisal - Imperial College, London.(Photo: 3D transparent human head and brain image. Credit: Getty images)

Kenyan listener Docktor can’t help himself. When music is playing he must move to the beat and he wants to know why. What role does dance play in human evolution? And what does dance mean to us? To help answer the many twists and turns in Docktor’s questions, the CrowdScience team heads to one of the most vibrant and diverse dance scenes in the World, Havana in Cuba. For Cubans dancing is at the heart of their cultural identity. They tell stories, bond with others, practice religion and celebrate their African ancestry through dance ¬– which came to Cuba with the slave trade. For all humans, dancing is intimately connected to our love of music and is likely to be one of our oldest cultural practices. But why would our ancestors have wasted energy on what superficially seems to serve no survival benefits? Evolutionary anthropologist Bronwyn Tarr tells us that one clue lies in the brain. When we dance with others our brains reward us with a cocktail of feel-good hormones and this likely leads to profound social

Humans have the potential to eat pretty much anything – but the reality is we don’t. Wherever we live in the world, we eat just a small fraction of the foodstuffs available and show strong preferences for certain foods over others. Those preferences can change dramatically from person to person, or as the saying goes – one man’s meat is another man’s poison. Then at the extreme end of the spectrum you get so-called ‘fussy eaters’ who reject so many foods that they are confined to beige diets of crisps, crackers and cereal. So why do we show such different preferences for food? And why are some people fussier than others? That’s what CrowdScience listeners Orante Andrijauskaite in Germany and Anna Nicolaou in Belgium would like to know, and what Datshiane Navanayagam is off to find out. She discovers how both biology and culture shape whether a food is disgusting or delicious and learns why we should stop giving children a hard time about finishing their dinner. She also learns how global cuisines evolved and