Naked Scientists Special Editions Podcast

What do we know about Pfizer and bioNTech's new RNA-based COVID-19 vaccine, preliminary results for which were announced this week? Who was tested in the trial? And what is a genetic vaccine, why were vaccinees innoculated twice, what does 90% effective mean, and what's the reason it needs to be stored at -80º C? Joining RNZ's Kim Hill, virologist Dr Chris Smith explains... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

There's been a lot of discussion about the Swedish approach to the coronavirus pandemic, and back in September, Jonas F Ludvigsson, a paediatrician and clinical epidemiologist at the Karolinka Institute, published a paper describing in detail what happened in Sweden during the first 8 months of the pandemic, so between January and August 2020. Eva Higginbotham spoke to Jonas back in October... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

This month we hear about an artificial intelligence (AI) breakthrough for infertility, how ketamine can mimic some of the decision-making difficulties seen in schizophrenia, a new device to observe and document mosquito feeding behaviour, the key to scar-free wound healing, and how open is open access publishing at the moment? Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

Have you ever heard of the condition known as "heart failure with preserved ejection fraction"? If not, then you're not alone; despite it representing hundreds of thousands of heart failure cases every year in the UK alone, a new study shows that many doctors don't really understand it, and many patients don't even know they have it. In order to better understand the condition they call "heff peff", Emma Sowden from the University of Manchester and her colleagues have been speaking to people living with it - like Mancunian Mike Wardle - as well as to Phil Sansom... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

Virologist Dr Chris Smith joins Radio New Zealand National's Kim Hill to talk Covid-19. Why is the UK back in a lockdown, and did the measure come too late? How are we testing for the virus and how many cases are we missing? What is the incubation period, and what's the prospect for long term immunity? Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

There's been lots of talk over the last several months over how best to both protect people from coronavirus and protect the economy, and economist Quentin Grafton from Australian National University has been crunching the numbers. Back in September, he combined epidemiological models of how the virus spreads with models of the Australian economy, and found results that lockdown-sceptics might consider surprising, as he told Eva Higginbotham... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

Would you like to make more money? Understand your relationships better? Know when to trust someone, or something, or not? Well, David Sumpter's got an equation for you in his new book 'Ten equations that rule the world" as he explained to Eva Higginbotham... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

Were you waking up too early this week? Across Europe, we recently left summer Daylight Light Saving time and re-entered standard time. But where does this practice of changing the clocks come from, and is it still a good idea? Eva Higginbotham reports... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

Plastics are useful but notoriously hard to recycle back into their component chemicals, which limits what else we can do with them. Now, scientists in the US have developed a new catalyst that can break apart common plastics and turn them into chemicals that can be used to make other products. Cambridge University's Taylor Uekert works on ways to deal with plastic waste and she talked Katie Haylor through what the US team have managed to do... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

We've heard news that Morrisons, Waitrose and John Lewis' own brand Christmas products will not contain glitter this year. And now, scientists at Anglia Ruskin University have looked at making little ponds in the lab with river water and sediment. Katie Haylor heard from lead author Danielle Green, who explained that all the glitters they tested had an impact on the plants and algae in these ponds... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

If you've been paying attention to the news in recent times, you'll be very familiar by now with graphs: COVID rates, infection rates, data are being displayed in a plethora of ways. But there are, as the old saying Mark Twain made popular goes "lies; damn lies and statistics", so are there any "gotchas" we should look out for when someone shows us a graph? Adam Murphy caught up with Nira Chamberlain, president of the Institute of Mathematics... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

Britain recently began a diplomatic campaign to draw up new rules for responsible behaviour in space; essentially it's a "don't litter" policy intended to reduce the threat posed by decades of irresponsible dumping in orbit. But what's the scale of the problem of space littering, and how might things go wrong? Adam Murphy spoke to John Zarnecki, emeritus professor of Space Sciences at the Open University... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

On the 28th September, Boris Johnson committed to increasing the area of protected land in the UK to 30% by 2030. This announcement was made at a virtual UN event, where the prime minister, alongside upwards of 60 other world leaders, signed up to a pledge to tackle the world's chronic loss of biodiversity. Sir David Attenborough addressed the event too, imploring world leaders to do more to protect our natural environment. But what does this 30% actually mean for us here in the UK? Katie Haylor spoke to the RSPB's global conservation director Martin Harper... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

How do bees recognise who's a bona fide member of the nest and who is an impostor? It turns out that it's down to the bacteria they carry inside them... Eva Higginbotham heard how Cassondra Vernier at Washington University in St Louis has figured it out with her colleague Yehuda Ben-Shahar... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

Covid-19 is forcing educators to re-think centuries of teaching traditions and develop new ways to provide a rich but safe student experience. Jim Gazzard leads Cambridge University's Institute of Continuing Education (ICE). He joined palaeoanthropologist Lee Berger and Theo Bloom to speak with Chris Smith about how adult education and training are evolving rapidly... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

Listen in to a special interview all about the Naked Gaming Podcast.Gene "Bean" Baxter from Podcast Radio (and Radio Hall of Famer!) chats to Leigh Milner and Chris Berrow about what its like being married to each other, and recording our gaming podcast.Topics include: how coronavirus has affected the gaming industry, what the best simulator of all time is, and whether Google Stadia is really worth buying. And Bean had to start off asking if Chris and Leigh were naked. Luckily they are used to fielding that question. And if you're wondering the answer was... no. They were wearing dressing... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

As UK cases spike again, Dr Chris Smith joins RNZ's Kim Hill to discuss why some geographies are particularly hard-hit, what constitutes a "super-spreader" and who are the asymptomatic cases, what sentinel screening is telling us about the features and spread of Covid-19. Also on the table, low-cost rapid testing technology, the prospect of using testing to return the airline industry to viability, the timelines for vaccines, and why the Neanderthal in you might affect your coronavirus risk... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

This month on the eLife podcast, artificial intelligence reveals a better test for prostate cancer, is the brain stuffed with neuronal stem cells, bonobos with cultural preferences, and why some insects play "follow my leader"... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

On October 8th, about 15,000 students will return for the new academic year at Cambridge University. Other UK institutions have seen outbreaks and quarantine measures en-masse as Covid has ripped though university campuses. Cambridge Vice Chancellor Stephen Toope spoke with Chris Smith to discuss whether the student experience can be preserved at Cambridge in the face of measures required to control coronavirus... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists