From dumping raw sewage into rivers to littering the streets with our trash, humans don’t have a great track record when it comes to dealing with our waste. It’s something that CrowdScience listener and civil engineer Marc has noticed: he wonders if humans are particularly prone to messing up our surroundings, while other species are instinctively more hygienic and well-organised.

Are we, by nature, really less clean and tidy than other animals? Farming and technology have allowed us to live more densely and generate more rubbish - maybe our cleaning instincts just aren’t up to the vast quantities of waste we spew out? CrowdScience digs into the past to see if early human rubbish heaps can turn up any answers. We follow a sewer down to the River Thames to hear about The Great Stink of Victorian London; turn to ants for housekeeping inspiration; and find out how to raise hygiene standards by tapping into our feelings of disgust and our desire to follow rules.

Presented by Marnie Chesterton and produced by Cathy Edwards for the BBC World Service.

[Image: Man on beach with rubbish. Credit: Getty Images]

You have probably experienced an ‘earworm’ - a catchy bit of music that plays round and round in your head and won’t go away – at least for a short while. But why did it pop up in the first place and how did it get stuck?

CrowdScience listener Ryota in Japan wants us to dig into earworms, so presenter Datshiane Navanayagam bravely puts on her headphones to immerse herself in the world of sounds that stick. She meets with a composer of children’s songs as well as music psychologists to find out if there is a special formula to creating catchy songs and probes if this musical brain quirk serves any useful purpose. Datshiane then explores whether some people are more prone to catching earworms than others. Finally, for those who find this phenomenon disturbing - she asks is there a good way of getting rid of them?

Come join us down the audio wormhole - disclaimer - the BBC is not responsible for any annoying earworms caused by this broadcast.

Presented by Datshiane Navanayagam and produced by Melanie Brown

Interviewees:

[Image: Audio Cassette. Credit: Getty Images

We are running out of ammunition against certain infections, as bacteria increasingly evade the antibiotics we’ve relied on for nearly a century. Could bacteriophages – viruses that hunt and kill bacteria – be part of the solution?

In 2019, CrowdScience travelled to Georgia where bacteriophages, also known as phages, have been used for nearly a hundred years to treat illnesses ranging from a sore throat to cholera. Here we met the scientists who have kept rare phages safe for decades, and are constantly on the look-out for new ones. Phages are fussy eaters: a specific phage will happily chew on one bacteria but ignore another, so hunting down the right one for each infection is vital.

Since then, we’ve lived through a pandemic, the medical landscape has been transformed, and interest in bacteriophages as a treatment option is growing throughout the world. We turn to microbiologist Professor Martha Clokie for updates, including the answer to listener Garry’s question: could phages help in the fight against Covid-19?

Contributors:

Presented by Marnie Chesterton

[Photo:Bacteriophages infecting bacteria, illustration. Credit: Getty Images]

Artists can conjure up people, cities, landscapes and entire worlds using just a pencil or a paintbrush. But some of us struggle to draw simple stick figures or a circle that’s round. CrowdScience listener Myck is a fine artist from Malawi, and he’s been wondering if there’s something special about his brain.

Myck takes Marnie Chesterton on a tour of his studio, where he paints onto huge canvases sewn from offcuts of local fabric. He’s a self-taught artist and he’s convinced he sees things differently to other people. So where does that all come from? Do artists have different brains from non-artists? And what is it that makes someone a creative person, while others are not?

With the help of a jigsaw puzzle, a large metal donut, a swimming cap covered in electrodes and and a really boring brick, Marnie probes the brains of people working to find answers to those questions. She’ll be learning about how we don’t really see what we think we see, why creative people’s brains are like private aeroplanes, and how daydreaming can be a full time job.

Contributors:

Presented by Marnie Chesterton

Hair is an important part of our identities – straight, frizzy, long, not there at all – and our efforts to keep it styled and clean have created an $80 billion hair care industry. Many products offer to improve the life of the stuff on our heads, but isn't it all just dead protein?

CrowdScience listener Toria wants to know what 'healthy' hair really means. To untangle the science behind hair, we zoom in to see how hair grows from the follicles in our scalp and explore how the hair growth process will change over our lifetimes.

Changes in our hair and disorders affecting the scalp can often have emotional impacts on our lives, as presenter Marnie Chesterton learns from a dermatologist who specialises in hair issues.

Having been on a journey with her own hair in recent years following chemotherapy, Marnie is ready for a new 'do and ventures to the hair salon to find out about the health of her own hair.

Meanwhile, another CrowdScience listener, Lucy, wonders why humans lost hair (or fur) on most of our bodies when most other mammals are covered in the stuff. A biological anthropologist who studies not only why hair became concentrated on our heads, but also why there's so much diversity in hair types across humans, unpacks the evolutionary benefits.

With all these different hair types, does different hair need different care? And when it comes to shampoo, conditioner, washing, blowdrying and dyeing, what should we be doing to keep our hair structure sound?

As we learn about this strange nonliving feature of our bodies, Marnie finds a new appreciation for the "dead strands of protein sticking out of our skin". And with listener Toria's help and advice, she also finds a new shade for her chemo-curled locks.

Presented by Marnie Chesterton and produced by Sam Baker for BBC World Service.

Featuring:

● Tina Lasisi, Penn State Department of Anthropology

Death is inevitable, though many of us would rather not dwell on it. For those with a terminal illness, however, the end of life is clearly a more pressing reality.

CrowdScience listener Sam has known for a while that her illness is terminal, and by now she’s got used to the idea. But she finds many friends and family would rather avoid the subject at all costs; they don’t want to acknowledge what’s happening until it’s all over. She’s wondering if there’s a way to lighten up the topic of her approaching death, and create the openness she craves.

If we could learn to be more accepting of illness and dying, the end of life could be a more positive experience for all involved. So how can we face up to the impending death of a loved one, and best support that person in the process?

With Dr Rachel Menzies, Abigail Griffin, Dr Suresh Kumar and Rebecca Nellis. Thanks to Lola, Juan, Leon, Qayyah, Bessy, Madhumita, Ashley, Amaru, Mila and Sheila.

Presented by Caroline Steel

[Image: A woman sitting next to her sister who has cancer. She is wearing a headscarf. Credit: Getty Images]

Every year, new computers are being developed that are faster and smarter than ever before. But if you really want to take things to the next level, you've got to go quantum. CrowdScience listener Atikah in Hungary likes the sound of a quantum computer but wants to know: what exactly is it, what can it do that a normal computer can't, and how soon can she get hold of one?

The digital devices in our everyday lives - from laptop computers to smartphones - are all based on 0s and 1s: so-called ‘bits’. But quantum computers are based on ‘qubits’ - the quantum 0s and 1s that are altogether stranger, but also more powerful. With the help of quantum computing researcher Jessica Pointing and a spinning doughnut, presenter Alex Lathbridge learns how these ‘qubits’ allow computers to perform calculations millions of times faster than normal.

While quantum computers do exist, it turns out they're not yet big enough or stable enough to be really useful. Alex visits Professor Winfried Hensinger and his prototype quantum computer at the University of Sussex to understand what they can do right now, and why it’s so incredibly difficult to scale them up. He hears from the engineers racing to overcome the obstacles and unlock the potential of these mega-powerful systems.

But once the engineering problems are solved, what then? Professor Shohini Ghose opens our eyes to the exciting range of possible applications - from helping create new drugs, to making electric batteries much more efficient and maybe even helping farmers fertilise their crops for a fraction of the price.

Contributors - Jessica Pointing, Professor Winfried Hensinger, Professor Shohini Ghose

[Image: Winfried Hensinger in his lab at the University of Sussex, Credit: Universal Quantum]

Humans can walk for miles, solve problems and form complex relationships using the energy provided by daily meals. That is a lot of output for a fairly modest input. Listener Charlotte from the UK wants to know: how efficient are humans? How do they compare to cars, other animals and even to each other?

Presenter Marnie Chesterton pits her energetic self against everything from cars to rabbits to find out how she shapes up.

Marnie also explores whether humans are born equal when it comes to fuel efficiency. Does the energy from one banana get converted into the same amount of movement from person to person? Marnie gets on a treadmill to find out how efficient she really is. With contributors from Herman Pontzer, Duke University, Rhona Pearce, Loughborough University and Christian Gammelgaard Olesen from Wolturnus wheelchair manufacturing company.

Presenter: Marnie Chesterton

Art Design: Jonathan Harris

Image credits:

Airplane:

This week’s CrowdScience is dedicated to bodily fluids – and why humans spend so much time spraying them all over the place. From snot and vomit to sweat and sneezes, listeners have been positively drenching our inbox with queries. Now presenter Marnie Chesterton and a panel of unsqueamish expert guests prepare themselves to wade through…

One listener has found that as he ages, bright light seems to make him sneeze more and more – with his current record sitting at 14 sneezes in a row. He’d like to know if light has the same effect on other people and why?

Sticking with nasal fluids, another listener wants to know why she’s always reaching for a tissue to blow her endlessly dripping nose and yet her family seem to produce hardly any snot at all. Could it be because she moved from a hotter climate to a colder one?

CrowdScience reveals the answers to these and other sticky questions… if you can find the stomach to listen.

Produced by Melanie Brown

[Image: Woman sneezing. Credit: Getty Images]

If you go outside with a spade and start digging, the chances are you won't find any gold. You might get lucky or just happen to live in a place where people have been finding gold for centuries. But for the most part, there'll be none. But why is that? Why do metals and minerals show up in some places and not others?

It's a question that's been bothering CrowdScience listener Martijn in the Netherlands, who has noticed the physical effects of mining in various different places while on his travels. It’s also a really important question for the future – specific elements are crucial to modern technology and renewable energy, and we need to find them somewhere.

Marnie Chesterton heads off on a hunt for answers, starting in a Scottish river where gold can sometimes be found. But why is it there, and how did it get there? Marnie goes on a journey through the inner workings of Earth's geology and the upheaval that happens beneath our feet to produce a deposit that’s worth mining.

On the way she discovers shimmering pools of lithium amongst the arid beauty of the Atacama Desert, meets researchers who are blasting rocks with lasers and melting them with a flame that’s hotter than the surface of the sun, and heads to the bottom of the ocean to encounter strange potato-sized lumps containing every single element on Earth.

And maybe, just maybe, she’ll also find gold.

Contributors:

Presented by Marnie Chesterton

[Image: Hands holding Gold Nuggets. Credit: Getty Images]