CrowdScience

CrowdScience dives back into a debate about trees and their ability to tackle air pollution. Growing trees take in carbon dioxide and emit oxygen, but their leaves also attract tiny particles, which can get into our lungs and brains. So how good are they at cleaning our clogged up skies? Following on from our original programme, CrowdScience was contacted by a team of researchers in the UK who claim tress may be as much as 50 times better than previously thought at mopping up particles, and learn that hedges may help us stay healthy on roads. Also in the programme, we discover what pollutants are doing to our brains and reveal research which shows that keeping house plants can significantly reduce pollution inside the home.

Do you have a question we can turn into a programme? Email us at [email protected]

Presenter: Marnie Chesterton

Producer: Marijke Peters

CrowdScience heads to the Sydney Science Festival in Australia where, from a special event at The Powerhouse Museum, we reveal answers to questions listeners have been sending in such as: What living thing has the most toxic venom? What is déjà vu? And why do our fingers wrinkle in the bath? To tackle our listeners’ questions about life, Earth and the universe, presenter Marnie Chesterton is joined by four special guests who will bring the good, weird and bemusing from the world of science to the stage.

Prof Shari Forbes, Professor in Forensic Science at the University of Technology Sydney,aims to help police and forensic teams establish a more precise time of death in missing person and homicide cases.

Dr Katie Mack is an astrophysicist at the University of Melbourne. Her work focuses on finding new ways to learn about the early universe and fundamental physics using astronomical observations.

Dr Jonathan Webb runs the science unit at ABC RN. He is also a former neuroscientist and a former science reporter for BBC News in London.

Dr Alice Williamson is a chemistry lecturer and researcher at The University of Sydney. She hosts a weekly science segment, Up and Atom on FBi Radio in Sydney, co-hosts RN’s Dear Science, and is a regular guest on Dr Karl's Shirtloads of Science podcast.

Do you have a question we can turn into a programme? Email us at [email protected]

Presenter: Marnie Chesterton

Producer: Marijke Peter and Jen Whyntie

(Image: Koala in tree Credit: Getty Images)

Is it possible to get power from lightning? This was the first CrowdScience question posed by listener John Emochu in Kampala, Uganda, in November 2016. We revisit John’s story as presenter Marnie Chesterton goes hunting for answers at a lightning lab in Cardiff, Wales, where she discovers just what lightning lab is, and how to make a tiny – but very loud – lightning bolt. And we tackle the best of the many questions that came into our inbox about thunderstorms after the original broadcast – from how many types of lightning exist to whether antennae in the clouds could gather electricity. Finally, we head to Kampala to meet listener John to hear just what he thought of the programme and what life is really like in one of the lightning capitals of the world.

Do you have a question we can turn into a programme? Email us at [email protected]

Presenter: Marnie Chesterton

Producer: Jen Whyntie

(Image: Artist impression of lightning inside a conical flask. Credit: Getty Images)

** Contains some upsetting scenes **

As a species, we humans can be uniquely horrible to our own kind. But are we the only animal to commit murder? Listener Michelle’s question sends CrowdScience trekking – and getting lost - in the Budongo rainforest in Uganda in search of one of Man’s closest relatives, the chimpanzee.

We hear from the scientists, who only days before the team’s arrival at the camp, witnessed a gang of chimps brutally killing another adult. But does chimpanzee lethal aggression pass muster as murder? We head to the capital Kampala for some legal advice and take a look at the grim history of putting animals on trial.

Do you have a question we can turn into a programme? Email us at [email protected]

Presenter: Geoff Marsh

Producer: Louisa Field

(Image: Closeup of angry chimpanzee Credit: Getty Images)

How do we end up speaking the way we do? What's happening in our brains and mouths to make us sound so different from each other - even when we’re speaking the same language? This week on CrowdScience we return to our listener Amanda’s question of why there are so many accents, and discover more about what our accents say about us.

We visit Glasgow in Scotland, home to one of the most distinctive dialects of English, to see how social status and age affect the way we speak; and investigate another of our listeners’ questions: is there really such a thing as a ‘political accent’?

But how do babies pick up accents in the first place – and is it impossible to learn new sounds later in life? Presenter Nastaran Tavakoli-Far discovers something unexpected about her own accent, visits a voice coach to try and sound Texan, and uses ultrasound to try and get her tongue round new sounds.

And you can find out how much of an accent expert you are, by taking part in our online quiz.

Do you have a question we can turn into a programme? Email us at [email protected]

Presenter: Nastaran Tavakoli-Far

Producer: Cathy Edwards

(Image: Woman holds hand near ear and listens carefully alphabet letters flying in. Credit: Getty Images)

People said they’d never catch on. Mobile phones, the internet and even robot assembly lines all once seemed like niche technologies. But today they are at the heart of the modern world.

But just how far can technology go? Could machines start to compete with humans in making complex and life-changing decisions, like those made by lawyers and judges? That’s what CrowdScience listener Zackery Snaidman from Orlando in the US wants to know and presenter Marnie Chesterton has set out to find answers.

She starts at a hackathon in London, where she witnesses the birth and design of the UK’s new online court. And in Uganda, she hears how technology and social media is filling a crucial gap left by a shortage of human lawyers. Marnie is also surprised to discover a simple algorithm that regularly out-performs human judges in making bail decisions.

But could technology bring as many problems as it solves? Could seemingly ‘unbiased’ computers hide the prejudices of their makers? And more fundamentally: With our future liberty at stake, is the world ready to leave their fate in the hands of machines?

Do you have a question we can turn into a programme? Email us at [email protected]

Presenter: Marnie Chesterton

Producer: Anna Lacey

(Image: Digitized Lady Justice. Credit: Getty Images)

A billion people across the world smoke cigarettes, and many would agree it’s the hardest habit to quit. One such smoker, listener Sharif, emailed CrowdScience from Uzbekistan to ask if we could find out why giving up is so difficult. Marnie Chesterton travels to San Francisco to meet addiction experts and discovers how nicotine tricks smokers into thinking tobacco’s good for them. And we meet ex-smokers at a weekly therapy session aimed at retraining the brain.

Do you have a question we can turn into a programme? Email us at [email protected]

Presenter: Marnie Chesterton

Producer: Marijke Peters

(Image: Lit cigarette. Credit: Getty Images)

Earlier this year Crowdscience explored the question of time. Back then we were on a mission to uncover what the real time is and how we're able to measure time to ever greater degrees of accuracy. But as ever, the programme uncovered more questions than answers so presenter Anand Jagatia is back to try and find out where time comes from, why it runs forwards and not backwards, what happens to time in a black hole and does time even exist beyond our experience of it? We speak to Claudia Hammond, author of a book that reveals the mysteries of time perception and the man who defined time for the online Encyclopaedia Britannica, tells us if time really exists or not.

Do you have a question we can turn into a programme? Email us at [email protected]

Presenter: Anand Jagatia

Producer: Rami Tzabar

(Image: Abstract clock image. Credit: Getty Images)

We're always up for a challenge on CrowdScience but this week’s question, which comes from an artist, tests our limits as we investigate the nature of thought itself – something that has puzzled scientists and philosophers since ancient times.

Undeterred, presenter Nastaran Tavakoli-Far heads off to the Spanish island of Ibiza to visit listener Romanie in her painting studio and attempt to peer into the workings of her mind. As we explore the relationship between thought and language, why not join in with our experiments to discover if you’re thinking visually or verbally?

We find out how language can affect thinking in surprising ways – why German speakers might see a bridge differently from Spanish speakers, how being bilingual can make you a better driver and even why some languages give their speakers a remarkable sense of direction.

Do you have a question we can turn into a programme? Email us at [email protected]

Presenter: Nastaran Tavakoli-Far

Producer: Cathy Edwards

(Image: The Thinker a bronze sculpture by Auguste Rodin. Credit: Getty Images)

David in Bogota might have raised a few eyebrows in the CrowdScience office with his questions – can plants talk? And can they hear us talking to them? But actually scientists now know that plants do have the ability to communicate with the world around them to a much greater extent than previously thought. Some scientists even talk about plants being able to “hear” a hungry caterpillar or the sound of running water, while others argue that we should not anthropomorphise plants.

One underground communication network, affectionately dubbed the Wood Wide Web by scientists, is made of fungi that grow off the roots of plants. The network lets plants forge alliances, friendships and business partners.

But as we learn nothing is free in nature. In return for their haulage services, the fungi which make up the network siphons off some of the sugar produced during photosynthesis by the plants. Presenter Anand Jagatia goes foraging for answers in the woods together with fungal ecologists.

Do you have a question we can turn into a programme? Email us at [email protected]

Presenter: Anand Jagatia

Producer: Louisa Field

(Image: Misty path running through woodland. Credit: Getty Images)