This week, we learn about Esther Lederberg - another overlooked female scientist who helped to lay the groundwork of modern molecular biology. In our SNPit, Ash tells us about how city planners are responsible for your bad hayfever. 


Read more about Esther Lederberg and bacteriophages at the links below:

• Esther Lederberg and Her Husband Were Both Trailblazing Scientists. Why Have More People Heard of Him?
• Esther Lederberg, Pioneer of Bacterial Genetics
• The Deadliest Being on Planet Earth - The Bacteriophage
• Phage Therapy in the Post-antibiotic Era

Want to learn more about male trees, pollen, and hayfever? Check out these links:

• The Reason Your Hayfever is So Bad? Blame Botanical Sexism
• Hay Fever: What Happens When an Allergy Kicks In?

Music:

AhDah Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

This week, Ash tells us about a mysterious flesh-eating bacteria that’s appeared near Melbourne, and the disease it causes – Buruli ulcer. In our SNPit, we talk about spider silk, and how it could be the material of the future.


Read more about Buruli Ulcer at the links below:

• Buruli ulcer: Review of a Neglected Skin Mycobacterial Disease
• WHO: Buruli ulcer Factsheet
• Australia has a Flesh-Eating Bacteria Problem

Interested in reading more about spider silk? Check out these links!

• Silk Feeding as an Alternative Foraging Tactic in a Kleptoparasitic Spider Under Seasonally Changing Environments
• Spider Silk Violin Strings
• 1 Million Spiders Make Rare Golden Cloth
• Artificial Spider Silk: Why You Should Care About it
• A Marine Photosynthetic Microbial Cell Factory as a Platform for Spider Silk Production

Music:

AhDah Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

This week, Rosie introduces us to the weird world of cryptozoology, and we learn a little bit of the science behind the pseudoscience. For our SNPit, Ash tells the story of Alfred Russel Wallace, Edwin Rist, and the Great Feather Heist. Listen now!


For more info on the Cryptids we discussed in this episode, head to the links below:

• Why 19th-Century Naturalists Didn't Believe in the Platypus
• How Australia Put Evolution on Darwin's Mind
• The Littlest Human
• Homo floresiensis: Making Sense on the Small-Bodied Hominin Fossils from Flores
• Is the Loch Ness Monster Just a Big Eel?
• Super Natural History: Loch Ness Edition 

More about Alfred Russel Wallace and the Great Feather Heist below:

• The Feather Heist: This American Life
• The Great Feather Heist 
• How an Obsession With Rare Bird Feathers Turned Criminal
• The Man Who Stole Bird Feathers 

Music:

AhDah Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

This week Ash talks about the history of plastics - from Celluloid to Tupperware - and how they were once considered the sustainable solution in our In Focus segment. In our SNPit, Rosie tells us about a new plan that could prevent the next pandemic.


Read more about the history of plastic and biodegradable alternatives below:

• A Brief History of Plastic's Conquest of the World 
• The Invention of Plastic Materials from Parkesine to Polyester
• A Brief History of the Invention of Plastics
• John Wesley Hyatt - Plastics Hall of Fame
• The Tupperware Effect, Empowering Women Around the World
• Secret History of: Tupperware
• Tupperware: Income Disclosure Summary
• When Biodegradable Plastic Is Not Biodegradable 
• 'Biodegradable' Plastics Survive Three Years in Soil and Sea
• Why Biodegradables Won't Solve the Plastic Crisis

More about the Global Immunological Observatory below:

• Could a Global 'Observatory' of Blood Help Stop the Next Pandemic?
• Science Forum: A Global Immunological Observatory to Meet a Time of Pandemics
• Swine Flu Strain With Human Pandemic Potential Increasingly Found in Pigs in China

Music:

AhDah Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Have you donated blood? Less than 5% of Australians donate blood annually, but a donation can be lifesaving. This week, Rosie discusses the work being done by researchers around the world to try and create blood without the need for donors. In our SNPit, Ash introduces us to the weird and wonderful world of lab-produced milk, and how it could change the future of farming.


Read more about blood transfusions and how how scientists are tackling limited blood availability at the links below:

• Blood lust: The early history of transfusion
• What is the history of blood transfusion?
• Artificial blood: Unsolvable biological puzzle or soon to be reality?
• Platelet bioreactor-on-a-chip
• Platelet biogenesis

Interested in lab grown milk? More information below!

• What's wrong with dairy?
• Milk's impact on the environment
• Perfect day foods
• TurtleTree labs
• Milk grown in a lab is humane and sustainable. But can it catch on?
• Milk minus the cows? Meet the Singapore start-up using stem cells to make milk
• Got impossible milk? The quest for lab-made dairy

Music:

AhDah Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

You’ve probably seen it all over Instagram, you might have been sucked into it yourself – people are crazy for indoor plants! But why is it such as obsession? Ash (a self-confessed plant addict) goes in focus this week on a few studies which might help explain it.
In our SNPit, Rosie takes us through some recent research investigating how bees can change the seasonal flowering of plants.


Read more about why you're obsessed with plants in the links below:

• A Study of Interior Landscape Plants for Indoor Air Pollution Abatement
• Stress-reducing effects of indoor plants in the built healthcare environment: The mediating role of perceived attractiveness
• Why more millennials are buying into 'plant parenthood'
• Put a ring on it? Millennial couples are in no hurry!
• Millennials prefer cities to suburbs, subways to driveways

Interested in bees? See below for more info on how they influence plants, and how you can help save the bees!

• Bumble bees damage plant leaves and accelerate flower production when pollen is scarce
• Bees force plants to flower early by cutting holes in their leaves
• 99% Invisible - On Beeing
• Save the Bees Australia: Bee the Cure

Music:

AhDah Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

This week, Rosie goes in focus to tell the story of Lise Meitner - a nuclear physicist who was integral to the discovery of nuclear fission - and we discuss the challenges faced by women in science. Ash continues the nuclear theme with her SNPit about the naming of medical imaging. 


For more about Lise Meitner and the discovery of nuclear fission check out:

• Lise Meitner and the Discovery of Fission by Ruth Lewin Sime
• A Nobel Tale of Postwar Injustice by Elisabeth Crawford, Ruth Lewin Sime, and Mark Walker
• Lise Meitner: a 20th century life in physics by Ruth Lewin Sime
• On Element 93 by Dr Ida Noddack

Want to learn more about MRI? Head to these links:

• https://www.nibib.nih.gov/science-education/science-topics/magnetic-resonance-imaging-mri
• https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/nmr-imaging-in-medicine/
• https://www.khanacademy.org/test-prep/mcat/physical-processes/proton-nuclear-magnetic-resonance/a/magnetic-resonance-imaging-mri

Music:

AhDah Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/