Lefteris asks science

Greetings humans.

I'm launching a weekly newsletter with my favorite science news from a wide range of disciplines. Subscribe to the link below to get news from websites like Nature, Lancet, Nautilus, Scientific American etc.

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The sex life of insects is more interesting and more everchanging that you might think. Join me today as I ask Dr. Zac Wylde from the University of New South Wales questions about entomology (the study of insects) and evolution.

Find out more about Dr. Wylde in his website here: https://wyldescience.com/

Subscribe and rate the podcast here: https://www.lefterisasks.com/listen/

Are you afraid of spiders? That's ok, we won't go into the details about how spiders produce their webs and we will also not have creepy close up pictures of spiders in this episode! Dr. Aled Roberts from the University of Manchester is going to answer some questions I had based on his work with synthetic spider silk and how effective it is as an adhesive.

Greetings humans and welcome to the 12th edition of Lefteris asks science. This week I meet Dr. Sue McIntyre from the Australian National University to discuss agriculture and biodiversity. Dr. McIntyre recently wrote an article in The Conversation discussing the problems of intensive farming and potential alternatives. (find the article here https://theconversation.com/intensive-farming-is-eating-up-the-australian-continent-but-theres-another-way-130877)

The 11th edition of Lefteris asks science is here and this week we discuss with Prof. Tom Westby and Prof. Christopher Conselice from the University of Nottingham. They recently published a paper trying to predict how many other intelligent civilizations exist in the Milky Way galaxy. We discuss how they managed to reach to the number 36, what does that mean for us here on earth and many more...

And we made it to number 10 folks! Who would have thought? And as a treat for this edition of the show I interviewed Dr. Dimitris Statharas. Dimitris is my older, wiser and pipe-welder brother. Welding is a process that has been used for decades. However in this edition of the show through his research we will see that there are many things we can still find out about a process we know so well. (or so you think!?)

Language is a structured method of communication. Languages exist and evolve through the years and through space. In this edition of the show I met Dr. Florian Lionnet from Princeton University. I had many questions about how you can start documenting a language that you do not speak, what other things can someone understand from the ways languages evolve and adapt through time and space. 

Scientists continue to discover new things in their quest to understand the fundamental principles of life, and at the same time help improve the lives of millions. But with scientists being busy with their research and the public living in an extremely fast paced world, there are a lot of new technologies or discoveries that are either being overlooked or even misunderstood. Lefteris (that's me) meets with the scientists and tries to understand what their job entails and how can their work affect the lives of potentially millions of people.

Diagnostic devices have been in the epicenter since the start of the year. Hence, this week I meet Sophia Shanko a PhD candidate at the Eindhoven University of Technology. She explained to me how some diagnostic devices work and how she is trying to make them work faster.

Have you ever thought how fun bubbles are? Have you realized that bubbles could actually be extremely catastrophic for materials? This week I met Dr. Yves Paquette that explained to me how complex the phenomenon of a bubble burst can be inside a material.