I have started a new podcast called The Pod - I'd love you to have a listen and tell me what you think! Mr Science Show is not gone though, it will continue on boldly!

The Pod is about ocean swimming - there is more to ocean swimming than swimming in the ocean - and will cover a whole spectrum of topics. It is likely to be a very sciencey show!

So here's Episode One, which is a science-based episode on flesh-eating sea lice. For more information, please check out the notes over on The Pod.

A few weeks back, I had a great chat about birthday mathematics with Glynn Greensmith on the It's Just Not Cricket show on ABC Radio. It was great! We discussed how when you are born in the year influences your latter life, some counter-intuitive probabilities regarding shared birthdays, a bit of astrology and whatever else popped into our heads.

The audio belongs to the ABC - see here for more on the show.

2016 is the International Year of Pulses,

which aims to heighten public awareness of the nutritional benefits of

pulses as part of sustainable food production aimed towards food

security and nutrition. I spoke to Daniel Tan from the University of Sydney's Faculty of Agriculture and Environment about his research into pulses, including genetic resistance to heat waves and climate change, plant physiology and genetics, crop modelling and why he is known throughout the University as "The Hot Scientist".

Feel free to leave your favourite pulse recipe below in the comments! Some good ones are here.

Listen below:

Songs in this episode (all Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial (3.0)):

Happy 2016! This week, I spoke on ABC Radio Central West about some of the science we can expect in 2016:

Listen in to this show below on ABC NSW's soundcloud page, or grab the mp3.

As always, thanks for Kia!

2015 was a magnificent year for physics. Not only was it the International Year of Light and light-based technologies, it was an outstanding year of astronomical achievement, culminating with the magnificent New Horizons photos of Pluto. It was also 100 years since the Theory of General Relativity was published, and 50 years since the Cosmic Background Radiation was discovered.

Australia also broke a couple of astronomical world records: The most people stargazing across Australia, and in a single location at ANU. One of the organisers of this world record was Tom Gordon, a science communicator at The University of Sydney who runs Kickstart Physics (Instagram), which are physics workshops aimed at year 12 science students and teachers. Tom, along with Christie McMonigal and Shane Hengst, runs the STEMPunk podcast,

chatting about science communication and Science, Technology,

Engineering and Mathematics (STEM): Communicating scientifically with

science communicators.

Who better to talk to about this splendid year in Physics than Tom?

Listen in here:

Songs in this episode (in order of play - all Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial (3.0)):

Sharks with Lasers by spinmeister;

 

From a recent chat with ABC Central West, this week is definitely a correlation of the week. Two separate stories on the topic of love and attachment highlight a couple of statistical concerns you need to be wary of when drawing conclusions from research:

Listen in below or on the mp3 (and all credit again to ABC and Kia).

 

Every month, I chat with ABC Central West and the science topics of the day, and this week we chatted food, in particular:

 Have a listen below, or on the mp3 - all credit to the ABC (and the wonderful host, Kia).

Do you remember Cold Fusion? Remember when electrochemists Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons claimed to have achieved nuclear fusion in a bottle on a table in their lab in Utah? That was so 80s! Cold Fusion

was quickly debunked and, apart from its appearance in a 1997 Val Kilmer Movie (The Saint), most people forgot about it. So it may surprise you to hear that Cold Fusion research continues to this day, with some “interesting” participants and some extraordinary and surprisingly persistent claims. The most recent International Conference on Cold Fusion (ICCF-19) was the largest yet reflecting a climate of renewed interest.

Dr. Timothy J. Surendonk has a passion for cold fusion, and in this podcast episode,

tells its story, of the new players, recent events,

and particularly the curious story of the

“e-cat.” It isn't heavy on technical science, but

rather a more entertaining talk that just might challenge the way you

relate to science.

Listen to this show here:

It is with great sadness that I let you know that my friend and co-Beer

Drinking Scientist, Darren Osborne, passed away in January after a brave battle

with brain cancer.

I've put a few words up over on the BDS website, so I'll direct you over there if you would like to have a look or if you would like to make a charitable donation to the Cure Brain Cancer Foundation.

The clips in this show might not be new to Mr Science Show listeners, but they are new to those who listened to BDS and are a nice collection of irreverent and ridiculous scientific conversations between us.

This Christmas break, I have been mucking around with science experiments for my kids. Here is the first of a few easy experiments you can try at home.

The following videos show you how to make a home-made lava lamp. It is very simple - grab a clear cup (or bottle or vase or flask), fill it about a third full of water and two thirds full of oil. The oil floats on the water as it has a lower density. Add some food colouring (you can do this at the start directly to the water, or after you have added the oil - this has the added benefit of showing that the food colouring does not dissolve in the oil, so it drops through the lower density oil to the water below).

You may already have Alka Seltzer in your medicine cabinet - it is an over-the-counter pain reliever containing Citric acid and Sodium bicarbonate (also known as baking soda). Split the alka seltzer tablets into about 4 bits, and add them to make your lamp. See the videos below for what happens.

Longer version:

The reaction that is occurring is:

Citric Acid + Sodium bicarbonate → Sodium citrate + Carbon dioxide + Water

Or more simply:

Note, if you don't have alka seltzer, you can try baking soda, but add some vinegar to the original water mix, as vinegar is acidic and provides the H+.

When you add the alka seltzer to the water, the citric acid and sodium bicarbonate start to dissolve, which allows the reaction to start and is why they don't react in solid form in the tablet.

The reaction produces gaseous carbon dioxide, which has a lower density than both water and oil, and hence rises through the layers. When the gas bubbles exit the water into the oil, they trap and pull up a small amount of water with them. When the bubbles reach the surface, they burst and the water falls back through the oil. It's worth looking at this closely, as you will observe coloured water droplets that don't have quite enough CO2 stuck to, or dissolved within, them to make it all the way to the surface, and so they float around, buffeted from side to side by other, more vigorously moving, droplets.

Here's some more over at CSIRO.