Comparatively, we know an awful lot about life on the surface of planet earth. We know a lot less about the extent of life in our oceans, and we know even less about the life festering deep beneath us, in the rocks underground. Scientists estimate that 20% of the earth's biomass (that's the combined weight of all living things) are beneath our feet - microbes adapted to the extreme temperature and pressure down there. Geologists, like Andy Mitchell from the University of Aberystwyth, are determined to understand more about these microorganisms, and not just for scientific interest. If we are... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

Babies born during the Covid-19 lockdowns are behind on their language development. That's the finding of a recent study comparing infants born during the pandemic with similar children born in previous years. The reason, as the Royal College of Surgeons Ireland's Susan Byrne explains to Risa Bagwandin, is that social isolation and face masks made it harder for developing youngsters to explore, socialise and interact in the key ways that help foster their communication skills... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

A new non invasive technique to pick up breast cancer has been unveiled by UK scientists. Breast cancer is the most diagnosed form cancer in the UK. Dense breast tissue, particularly common in young women, is difficult to image using existing techniques. Now scientists at the National Physical Laboratory have developed a new technique , using ultrasound. Risa Bagwandin spoke to senior research scientist, Daniel Sarno... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

Apopo is a charity that trains African giant pouched rats for humanitarian purposes, with a view to combating some of the challenges faced by countries in the developing world. Originally, they trained these much shunned rodents to sniff out unexploded landmines left over from wars in countries like Mozambique. More recently, their keen sense of smell has also enabled trainers to develop them into excellent detectors of Tuberculosis carriers, so that patients can get diagnosed more quickly than before and receive treatment. Now, these Hero rats as they've been dubbed, are being prepared for a... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

Did you end up in your dream job? Or did you end up pursuing a career quite intensely for some reason that eludes you? Perhaps the media representation of your profession had a part to play. Shrikanth Narayanan and colleagues from the University of Southern California created a dataset to analyse 4000 professions in the subtitles of over 136,000 movies and TV shows and found that their representation may have influenced some of us to take up a career we loved watching on screen... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

There's news of a huge rift in the world of video games... EA Sports, who made the first ever FIFA football game in 1993, have announced that they will no longer be licensing the FIFA name. Chris Berrow, from the Naked Gaming Podcast, has been finding out why and what the consequences might be... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

Now, I want you to cast your mind back to that first lockdown (if you can bear it) and to think about the ways you chose to fill all that new found free time. Perhaps, like the participants of a survey conducted by the Paris Brain Institute to learn more about the effects of the pandemic on creativity, you decided to sharpen your culinary skills, or spent more time pottering in the garden. But what can this uptick in artistic endeavours in such strange circumstances tell us about the way we react to new situations? This and more was the topic of conversation between James Tytko and... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

Dingoes are native Australian dogs, although how and when they got to Australia isn't known. They were certainly already there by the time the first western explorers visited the continent, but fossil dingo remains go back only a few thousand years. So what is the relationship between dogs and dingoes, and the wolves they're both related to? Speaking with Chris Smith, Latrobe University's Bill Ballard got into this debate under slightly unusual circumstances... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

Coffee prices are on the rise and the plant is said to decline by 60% before 2050, meaning new coffee alternatives are being considered in order to give us that caffeine hit. Harry Lewis speaks to Charlie Shaw from Atomo coffee to find out how they've been making our favourite beverage, without the use of coffee beans... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

If I asked you to give up one of your five senses, which one would you choose? Chances are, instead of giving up your ability to see or hear, your sense of smell would be in pole position for the chop. Scientists in Germany think we're under appreciative of smell in our evolution as a species, with new research from the Max Planck Institute exploring biomolecular methods to bring smells from the past back to life. James Tytko spoke with Barbara Huber... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists