This week in the Planet Earth Podcast: Mathew Williams of Edinburgh University and Shaun Quegan of Sheffield University talk about a new earth observation mission recently given the go-ahead by the European Space Agency.

This week in the Planet Earth Podcast: Helen King of Cranfield University, Jim Stevenson of Paxton Pits Nature Reserve, Cas Jewell of Nature after Minerals, and David Payne from the Mineral Products Association explain how environmental science can be used to turn old quarries into brand new habitats.

This week in the Planet Earth Podcast: Alan Blyth and Lindsay Bennett from NERC's National Centre for Atmospheric Science (NCAS) explain how the work they're doing this summer in a project called the Convective Precipitation Experiment (COPE) may help predict flash flooding and avoid a re-run of the flooding that hit Boscastle, Cornwall in 2004.

This week in the Planet Earth Podcast: Bethan Purse from NERC's Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, and Matt Elliott and Colin Edwards from the Forestry Commission, talk about a new map that could help control the spread of sudden oak death, a disease that threatens trees and plants like oak, beech, larch and bilberry.

This week in the Planet Earth Podcast: Alex Souza of the National Oceanography Centre and Jon Rees of Cefas talk about how their work could save the dredging industry money, maintain coastal defences and protect salt marshes.

This week in the Planet Earth Podcast: Duncan Cameron, Karl Evans and Despina Berdeni of the University of Sheffield explain how their work on the relationship between fungi and cider apple trees could help Heineken produce better cider, and improve food security and UK biodiversity.

This week in the Planet Earth Podcast: James Lee of York University tells us about a UK project which is the largest and most comprehensive effort yet to investigate air pollution across London, while Frank Kelly of King's College London describes the link between traffic, pollution and disease.

This week in the Planet Earth Podcast: Alison Tomlin and Joel Millward-Hopkins of the University of Leeds describe a wind map they've developed to help UK homeowners and businesses decide whether or not to install a wind turbine.

This week in the Planet Earth Podcast: Robert Mulvaney and Emilie Capron from NERC's British Antarctic Survey explain how ice cores drilled from Antarctica give us a unique window into Earth's past climate and reveal a worrying trend over the last 50 years.

This week in the Planet Earth Podcast: why the parasitic Yellow Rattle could bring benefits for wildflowers, and how climate change may affect the next generation of nuclear power stations.