Planet Earth

This week in the Planet Earth Podcast: how scientists plan to measure the Earth's magnetic field from space, why one researcher is in the frozen town of Churchill in northern Canada, and how the Chernobyl disaster still affects Northern Ireland 25 years on.

This week in the Planet Earth Podcast: how the famous White Cliffs of Dover could be made of fish poo (at least partially), why one researcher is so interested in dead whales, and why the Japan earthquake was so powerful and devastating. Join Richard Hollingham and Sue Nelson to find out more...

This week in the Planet Earth Podcast: how carbon capture and storage works and why it's here to stay, the effect of floodplains on water pollution, and how exactly do you measure the thickness of polar ice from space? A pub isn't an obvious place for a discussion about taking carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and storing it in rocks deep underground, but the venue for this week's Planet Earth Podcast isn't any old pub. This pub is set into the sandstone rock in the centre of Nottingham and is the perfect place to demonstrate exactly how the technology works. Richard Hollingham visits Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem to see for himself...

This week in the Planet Earth Podcast: how tracking insects can help scientists forecast summer storms and floods, and the role one of Europe's key satellite missions played in the recent floods in Queensland, Australia.

This week in the Planet Earth Podcast - how the Romans recycled glass, dinosaur colour, and what Europe's gravity mission tells us about ocean currents. Did you know that the height of the world's oceans can vary by as much as 200 metres? These huge differences depend almost entirely on very slight changes in gravity across the world. Sue Nelson goes to the National Oceanography Centre in Southampton to find out more. We also hear that even the Romans recycled glass. But were they being green, or did they have other reasons? Richard Hollingham goes to Norwich to meet the archaeologists with the answer. Finally, what colour do you think dinosaurs were? Until now artists have been free to paint them whatever colour they felt like. But not anymore - scientists now have a way of figuring out what colour they were. Richard goes to Bristol University to get the low-down from one of the scientists at the forefront of this research.

In this latest watery-themed Planet Earth Podcast, Richard Hollingham hears how the underwater world isn't the soundless place you might imagine. From chirping, gurgling and snapping sounds from busy coral reefs to clicking sperm whales, scientists are finding that all sorts of marine life use sounds to find a suitable home, to find a mate, to avoid being eaten or to communicate. First up, we hear from a marine biologist from the University of Bristol who explains how manmade noise might not affect just whales and dolphins, but also much smaller creatures that live in and around coral reefs. Later, Richard meets a British Antarctic Survey scientist to find out how fossils of tiny marine creatures called bryozoans give us clues about when the West Antarctic Ice Sheet last collapsed. We also hear the strange clicking sounds sperm whales use to communicate with each other, and find out how very far leatherback turtles can swim.

As the UK winter continues to bite, Sue Nelson tries to escape it all by going to visit a coral reef. Unfortunately for Sue, the coral reef is not in some sunny clime. Instead, it's an indoor coral reef at the brand new Coral Reef Research Unit at the University of Essex. Researchers are using the reef to look at the effects of ocean acidification on coral in a unique experiment. Sue meets David Smith and David Suggett from the Unit to find out exactly what they're up to. Later, Sue talks to Andy Morse from the University of Liverpool. Andy's an expert on the effects of climate change on the spread of infectious diseases. Sue finds out that as the climate changes and brings warmer and wetter weather, we might get more than we bargained for. Finally our correspondent in Antarctica - the British Antarctic Survey's medical doctor, Claire Lehman - meets a researcher who tells us how she finds out how the sea around the continent changes with the seasons.

This is a special edition of the Planet Earth podcast, featuring some of our favourite audio diaries from the past year. We've got scientists using cannons to study geese in Ireland, researchers collecting mongoose poo in Uganda, Darth Vader impressions from beneath Antarctic ice and tiger leeches in a researcher's pants. In the first feature, Tim Cockerill from the University of Cambridge gives us an insight into studying insects in pristine rainforests of northern Borneo, describing some of the downsides. Next, Michael Cant, also from the University of Exeter tells us how cooperative - or not, as the case may be - Ugandan mongooses are. We then head down to the freezing cold waters of Antarctica to hear how British Antarctic Survey doctor Claire Lehman gets on when she joins the dive team.

Red squirrels used to be the most common squirrel in Britain. But since the grey squirrel was introduced from the USA as an illegal immigrant in the late 1800s, their numbers have nose-dived. This is partly because the greys out-compete red squirrels for food: they feed on the ground and can digest unripe acorns, which red squirrels can't. But it's not just food; grey squirrels brought a deadly virus with them, which has hit red squirrel populations hard. Sue Nelson goes to a National Trust wood near Liverpool, one of the last red squirrel strongholds in the country, to find out how they have coped with the virus. Later Richard Hollingham goes to Glasgow to find out how scientists know what Antarctica's climate was like 50 million years ago. Even though it was in the same place as it is now, temperatures on the continent were surprisingly different from what they are today.

In this podcast Richard Hollingham reports from an unusual and somewhat cold location - onboard the British Antarctic Survey's RRS James Clark Ross which was stuck in the ice for two weeks 1000 kilometres from the North Pole. He talks to researchers on the ship about their work, finds out exactly how dangerous polar bears can be and hears what it's like to dive in freezing cold waters. He also learns that the Arctic isn't the desolate, barren place you might at first imagine. No, it's full of life. Not just big stuff like bears, seals and gulls, but algae and microorganisms that literally keep our planet alive.