Science On Top

Virologist Dr. Grant Hill-Cawthorne joins us to discuss Ebola. Everything you need to know about the current outbreak.Researchers in Florida have noticed than in just fifteen years a particular species of lizard has grown larger, stickier feet as an evolutionary response to an invading Cuban lizard.In the lead up to the attempted landing of Philae on a comet in a few weeks, the Rosetta probe has taken some readings. And now we know what a comet smells like, and it's not pretty.A man with a completely severed spinal cord can now walk again, thanks to a revolutionary surgery using stem cells taken from his nose.

Defence giant Lockheed Martin has announced it wants to build a truck-sized nuclear fusion power-plant in the next ten years. They just don't appear to have a plan.The microbes in our guts have their own body clocks, and they too get messed up when we get jetlagged.The giant kangaroos that used to roam the Australian continent were three times the size of their modern descendants. And new research shows they used to walk, rather than hop.NASA's Messenger spacecraft has provided the first optical images of ice on the planet Mercury.Mimas, one of the smaller moons of Saturn, may have an ocean of liquid water beneath its surface, after pictures taken by Cassini show an extra wobble in its rotation.

More artifacts have been recovered from the Antikythera wreck, the 1st century BC shipwreck discovered in 1900 off the coast of the Greek island Antikythera. None of the newly found artifacts, however, appear to be related to the mysterious Antikythera Mechanism, widely known as the first analog computer.

It had long been thought that volcanic activity on the moon stopped around a billion years ago. Now high-resolution images from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) suggest there was activity as geologically recently as 50 million years ago.

The next stage in fecal transplants could be a simple oral pill. Researchers from the Massachusetts General Hospital have managed to put frozen fecal matter into capsules that can be taken orally. These capsules have a similar 90% success rate against Clostridium difficile infection.

In order to study energy trade-offs in voles, scientists had to shave 120 rodents before re-releasing the furry mammals back into the wild. And then they had to recapture them!

There's a symbiotic relationship that's developed over millions of years between brewer's yeast and fruit flies. Understanding this relationship could give brewers more techniques for making distinctive beers.

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2014 was awarded with one half to John O'Keefe and the other half jointly to May-Britt Moser and Edvard I. Moser "for their discoveries of cells that constitute a positioning system in the brain".The Nobel Prize in Physics 2014 was awarded jointly to Isamu Akasaki, Hiroshi Amano and Shuji Nakamura "for the invention of efficient blue light-emitting diodes which has enabled bright and energy-saving white light sources".The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2014 was awarded jointly to Eric Betzig, Stefan W. Hell and William E. Moerner "for the development of super-resolved fluorescence microscopy".A team of scientists took soil samples at 596 sites across New York’s Central Park. They analysed the soil samples an discovered 167,000 different kinds of microbes, the vast majority of which were unknown to science.The characteristics of a previous mate can affect the attributes of a fruit fly's offspring. Even if the previous mate is not the genetic father of the offspring.Researchers at the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine in Winston-Salem, North Carolina are developing artificial penises developed from a patient's own cells. The team is hoping to receive approval from the US FDA to begin human testing the lab-grown penises within five years.

The Ig Nobel Prizes honour achievements that first make us laugh, then make us think. We take a look at this year’s winners: from banana peels to people dressed as polar bears!

PHYSICS PRIZEA team from Japan for measuring the amount of friction between a shoe and a banana skin, and between a banana skin and the floor, when a person steps on a banana skin that's on the floor.Banana peel slipperiness wins IgNobel prize in physics

NEUROSCIENCE PRIZEScientists from China and Canada for trying to understand what happens in the brains of people who see the face of Jesus in a piece of toast.University Of Toronto Researchers Find ‘Seeing Jesus In Toast’ Phenomenon Perfectly Normal

PSYCHOLOGY PRIZEA team from Australia, the UK and the US for amassing evidence that people who habitually stay up late are, on average, more self-admiring, more manipulative, and more psychopathic than people who habitually arise early in the morning.THE DARK TRIAD: People Who Love The Night Have Psychopathic Traits

PUBLIC HEALTH PRIZEA number of scientists from the Czech Republic, Japan, the USA and India for investigating whether it is mentally hazardous for a human being to own a cat. Turns out it can be, if you get infected with our old friend Toxoplasma Gondii.Parasite makes men dumb, women sexy

BIOLOGY PRIZEA team from the Czech Republic, Germany and Zambia for carefully documenting that when dogs defecate and urinate, they prefer to align their body axis with Earth's north-south geomagnetic field lines.Dogs align their bodies along a North-South axis when they poopDo Dogs Line Themselves Up With the Earth’s Magnetic Field to Poop?

ART PRIZEThree scientists from Italy, for measuring the relative pain people suffer while looking at an ugly painting, rather than a pretty painting, while being shot [in the hand] by a powerful laser beam.ITALY: Beautiful art eases pain

ECONOMICS PRIZEISTAT — the Italian government's National Institute of Statistics, for proudly taking the lead in fulfilling the European Union mandate for each country to increase the official size of its national economy by including revenues from prostitution, illegal drug sales, smuggling, and all other unlawful financial transactions between willing participants.In Italy, prostitutes and illegal drugs could shrink the deficit

MEDICINE PRIZEA team from the USA and India for treating "uncontrollable" nosebleeds, using the method of nasal-packing-with-strips-of-cured-pork.The Bacon Tampon: Doctors Find Salt Pork Stops Nosebleeds

ARCTIC SCIENCE PRIZEScientists from Norway, Germany, USA and Canada for testing how reindeer react to seeing humans who are disguised as polar bears.Svalbard Reindeer: Thriving Again on the Tundra

NUTRITION PRIZEScientists in Spain for their study titled "Characterization of Lactic Acid Bacteria Isolated from Infant Faeces as Potential Probiotic Starter Cultures for Fermented Sausages."Pooperoni? Baby-Poop Bacteria Help Make Healthy Sausages

Professor Stephen Hawking has written a preface to a book, and his comments have gotten a little misinterpreted. Katie explains why the Higgs boson is absolutely not in any danger of destroying the world.A study of Spinosaurus bones has determined the sail-backed dinosaur had adaptations to make it better suited to swimming than running. This study suggests that Spinosaurus may have been the only known swimming dinosaur. And plesiosaurs and icthyosaurs were technically not dinosaurs. Neither were pterodactyls. In fact Everything You Were Taught As a Child About Dinosaurs Is Wrong.A very small number of people who get the flu vaccine still get the flu. And while there are a number of factors that could be responsible for this, a team of immunologists suggests one important factor could be the gut microbiome.The standard medical advice for patients with back pain wanting to have sex is to try spooning. But the first ever scientific experiment on the matter has shown that advice could be very wrong.

The Common Octopus, or Octopus Vulgaris, is the most studied of all octopus species. But all that studying has found so many differences between some, which could mean the Common Octopus is possibly as many as ten different species.Why coffee has caffeine: An international team of scientists has sequenced the genome of Coffea canephora, one of the main sources of coffee beans. By analysing its genes, they were able to reconstruct how coffee evolved to make caffeine.The availability of camera-phones and an increased mainstream interest in photography has led to the discovery of new insect species and behaviours. And the metadata stored with digital photographs provides a wealth of information for modern naturalists.Engineers at Hong Kong Polytechnic University have created a fabric knitted with electronic circuits that can be worn, washed, stretched, and even shot!

Sean Elliott joins us to talk about the origins of life and his upcoming Melbourne Fringe show, Rough Science: Life.Cobi Smith joins us from CERN to talk about her Melbourne Fringe show, Delusions of Slander.The mystery of the ‘Wandering Stones’ of Death Valley may no longer be a mystery. Researchers have used video cameras, GPS units and a weather station to document and track how these large rocks move along the dry lake bed.Researchers at the University of Ottawa have done a really cool experiment with bichirs – a kind of fish that has gills and lungs. Bichirs have been known on occasion to walk on land – although somewhat awkwardly. But these researcherswere looking into the evolution of walking limbs. Essentially how our ancestors first crawled out of the ocean and became land-dwellersRussia’s infamous ‘space sex geckos’ did not survive their microgravity mating experiment. It is believed the heating equipment failed and the lizards froze to death.

About ten years ago an entomologist at the University of Colorado found 250 forgotten boxes in a storage cupboard. Inside were 13,000 grasshopper specimens collected more than 40 years ago, which provide a fascinating insight into climate and other environmental changes in that time.

A chance observation has led to the discovery that the blood of certain abalone has antiviral properties, which could lead to better treatments for the herpes simplex virus.

The vitamin K injection at birth helps prevent newborn babies from severe intestinal or cerebral bleeding. A small but growing number of parents are declining the shot, and the anti-vaccination movement seems largely to blame.

Drilling through 800m of ice has enabled scientists to find the first solid evidence on life in a subglacial lake. Yes, there’s bacteria there too.

Giant panda Ai Hin has possibly demonstrated a learned behaviour - she pretended to be pregnant in order to get special treatment!

Mother turtles and their newly hatched babies talk to each other underwater, and scientists in Brazil have managed to record them.

Taking antibiotics to kill ‘bad’ bacteria can be a good idea, but such disruptions to the gut microbiome can have long-term consequences for our health, and could even be making us fat.

The widely held belief that magpies steal shiny objects seems to be myth-busted. Instead, they seem to avoid new objects regardless of shininess.

Analysis of bones from King Richard the Third reveal that the last King of England to die in battle lived the good life. The samples indicate the King drank up to a bottle of wine each day.