Science On Top

The Rosetta space probe has finally arrived and is currently in orbit around the comet 67P Churyumov-Gerasimenko! Rosetta is now officially the first spacecraft to rendezvous with a comet.A previously unknown tribe of humans has emerged from the rainforest in Brazil and made contact with a settled indigenous community. They are believed to have fled illegal loggers and drug traffickers, but some have already contracted influenza.Newly discovered crAssphage could be the most common virus in your body. Nobody has ever seen it, and we didn’t even know about it until just recently.Grizzly bears will eat an extraordinary amount of food before going into hibernation. In humans, this would be a recipe for diabetes but it isn’t for the bears. Turns out there’s a protein called PTEN that’s responsible – and the trick is reducing its expression only in fat cells.What do you get when two scientists sequence their gut microbiome for a whole year? An amazingly detailed dataset that documents the changes our bodies go through during illness, travel and dietary changes.Being strangled during sex might be unfortunate, but being eaten by your mate afterwards would also be weird. Another reason to be glad you’re not an octopus.

At our 150th episode celebration earlier this year, we were fortunate to have Dr. Krystal Evans address the audience to talk about science in Australia. Dr. Evans is a medical researcher at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute where she is working on Malaria treatment and developing a vaccine. She is a leading advocate for science and technology, and was a founding member and Chair of the Australian Academy of Science’s Early and Mid Career Researcher Forum. In this talk she looks at how Australia stacks up against the rest of the world - both in scientific accomplishments and in investment. She talks about ways to motivate scientists to engage with the public, and also how to encourage the public to take an interest in science. And she answers that burning question: just how much is Australian politics like going on a date with a homeopath?

Steve Nerlich from the Cheap Astronomy podcast gives us an update on the roller-coaster life of the ISEE-3 space probe. It was alive, then it died, then it was resurrected then it seemed dead but now it may be still alive again!

Paleontologists have discovered the fossilised remains of one of the world's first known predators that lived in the sea around 520 million years ago. The fossils were detailed enough to show some of the brain structures.

Researchers at UCLA have found eight types of electric bacteria - bacteria that eat and excrete electrons.

The Rosetta spacecraft is approaching its target, comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, and its latest photos reveal the comet to be, well, rubber-duckie shaped. The comet could be two bodies joined together, and this could make the planned deployment of a lander a bit complicated.

A well-preserved, complete fossil skeleton of the largest known microraptorine - a flying non-avian dinosaur - has been found in China. Called Changyuraptor yangi, the dinosaur was about 1.3 metres long and weighed 4kg. And it had four wings!

Scientists at Dartmouth College are looking at a parasite commonly found in cat poo, Toxoplasma gondii, in an attempt to develop a cancer vaccine. When infected by 'Toxo', the human body produces cytotoxic T cells that cancer would normally shut down.

And what happens when you put snakes in microgravity? In the ultimate Snakes On A Plane experiment, scientists found snakes either attack themselves or tie themselves in knots.

Twenty-seven months ago the "Mississippi Baby" stopped HIV treatment and was believed to be free of the virus. Unfortunately, that changed this month when test showed the virus is back. It had gone into hiding and the now four-year-old girl will face years, possibly her whole life, on antiretroviral therapy.

A scientist at a CDC research centre found a cardboard box containing six vials of the smallpox virus in a storage room. The vials are believed to have been left there since the 1950s, and there is always a possibility that there are other long-forgotten samples of the virus elsewhere.

A study of mice that attempted to replicate the Dutch Winter Hunger have found that stresses on a mother can have epigenetic effects, altering gene expressions across multiple generations.

When experimental stem cell therapies go wrong: an 18 year old paraplegic had stem cells from her nose placed in her spine as part of a trial. Eight years later, the cells had grown into a mass of nasal tissue containing a thick, mucous-like substance.

Neonicotinoids are a controversial class of insecticides widely used in agriculture, that have been linked to declining bee populations. A new study reveals that they may be doing more widespread harm than just bees, and insect-eating birds could be affected by the disruption in the food-chain.

Giant pandas, while technically belonging to the order Carnivora, almost exclusively eat bamboo. Bamboo is so nutritionally poor that researchers wondered how they survive. Turns out, they move around to different areas and eat bamboo in different stages of development.

We’re not comfortable being bored, according to a study published in the journal Science. The paper suggestedpeople would rather give themselves electric shocks than be left alone with their thoughts.

Where humans detect colours via three receptors in our eyes, the mantis shrimp have twelve. And a new study indicates six of those detect five different wavelengths of ultraviolet light. The mantis shrimp has adapted “nature’s sunscreens’ – mycosporine-like amino acids – and turned them into ultraviolet detectors.

Despite not having ears, plants can ‘hear’ the chomp of nearby caterpillars. Two researchers from University of Missouri noticed plants produced a pesticide chemical when they heard the sound of hungry, hungry caterpillars.

A common lichen in South America turns out to actually be 126 distinct species – and maybe more than 400. This highlights the difficulties involved in classifying and categorizing life, and the advances that modern gene technologies are bringing to taxonomy.

After a comprehensive study of the world’s oceans, oceanographers “can’t account for 99 percent of the plastic that we have in the ocean“. There are a few hypotheses to explain the missing plastic, but none are very conclusive. Also Illinois has now banned the sale of cosmetics containing plastic microbeads, which are too small to be filtered from waste-water and end up released into oceans and other large bodies of water.

Plucky Ukrainian astronomers have ‘adopted’ a star and given it a name that’s, well, somewhat insulting to Vladimir Putin.

The announcement earlier this year that the BICEP2 team had discovered gravitational waves is now mired in controversy. Dr. Alan Duffy joins us to explain why 'the biggest announcement' is now probably meaningless.

In 2012, Facebook manipulated the newsfeed of 689,003 users as part of a psychological experiment. The company claims it was able to alter the moods of some users, but the study's methodology and ethical concerns have drawn widespread criticism.

The electric eel - described by one researchers as "a 6-inch fish attached to a 5-1/2-foot cattle prod" - can deliver a powerful electric shock. Now, a study of its genome reveals this ability has evolved six separate times, in a remarkable example of convergent evolution.

According to the World Health Organisation, the current outbreak of Ebola virus has killed 467, making it the most severe in recorded history.

Italy is about to send its first female astronaut to the International Space Station, and she'll be taking a special zero-gravity coffee machine with her.

Koalas will cuddle specific tree types during summer heatwaves to cool down. Hugging the right tree can reduce a koala's body temperature by almost 70 per cent.

Researchers have sequenced the genome of Eucalyptus grandis, a common type of gum tree. And this genetic blueprint, according to the researchers, could help design more powerful and efficient jet fuels. The project took five years and involved 80 scientists from 18 countries.

A 36 year-old space probe, mothballed by NASA, has just been resurrected by a crowdfunded group of volunteers calling themselves the ISEE-3 Reboot Project. The team raised $159,502 on Kickstarter to cover the costs of writing the software to communicate with the probe, searching through the NASA archives for the information needed to control the spacecraft, and buying time on the dish antennas.

60 years after the suicide of one of the greatest mathematicians, Alan Turing, the test he gave his name to has allegedly been passed. The Turing Test is where a computer program tries to fool a human into thinking they're conversing with real human being.  A Russian chatbot sort of did that, by pretending it was a 13 year old Ukrainian boy who likes Eminem. But it's not the breakthrough that some people have claimed.

A study on Bangladeshi children has found that the gut microbiome of malnourished children is less developed than that of healthy children. This suggests that food alone might not be enough to combat malnutrition, as the gut bacteria may need a boost as well.

The National Collection of Yeast Cultures (NCYC) is giant collection of yeast cultures, holding over 4000 strains collected over 65 years. While a lot of its cultures are stored for medical research purposes, it also acts as a kind of insurance agency for many pubs around the UK in case their unique strain of brewer's yeast is lost.

A study suggests hurricanes with 'female' names have killed more people than 'male' names. But it's MUCH more complicated than that.

Men are more likely than women to report severe pain after major surgery. But Women are more likely to complain after minor surgery. Because reasons.

A tiny tick trapped in a droplet of amber more than 15 million years ago appears to have been infected with a bacteria similar to the one that causes Lyme disease in humans.

The oldest known pair of trousers has been found in China, and their low-crotch design may have been for horseriding.

A new study of marmosets gives some clues as to what causes stillbirth. It's not always the mother's fault, so lay off on the guilt-tripping, ok?

The lead author of the controversial STAP papers, Dr. Haruko Obokata, has agreed to retract one (Update: now both) of the disputed papers.

Greenland is more vulnerable to melting than we thought, and the West Antarctic ice shelf is melting much faster and is now 'unstoppable'.

The Great Red Spot on Jupiter is shrinking and changing shape.

The top 10 new species of 2013 have been announced. Some of them are cute.

The first farm to supply insects for human consumption has opened, but faces regulatory, engineering and cultural hurdles.

Jupiter's moon Ganymede has layers of ice and water beneath its surface. NASA calls it a 'moonwich' but nobody else does.

An elaborate experiment shows that fruit flies need to stop and think before making decisions. Also, fruit flies have decisions to make.

The Australian researcher who provided the best evidence for non-celiac gluten sensitivity has now done more extensive research. He now believes gluten may not be the culprit after all.

Polar bears, the largest land predators alive, have many genetic tricks they have developed to help them survive on an extremely high-fat diet.

Ratites - flightless birds like emus, ostriches and rheas - have long been thought to have evolved from a single flightless ancestor. But now new research made with the largest genetic dataset of ratites suggests that they each lost the ability to fly independently.

Paleontologists in Argentina may have unearthed many fossils of a new species of Titanosaur, which could be the largest animal ever to walk the Earth. However, its size is an estimate based on one bone, and similar estimates in the past have turned out to be wildly inaccurate.