Science On Top

Hosts: Ed Brown, Dr. Shayne Joseph, Penny Dumsday, Lucas Randall, Aimee Whitcroft.

Topics covered:

Baby turtles with wi-fi! They can listen in to each other's heartbeats! Wasps have a surprisingly good ability to recognise faces. Genetically engineered neurons that light up when firing. When do women take bigger risks, and do childless women really have poorer health? And climate change has had an unusual effect on ladybugs.

Aimee Whitcroft is a New Zealand-based science blogger. She is co-founder of the SciBlogs network and co-host of The Official SciBlogs Podcast.

Hosts: Ed Brown, Penny Dumsday, Elf Eldridge.

Topics covered:

Pregnancy is hard enough for humans, but a study shows the high energy cost to pregnant dolphins. Paleontologists in China have discovered the remains of a bird inside the stomach of a Microraptor dinosaur. The successful embedding of an LED in a contact lens paves the way for head-up-displays and augmented reality. A 70-million year old nest has been found, with the remains of 15 baby protoceratops dinosaurs. The switch to an agricultural society has led to a shortening of the human jaw, and therefore crooked teeth.

Elf Eldridge is a Physics PhD student at the MacDiarmid Institute where he works on developing nanopore technology. He is also a science communicator, a blogger for the SciBlogs network and co-host of The Official Sciblogs Podcast.

Hosts: Ed Brown, Penny Dumsday, Dr. Krystal Evans.

Topics covered:

Dr. Krystal gives us an in-depth progress report on malaria treatment - is this the year we start winning the war on malaria? Also Penny tells us how nematode worms can distinguish good bacteria from harmful bacteria, and the discovery of two sunken 'mini-continents' off the coast of West Australia. Plus an update on the troubled Phobos-Grunt probe - it's alive! And more results for those faster-than-light neutrinos.

Dr. Krystal is a malaria researcher at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute.

Hosts: Ed Brown, Dr. Shayne Joseph, Penny Dumsday, Lucas Randall, Vanessa Hill.

Topics covered:

NASA's next Mars rover, Curiosity, is about to launch - and a Russian Mars probe is in trouble. A new drug helps fat monkeys get slim, a new model explores the shape of continental plates. Autism could be caused by too many brain cells in a key area of the brain, the Spotted Horse may have existed 25,000 years ago, and a new approach to lung cancer treatment.

Vanessa Hill is an education officer for CSIRO, Australia’s national science organisation.

Hosts: Ed Brown, Dr. Shayne Joseph, Penny Dumsday, Lucas Randall and Adam vanLangenberg.

Topics Covered:

Does being happy make you live longer? NASA wants rovers with tractor beams, billion year old bacteria created, the mystery of the Ice Age Beasts and did "too much fracking" cause earthquakes in England?

Plus a squabble about Klingons, Romulans and Battlestar Galactica. Yeah, we get nerdy.

Adam vanLangenberg is a mathematics teacher and host of Mathematical Punch-Ons.

Hosts: Ed Brown, Dr. Shayne Joseph, Penny Dumsday, Lucas Randall and Jo Benhamu.

Topics covered:

BPA "linked" to behaviour problems in girls - it really isn't, as Food Standards Australia & New Zealand show. And why haven't we heard about the "Majestically Scientific" study earlier this year? On a related 'science in government policy' note, we look at the West Australian shark cull - is it a Hollywood response to real horror? A study links heavy metal music to depression, a Burmese Python's heart can expand nearly twice it's original size, Archaeopteryx reclaims the title of first bird, and dwarf planet Eris is roughly the same size as dwarf planet Pluto.

Jo Benhamu is a specialist nurse (Acute Care/Gastroenterology), a reporter for the Skeptic Zone podcast, and a committee member of Australian Skeptics.

Hosts: Ed Brown, Penny Dumsday, and Lucas Randall.

Topics covered:

A new way to turn adult cells into embryonic stem cells, Cycads not so ancient after all, nanotube fibres that twist and untwist could propel nanobots. Astronomers may have directly imaged a planet in the process of forming, the IQ of teenagers fluctuates, and the world's biggest virus: MEGAVIRUS.

The book Penny mentions is Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History, by Stephen Jay Gould.

It is estimated that in 2006 alone there were 1.3 million papers published in 23,750 scientific journals. But what happens when a paper gets 'unpublished' - withdrawn or retracted? I caught up with Dr. Ivan Oransky and Adam Marcus, founders of RetractionWatch. A blog that follows retractions as they happen and investigates the stories behind them, RetractionWatch uncovers a world of falsified data, plagiarism and ethics violations.

Hosts: Ed Brown, Dr. Shayne Joseph, Penny Dumsday, Lucas Randall.

Topics covered:

The book that Lucas mentions about the climate change denial industry is Merchants of Doubt, by Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway.

Hosts: Ed Brown, Penny Dumsday, Kylie Sturgess and Aimee Whitcroft

The 2011 Ig Nobel Prizes honour achievements that first make us laugh, then make us think. We take a look at this year's winners: from a study of beetles that really like beer bottles to 'structured procrastination'.

Aimee Whitcroft is a science blogger and co-founder of the SciBlogs network in New Zealand. She co-hosts The Official SciBlogs Podcast, and next year is planning to do the Mongol Rally.