Special Editions

Earth's largest animals, whales, need a lot of food... that goes without saying. But, new research from a team at Stanford University have found that whales need 10-20 tonnes of food on a feeding day, which is up to three times more than initially thought. Of course that means three times more poop... and as whale poop drives nutrient recycling in the oceans, this could have a big impact on marine ecosystems. Katie King found out more from the lead author Matthew Savoca... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

Now this might have flown under your radar, but last Wednesday NASA launched the DART mission, a spacecraft on a one-way collision course with an asteroid, in the world's first full-scale planetary defence test. Tricia Smith asked Space Author Colin Stuart, if life as we know it is in danger... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

Covid cases in many European countries are suddenly substantially up. But in a dramatic role reversal, the UK has gone from the standout Covid-19 bad boy of Europe to one of the better performers in terms of daily cases and hospitalisations. According to the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine's Lloyd Chapman, vaccination is the linchpin, and that's where the UK stands out... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

This week, Matt contacted us asking "With three space missions currently converging on Mars how do the nations avoid orbital collisions? Do they share data, do they have transponders or space traffic control etc?". Katie King spoke with Chris Bridges, academic at Surrey Space Centre in the University of Surrey to find out how we keep our spacecraft from colliding.... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

Covid is surging across Europe, but what's causing it, and will the UK follow suit, or are Europe hot on our heels? Should vaccines be mandatory, and would vaccine passports work? Why does Covid-19 vaccine protection wane with time, and are we looking at a relentless cycle of boosters indefinitely, or will one be sufficient? Dr Chris Smith joins RNZ's Kim Hill for a catch-up all about the current state of Covid-19... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

When two atoms join together, the laws of physics tell us that a large amount of energy will be released, but the experiments performed so far by scientists to achieve nuclear fusion have always yielded a lot less energy than the inputs. This week, the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, which uses an approach called 'inertial confinement fusion', announced that they achieved a huge improvement in the record energy yield from a fusion experiment. Iacopo Russo heard from Debbie Callahan, a lead researcher on the project. Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

The first part of understanding a new language is working out where one word stops and the next word starts out of a string of syllables. Researchers at ELTE University in Hungary have been looking at how dogs' brains respond to language to figure out if they can recognise words, as Sally Le Page found out from author Marianna Boros... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

Recently Facebook announced a name change for the company to Meta, which comes during the midst of a marketing plug by Mark Zuckerberg for his new take on an augmented reality universe. Facebook's metaverse. Harry Lewis finds out what the metaverse is from BBC technology editor Zoe Kleinman, but first here she is with what this rebrand means for us everyday users... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

We talk a lot about proteins on this programme - what they do, how they work - but have you ever wondered what they sound like? A group of scientists at the National University of Singapore have been turning proteins into pieces of music, as Sally Le Page heard from author, Peng Zhang. Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

Antibiotics are such an important part of modern medicine but their effectiveness has been waning in the last few decades as certain bacteria, so called superbugs, have become resistant to multiple common antibiotics, leading to the UN declaring that antimicrobial resistance is one of the top 10 global public health threats facing humanity. To tackle this issue, new approaches are needed and as new strains of antibiotics are hard to come by, one option is to modify existing antibiotics to make them more effective. Verner Viisainen spoke to Jennifer Payne from Monash University to find out... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists