Springer Nature

Is music simply a pleasant accompaniment to thought, or a driving force behind it? This show examines music’s influence on the development of modern science and the foundations of acoustics. Lute music courtesy of Naxos Licensing.

www.nature.com/nature/index.html

This week: how English became the dominant language of science, the earliest human fossil to date, menopausal killer whales lead the hunt, defining the Anthropocene, and how Apple’s ResearchKit allows researchers to recruit for clinical studies.

www.nature.com/nature/index.html

This week: Ebola's impact on mothers-to-be, the human family tree gets even more tangled, quantifying the risk of volcanoes, and robo-rescuers battle it out in the DARPA Robotics Challenge.

www.nature.com/nature/index.html

This week: food additives with health risks, astronomers prepare to take a close look at Pluto and Ceres, how DNA damage continues for several hours after sunbathing, and measuring pain in the brain – is it ready for the courtroom?

www.nature.com/nature/index.html

This week: why the concept of sex might not be binary, how increasing winds could cause coastal dead-zones, the future US megadroughts set to be the worst in 1,000 years, and the grave threat facing museum collections.

www.nature.com/nature/index.html

The sound of an aeroplane can mean many things: mild annoyance; the excitement of travel; a rough night’s sleep. But increasingly, researchers around the world think it may also have some more sinister effects. In this episode of Audiofile, find out just what plane noise could mean for the health of those who have to hear it.

www.nature.com/nature/index.html

This week: sequencing the genomes of Darwin’s finches, financial trading nears light speed, an ancient book of optics, and mitochondrial transplants get the UK yes vote.

www.nature.com/nature/index.html

This week: a new way to protect plants in drought prone areas, studying the driving force behind plate tectonics, an octopus-inspired robot that can zoom through water and Obama’s budget wishlist seeks a big boost for science.

www.nature.com/nature/index.html

This week: an Israeli skull piece could be from a human hybrid, a rethink on what makes sodium explode in water, protecting Libyan archaeology and the hunt for Philae hangs in the balance.

www.nature.com/nature/index.html

This week: the restorative power of young blood, improving the safety of genetically modified organisms, the rise of deforestation for gold mining in South America, what meteorites found on earth could teach us about the early solar system, and the reappearance of the Beagle 2.

www.nature.com/nature/index.html