Technically Speaking | a science and engineering discussion

You often hear that natural is better but is this really true? Jasmin and Antonia discuss how some perfumes are made by considering the chemical processes used to extracted from flowers, and how it can be synthesised. They also consider the ethics behind collecting flowers such as jasmine.

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Known as GLP-1, they've been all over our news feed! Ellie, Jasmin and Laura look at how these drugs work, how effective they are, whether they could live with the side-effects, and consider whether they should be advertised.

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Also known as orcas, these large mammals have been observed doing some really weird stuff. Laura, Ellie and Jasmin talk about orca massages, wearing salmon as hats, hunting and more. They discuss how these behaviours might have started and consider what other weird behaviour we might not have seen yet.

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Trails of condensation in the wake of an air plane might look pretty, but some of them contribute significantly to the climate emergency. Laura speaks to Jasmin about her research group's latest project to predict how they form, how to avoid them, and what else the aviation sector needs to consider to make air travel more sustainable.

Antonia, Ellie and Emma explore the nature of altruism from examples with mammals and insects, to human studies and the pop culture take on the term. Could donating a kidney be seen as an altruistic act or is there always some hidden benefit that makes even the most generous of gifts a tiny bit selfish?

New research has found an unusual link between immune cells in the liver and the ability of homing pigeons to navigate using the earth's magnetic field. Laura, Antonia and Ellie dive into the research and put themselves in the shoes of the scientist making this surprising discovery. They also ask how we can make use of this research and consider what might be discovered next.

Read the original research article at science.org or read a news summary in Scientific American.

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Antonia and Ellie discuss the first ever Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report. We explore what lead to the report being created, what the predictions for climate change looked like in the 90s and whether the world has taken any steps to mitigate the effects suggested by the report.

 They're fast and floaty, but sadly we don't have them in the UK. Laura, Emma and Antonia look at the cool use of physics that makes them levitate and compare energy use and infrastructure requirements to other forms of transport.

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Antonia, Ellie and Tom discuss the history of the Moon missions, including the Apollo programme that started it all and the past and future of the ISS. The team explores the media hype and the differences surrounding the Artemis missions in comparison to those first voyages to space over 50 years ago. 

And how did they learn to do it? Ellie and Emma discuss what tool use actually is and the species that have adapted specific instruments to achieve a desired goal. From Veronika the cow to Jane Goodall we explore how far tool use has come and what the possibilities are for species and tools of the future.

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