Naked Scientists Special Editions Podcast

Salamanders can grow back entire limbs if they lose them. A team at University College London lead by Dr Max Yun are looking at the genetic pathways that enable these amphibians to regenerate their arms and legs. This could help us understand how human healing can be improved, as Victoria Gill explains to Chris Smith... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

The latest digital imaging techniques are literally throwing new light on the ingenious variety of materials that have been used over the centuries to create artists' paint pigments. A new exhibition at the National Gallery in London is looking at the history of colour making over time. Jane Reck has been finding out how preparations were given a helping hand with a state-of the art positioning easel that provides the ability to examine great works of art in unprecedented detail. Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

Six months after some of the worst flooding witnessed in Britain, Professor David Dermeritt from Kings College London explains to Graihagh Jackson how these deluges have changed Britain's policies on how we manage rivers, risks and rising water levels. What is the future of flooding? Will climate change worsen it? And how will the government protect property? Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

This week, 3000 metres up a Chilean mountain, scientists pressed the button to blow up half a million tonnes of rock. The mountain's called Cerro Armazones and the reason it was being blown up was to create the site for what will become the world's biggest most powerful optical telescope. With typical scientific understatement its known as the European Extremely Large Telescope or EELT. Isobel Hook an astrophysicist from Oxford University told Chris more about the project. Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

Bacteria that can degrade the woody material in plant waste and turn it into an oil-free material for plastics manufacture have been developed by scientists at Warwick University in Britain. Professor Tim Bugg told Chris more... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

There's a new theory this week claiming that men's faces evolved to take punches. It comes from researchers at the University of Utah and goes against a previous theory that craniofacial evolution was driven by a diet of nuts, seeds and vegetables.The Utah team think that extra-thick bones and muscles in the jaw and brow helped to protect our ancestor's faces when they got into punch ups, presumably while fighting over women.But although it's a neat story, and a different way of looking at the evolution of skulls, there are some problems with the idea, as Kat Arney found out from Julie... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

Has the likelihood of alien life existing just become a lot more likely? Astronomers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics announced this week that they have found what's being dubbed the "Godzilla of Earths" - it's a rocky planet orbiting a distant star over 500 light years away. But it's over twice the diameter and 17 times the mass of the Earth. So it's exciting for two reasons - first, space scientists had thought that planets could only be that big if they were made of gas, like Neptune or Jupiter, rather than rock, like Earth; and, second, the star this planet is orbiting is... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

Gannets are using fishing boats as fast-food outlets, chasing them for miles over the ocean. Thomas Bodey explains to Chris Smith how GPS tracking on both the birds and ships shows that the gannets can tell trawlers from yachts. But there might be a downside to this kind of convenience cuisine. Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

Does Nicolas Cage cause people to drown in swimming pools? Does margarine consumption lead to divorce? Tyler Vigen looked at relations between seemingly unrelated statistics to highlight how correlation can be misleading. Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

The course of true love never did run smooth and this can be seen across the animal kingdom too. The Malacological Society of London held their annual meeting and this year it was all about sexual selection. Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

With as much as 30% of all species potentially at risk of extinction, there is a 'Noah's ark' problem of selecting which species to save. This week the Royal Society held a meeting to discuss extinction risks and the best strategies to prioritise conservation. Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

The peculiarities of the naked mole-rat: what can we learn from them? Cambridge University pharmacologist Ewan St John Smith hosts this meeting of Cafe Scientifique, Cambridge, kicking off with an interview about the naked mole rat with Chris Berrow... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

UK Universities and Science Minister, David Willetts, becomes his own radio presenter; here, on a tour organised by the UK's Science and Innovation Network, he charts his meetings with scientists and entrepreneurs in Chicago, including discovering how researchers are trying to develop new batteries, he meets MIRA the Argonne supercomputer, attends a synthetic biology convention, talks to technology start-up CEOs, addresses the AAAS fellows forum and talks in depth to his travelling companions, Nottingham chemist Martyn Poliakoff and Edinburgh Vice Prinicipal Mary Bownes... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

Addressing the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) 2014 meeting in Chicago, David Willetts, UK Minister for Universities and Science, outlines how the special relationship between Britain and the US, coupled with competition and collaboration, is driving discovery and the next generation of technology... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

Moving house is one of life's most stressful events; so imagine packing up 4 million artifacts of a museum collection. That's exactly what they are doing at Cambridge University's museum of Zoology. Harriet Johnson went to find out how they're getting ready for the 3 year project to update and improve the museum, and also sneaked a look at some of the best bits of the collection before it all gets packed away... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

Polio might not have been seen in Britain since the 1980's, but despite worldwide efforts the potentially fatal disease is still endemic in three countries. Kate Lamble caught up with the Director of Immunisation at the Department of Health, Professor David Sailsbury as he visited St Johns college in Cambridge to speak about the global effort to eradicate the disease. Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

In The Naked Scientists Guide to Genetics, Simon Bishop explores some common genetics terms, meets a creature from the depths of the sea floor, and befriends a family of fancy rats! The terms DNA, genes, chromosomes and inheritance are explored PLUS are humans really 50% banana? Music featured: Adventure, Darling by Gillicuddy http://freemusicarchive.org/music/gillicuddy/; Dan-O, at http://danosongs.com. Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

Recorded at the 2013 Genetics Society Autumn Meeting 'From Genes to Shape', Simon Bishop meets Harriet Johnson, who works on the genes behind left-right asymmetry... in snails. Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

Recorded at the 2013 Genetics Society Autumn Meeting 'From Genes to Shape', Simon Bishop meets Marco Reitz, who works on the conserved gene 'Tubby'. So-called because mutant Tubby creates obese mice, the gene has a very different role in plants - salt and drought tolerance. Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

The mental scars left after trauma and how ecstasy can help treat post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists