Naked Scientists, In Short Special Editions Podcast
Special scientific reports and investigations by the Naked Scientists team
- Update frequency
- every 6 days
- Average duration
- 10 minutes
- Episodes
- 981
- Years Active
- 2006 - 2025
Keeping humans healthy in orbit
With only a few walls between an astronaut and a rapid death, what do we know about the various dangers to the human body during space travel? Chris Smith spoke with Mark Shelhamer, a professor of Ot…
00:06:47 |
Wed 10 Sep 2025
Ants doing gene therapy, and tadpole microbiomes
This month, as the eLife Podcast hits its century, we hear how getting frog dads to cross-foster tadpoles has revealed the way in which some frogs come by their microbiomes, the ants that do gene the…
00:43:15 |
Mon 08 Sep 2025
Synthetic sustainable spuds
As the global population heads toward 10 billion, the pressure on agriculture is mounting. With that in mind, the UK's Advanced Research and Invention Agency (ARIA) has announced millions of pounds w…
00:05:59 |
Wed 09 Jul 2025
Scientists say they've bent spacetime
"Warp speed, Mr Sulu." It's the kind of command we've only heard in science fiction - until now. Did a team of scientists just bend spacetime using nothing but sparks in a lab? That's right - not bla…
00:04:39 |
Mon 23 Jun 2025
Finland's giant virus, and monkeys take care of their teeth
In the eLife podcast, a university compost heap has turned up Finland's first documented "giant virus". Also, why monkeys de-sand their supper, and how learning more languages actually makes brain ti…
00:38:48 |
Thu 19 Jun 2025
Naked Scientists SOS
Cambridge University have informed us that, for cost cutting reasons, they intend to make Dr Chris Smith redundant. Naturally, this jeopardises the Naked Scientists programme, which is produced under…
00:03:30 |
Mon 16 Jun 2025
Insect extinctions, and AI shot in the arm for drug design
In episode 10 of the Cambridge Prisms Podcast, the shocking finding that as many as 2 invertebrate species are going extinct each week in Australia: what can be done? Also, the shot in the arm that A…
00:37:11 |
Thu 05 Jun 2025
Storing data with "molecular firecrackers"
Your personal data could soon be stored not on a phone or server but locked inside a molecule so tiny it's invisible to the naked eye. Researchers have cracked the code on storing digital information…
00:05:08 |
Fri 23 May 2025
Brain-invading bacterium is making fruit flies extra frisky
What if a parasite could rewire your brain - not to harm you, but to make you... more romantic? This week on The Naked Scientists, we're exploring the bizarre world of Wolbachia - a bacterium that tu…
00:04:54 |
Mon 19 May 2025
Speedy, soft robot powered by air alone
Using only soft tubes and a continuous stream of air, a team of researchers at AMOLF in Amsterdam have created one of the fastest and simplest soft robots to date. Marushka Soobben with the story... …
00:06:15 |
Mon 12 May 2025
Frog toxicity, and what a year's schooling does to the brain
What is the impact of an extra year at school on the brain? Also, how poison dart frogs come by their toxins, using movies to track the developing infant nervous system, the insect-spread bacterial p…
00:35:28 |
Thu 24 Apr 2025
What climate change does to kelp forests
In this episode, how climate change impacts kelp forests, selecting for less animal-friendly variants, refining AI models for better water infrastructure design, classifying extinct marine megafauna …
00:32:01 |
Thu 03 Apr 2025
Hollywood helps brain scientists probe thoughts
This month, how films are helping neuroscientists link brain activity patterns to specific thought processes, a breakthrough in managing opiate overdose, a technique to study animal teamwork, extract…
00:40:51 |
Wed 26 Feb 2025
Personalised medicine, droughts, and dryland research
Personalised medicine and gene screens for disease, why dinosaurs disappeared, planning for droughts, and new vistas in the drylands arena... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked…
00:31:00 |
Tue 24 Dec 2024
Evolving flu, and the desert decomposition conundrum
Predicting how influenza viruses will evolve, how deserts decompose matter despite the dry, what worms are revealing about a gene linked to autism, and what makes mice fearful of cat smells. Dr Chris…
00:30:59 |
Fri 20 Dec 2024
Cancer mood control, and birth products blocking pain
This month, signs that cancers communicate with the brain to alter mood, why antibodies are unreliable in research, evidence that social training can cut stress and boost brain volume, and agents der…
00:33:06 |
Fri 01 Nov 2024
Future cancer care, and the cost of large animal extinction
In this episode, why approaches to cancer care need a pro-active approach in future, the opportunities arising for the cancer vaccine space, competency-based medical training, the environmental costs…
00:36:04 |
Fri 25 Oct 2024
Vampire bacteria, "hangry" males, and ants using moonlight
This month, Chris Smith hears how blood-thirsty bacteria sniff out wounds to trigger infections, how ants navigate at night, how male and female brains respond differently to starvation, and inflamma…
00:30:50 |
Tue 10 Sep 2024
Microbiomes control blood pressure, and the cost of water
This month, evidence that the microbiome is controlling blood pressure - so will we treat hypertension with probiotics in future? Also, plastic is everywhere and an urgent environmental threat, but i…
00:36:54 |
Wed 31 Jul 2024
Hibernation, Ketamine and Aphantasia
This month, how animals hibernate and evidence that muscle myosin makes its own heat in the cold, brain scans to reveal how ketamine relieves resistant depression, the way the brain changes when anim…
00:37:53 |
Fri 19 Apr 2024
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