Science On Top

The seventh period on the periodic table is now complete, after four new elements have been officially verified. Elements with atomic numbers 113, 115, atomic numbers 113, 115, 117 and 118 have been …

Just a note to let you know that our 2015 bloopers episode is now out! It's a lot of fun, so you should definitely listen!

To do that you'll have to download it from http://scienceontop.com/bloopers2…

Our top stories of the year.

Good science:

Eighty children get chickenpox at Brunswick North West Primary, a school that calls for 'tolerance' of vaccine dodgers

The Vaccine Lunacy - Disneyland, Meas…

Fast Radio Bursts are sudden, very short but very intense blasts of radio waves that have so far defied explanation. But now the most detailed study so far has provided some clues to the origins of …

Chinese scientists have found bacteria that are resistant to one the 'last resort' antibiotics. The gene for this resistance has been found in 15 percent of meat samples and can spread to other bacte…

For the first time, neurosurgeons at in Canada claim to have found a way to deliver chemotherapy drugs directly to the brain, crossing the famed blood brain barrier.

Women infected with hookworms se…

A study of 345 women by The University of Essex concludes that no woman is"totally straight". Well, it's a bit more complicated than that.

In Australia, forty volunteers are about to have hookworms …

The first case of a human falling ill from cancer cells contracted from a parasitic tapeworm has been reported in Columbia.

And in an unrelated story, a Californian man has had a live tapeworm remove…

The World Health Organisation has officially classified processed meat as "carcinogenic", and red meat as "probably carcinogenic". However, this doesn't really tell you anything about the level of ri…

Researchers have found neurons in nematode worms that help them learn when to prioritise mating over eating. This does not necessarily have anything to do with humans.

A large team of scientists have…

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2015 was awarded jointly to Tomas Lindahl, Paul Modrich and Aziz Sancar "for mechanistic studies of DNA repair".

The Nobel Prize in Physics 2015 was awarded jointly to Ta…

Dark streaks seen on the surface of Mars are likely to be periodic flows of liquid water – something previously though almost impossible.

The tongues of the long-tongued bumblebees in Colorado are sh…

The Ig Nobel Prizes honour achievements that first make us laugh, then make us think. We take a look at this year’s winners: from unboiled eggs to painful bee stings!

You can watch the award ceremony…

Neurologist and acclaimed author Dr. Oliver Sacks died after complications with cancer at age 82. He was an extraordinary man who humanised the sufferers of mental disorders and introduced the genera…

A new theory about our solar system's history proposes that there was a fifth giant planet early on that influenced Neptune's orbit and was flung out into interstellar space.

Two independent teams ha…

Dr. Miranda Ween is investigating the potential health effects of e-cigarettes.

Nasa has awarded a $200,000 per year grant to researchers to investigate ways to turn poop into food.

Scientists at the…

Dr. Krystal is now working at the BioMelbourne Network, the peak industry body for life sciences in Melbourne, Australia.

In an important step forward for human space exploration, astronauts on the I…

In 2011 a tornado ripped through Joplin, Missouri, killing 158 people. It also brought with it a rare flesh-eating fungus that killed another five.

The first two species of 'venomous' frogs have been…

A special episode all about Pluto and the New Horizons mission. We're joined by Dr. Mike Goldsmith, a science writer with a PhD in astrophysics who's currently writing a book about Pluto. Keep an eye…