Could diet foods be making you fatter? How do we learn to like the foods we eat? This week, we indulge in the science of appetite, diet and diabetes. We'll find out how our early experiences of food can alter our diets for life, and ask if low calorie alternatives to sweet and fatty foods can fool the brain into underestimating the energy content of the real thing. Also, how synthetic chemists are searching for compounds to monitor blood glucose and control diabetes. Plus, how regions of the brain can “catch” Alzheimer’s from each other, we discover a new microscopy technique that can open a window on the brain in action, and talk to the Australian ecologist who thinks more introduced species, including elephants, could stabilise the Aussie ecosystem.

Want to know how to generate a cloud in a lemonade bottle? How about build a toaster-powered hot air balloon, or work out the speed of light using margarine and a microwave?

In this book, penned by the Naked Scientists, you’ll find these and over 40 more incredible experiments to try at home. You’ll never have a dull rainy day again!

Find out more or Order Now

This week in the Planet Earth Podcast - Richard Hollingham goes to the River Wandle in south-west London to find out how scientific research is helping to revitalise this heavily-used river; later he goes to Cambridge to hear about some of the hottest conservation topics for 2012.

Follow what the Naked Scientists are up to on our Twitter Feed. Whenever we publish a new podcast or answer an interesting question on the forum we tweet about it and include a link to take you to the relevant page, making Twitter a great way to stay up to date with what's hot on the Naked Scientists.

3rd Feb 2012 - Find out answers to those questions you have always been wondering about.

How does a microwave work?

Most of us have a microwave oven in our kitchen. They make heating up leftovers and the dreaded readymeal much faster than a conventional oven. In this Naked Science Scrapbook, we find out how the microwave oven produce the microwaves, and how they actually cook the food, plus how popcorn played a key role in the invention of the microwave oven...

• Why do sprouts make you fart?
• How does autofocus work?
• More...

Dr Ernest Otherford, star of the Naked Scientists "Science from the Sporran" series, has been welcomed in his spiritual home by an article in Scotland's Sunday Press.  You can see more press coverage for the Naked Scientists on our "In the Press" page.