Could plastics be polluting your body? This week, we hear how hormone-mimicking chemicals leaching from plastics can cause coronaries, strokes and diabetes. Even the plastic mineral water bottle isn't safe - snails grown in them produce more offspring. Also, how oestrogen in lakes can feminize fish and cause their populations to plummet, Meera takes a trip to the sewage works to see how we clean up our act and, in Kitchen Science, Ben and Dave play with mud to find out how a water filter works. Plus, the hot news this week: how sperm get turned on, recreating colourful dinosaurs and understanding how mosquitoes smell the world.

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Are you a budding Naked Scientist?

If so, we're looking for an intern to join us this summer, where you will gain experience of making science radio programmes and podcasts, web development, science writing, video editing and production!

If you're currently an undergraduate student in Europe, the Amgen Scholars Programme could fund an eight week placement with us here in Cambridge.

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Can brain scanners enable us to opne a new channel of communication with patients apparently in persistent vegetative states? Brain researcher Adrian Owen, from the Cambridge MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, explains how an experiment with fMRI revealed that a head injured, vegetative state patient could communicate: by changing his thoughts...

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Do you want to unravel the secrets of the universe in your kitchen?

Then take a look at our Kitchen Science Experiments! Such as...

Fun with filters

One of the most basic ways of cleaning water is to use a filter. If you fancy getting a little dirty then why not have a go?

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!

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