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Coming up on this week's show we'll be exploring flight in terms of both flying machines for people (and when I say flying machine I mean really cool - super fast stuff) and how animals fly (think dragonflies in a wind tunnel with smoke, or Eagle-cam). Dr Graham Taylor of Oxford University works on the aerodynamics and flight control of bird and insect flight. He'll be telling us about Cossack, the Eagle with a wireless video camera back-pack and how this allows Graham to see how air acts on the surface of Cossack's wings. He also puts flying insects in special wind tunnels where by blowing trails of smoke over their wings he can see air flows over their wings. Also on the show there will be Jenny Goodman who will tell us about her PhD project which involves trying to get an aeroplane to fly at Mach 6 (also known as 6 times the speed of sound or 2 to 3 times as fast as Concorde). This is no mean feat when temperatures 13cms away from the fuel tank are hot enough to melt stainless steel in 5 seconds!
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Every year the Cambridge Science Festival celebrates some of the best and most exciting science and engineering going on in the UK - and the Naked Scientists were there! We find out about the cool science of ice cream, the microscopic world of microbes, and the IgNobel awards for science at its most silly. Looking further afield, the University of Auckland's Peter Metcalf unlocks the secrets of a viral sarcophagus, and Mike Brown from the California Institute of Technology discusses the origin of some mysterious objects in the Kuiper Belt. To cool us down after all that excitement, Dave and Azi sit back and explain the best way to get a cold beer.
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Contaminated petrol, astronauts in danger of lung diseases, a new way to put the brakes on car accident rates, gas sensors made from silicon replicas of marine algae, how pollution is causing droughts, plus a healthy digest of your science questions and emails top the bill in this week's Naked Scientists.
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Dr Chris and Dr Kat chat to archaeologist Lawrence Owens about his latest excavations of Peruvian Mummies and what it reveals about their lives; cue tales of mass burials, domestic violence and child abuse. They also Keith Dobney about his research into the domestication of animals, including cows, pigs and man's best friend. Anna and Holly Barclay look at mussels and their role in eutrophication in Chinese Lakes. Dave and Derek start a few fires to see which fuel will burn quickest.
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Clean water is something that many of us take for granted, but Dr Mark Booth from Cambridge University describes how in many parts of the world dirty water can lead to life-threatening disease and parasitic infections. To talk about the current strategies in place to supply clean water we're joined by Dr Alex McKie from Surrey University, and Professor Colin Humphreys from Cambridge University explains how high-energy UV LEDs could help provide clean water in the future. In Kitchen Science, Helen Scales and Dave Ansell bring sweetness and light to a house in Cottenham...
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Dr Chris and Dr Helen answer all your burning science questions, including why frost can form even when the air temperature is above zero, why hair looks darker when it's wet, why sunlight looks red through your eyelids, and whether cracking your knuckles really causes arthritis. We also talk to Chemistry World editor Mark Peplow about venomous vipers, artificial kidneys, and how LSD might be switching on hallucinations, and in Kitchen Science Anna Lacey and Dave Ansell look at some slightly safer visual effects with the help of a sodium street light.
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Nuclear energy is always in the news, but how much do you know about nuclear fission and what happens to nuclear waste? To find out, Naked Scientists Anna Lacey and Dave Ansell visit Sizewell B power station in Suffolk, and studio guest Ian Farnan from Cambridge University discusses nuclear waste disposal and why current methods might not contain the radiation as long as we thought. But as clinical radiologist Anant Krishnan explains, radiation plays a crucial role in medicine, including allowing us to see broken bones and killing off tumours. Sticking with uses of radiation that save lives, Anna and Dave find out how a smoke detector works in Kitchen Science.
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This week we take a look at extreme environments and the organisms that live in them. Dr Crispin Little from the University of Leeds talks about hydrothermal vents and the fastest fossilisation on the planet, Professor Steve Scott from the University of Toronto explains why mining companies are interested in hydrothermal vents, and Dr Lisa Pratt from the University of Indiana describes how bacteria find energy three kilometres beneath the surface of the earth, and how similar strategies could be used by life on other planets. From the extremes of the Earth to the extremes of the kitchen, Derek Thorne and Hugh Hunt find out what's hot and what's not in the dishwasher...
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