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Podcast TranscriptThe Naked Scientists: Science Radio & Science Podcasts |
| 3rd Sep 2000 | < Previous Show | Next Show > | ||||||||
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Vegetarians Watch Out...
A recent study published in the New England Journal of Medicine suggests that vegetarians should always read the labels on food supplements extremely carefully. A relatively common ingredient added to these kinds of foods is “orchis” which in fact means “bulls testicles”. The study also found one supposed ‘herbal treatment’ that contained 17 different products made from cow offal including placenta, pitutary, thyroid and prostate !
3rd Sep 2000
Pheromone Face-wipes Set to Boost your Pulling Power.
Do you want to increase your pulling power on the dance-floor ? We may have just the thing for you - pheromone face wipes ! ‘Kiotech’, a London biotech company has launched a brand of face-wipes soaked in 50 different human pheromones - these are the substances present in sweat which are responsible for our sex-appeal. The company claims that when its Xcite! wipes are rubbed on the face they make people appear more attractive to the opposite sex within a 3 foot radius. Apparently the effect lasts for 12 hours. George Dodd, a biochemist who helped to develop the wipes said “users were described as friendlier, warmer, and more inviting with a more attractive smile. They could help people to appear more influential in business meetings,” he said. The wipes will be sold for £1 each in clothes shops and condom machines in pubs and clubs.
Peter Brennan's article about smell and pheromones
Show featuring interview guest Peter Brennan discussing smells and pheromones (2003)
Earlier interview with Peter Brennan on pheromones and sexual attraction (2002)
3rd Sep 2000
Beer Is Good for You
2 weeks ago on ScienceWorld we told you about new research that has found powerful antioxidants similar to those found in Red wine, fruit and vegetables, in beer, which can reduce the risk of heart disease and cancer. However, just in case you were considering switching to a diet consisting solely of beer, we have calculated that you’d need to drink at least 600 pints a day to get the maximum antioxidant effect ! We’d therefore advise everything in moderation.
3rd Sep 2000
When Is it Best to Have a Baby - Day Or Night
You are better off having a baby a during the day than at night, new research has shown. Investigations of 400,000 birth records by German doctors has shown that although the chance of a baby dying in the first week of life is very low it is still twice as great in babies born at night, compared to babies born during the daytime. The researchers concluded that the most likely explanation for their findings was increased physical and mental fatigue and an over-reliance on more junior doctors at night time.
3rd Sep 2000
Asthma on the Increase - Vitamin E to Blame ?
Doctors are blaming the western diet for increasing levels of asthma amongst young people. A study carried out on children in Saudi Arabia by Professor Anthony Seaton from the University of St Andrews has found that asthma and allergy become more common the more fast food is eaten. According to the study, age, sex, social class, family size and previous infections did not affect an individuals’ chances of asthma, but eating fast-food, not drinking milk, and not eating vegetables, fruit, fibre, vitamin E and other minerals powerfully increases an individual’s chance of developing the condition. Children with the lowest vitamin E intake were 3 times more likely to develop asthma than better-nourished children.
3rd Sep 2000
Have you Got Any Helicopter-flavoured Food ? Sorry - Only Plane !
Two business men are turning a retired 177 ft long Lockheed Tristar Jet into a restaurant - though they insist that it won’t be serving aeroplane food ! Father and son Kane and Bobby Sodhi have obtained planning permission from Derby city council to move the plane to the centre of Derby, close to Pride Park, the home of Derby City football club. The project is costing them over 1 million pounds !
3rd Sep 2000
Finger of Fate
A 38 year old woman ended up in hospital this week when she was hit by a giant finger ! The 6 ft hanging finger, a direction-sign at the central railway station in Zurich, became detached and fell on the woman’s head, causing her bruising and shock. A railway spokesman said they didn’t know why the finger had come loose !
3rd Sep 2000
Faster Computer Chips Thanks to New Design
Making even smaller and faster computer chips will become a ‘PC of cake’ thanks to a new discovery by chip designers at computer giant IBM. The research team can now make chips in which the silicon channels that carry electricity around the chip are only 1/100,000’th of a millimeter wide. To put that in perpective, that’s 20 times narrower than the channels found the Pentium processors in use at the moment, meaning that far more transistors can be fitted to each chip, boosting the processing power.
A FORTUNE LURKS IN THE BACK OF YOUR SOFA
According to a recent Building Society study, we may be harbouring a fortune in lost change down the back of our sofas ! In a survey of 50 households an average of £ 4.41 was discovered under the settee, amounting to a possible £ 105 million in lost change across the UK.
MODERN-DAY NOAH'S ARK UNDER CONSTRUCTION
A week hardly goes by without us hearing about another animal becoming extinct, so scientists have set up a Noah’s Ark Frozen Zoo. The idea is to store cells and DNA from endangered species so that should they become extinct, future technology will enable us to rescue them. Kurt Benirschke and his colleagues at the Center for Reproduction of Endangered Species (CRES) at the San Diego Zoo have established a cell and DNA bank for rare and endangered animals - the Arlene Kumamoto Frozen Zoo. This frozen zoo currently contains cell samples from over 4,300 individual animals from 353 species and subspecies of mammals - representing half of the known mammalian orders - as well as 13 avian and 4 reptilian species. The curators of this and similar DNA banks around the world are quick to point out that having DNA or cells from an animal is a poor substitute for having live animals and, therefore, shouldn't be considered as a replacement for more traditional conservation efforts. "Obviously the best thing is to save habitats," observes Eric Harley, who is establishing a cell bank at the University of Cape Town (UCT) in South Africa. "If you save habitats, you save all of the creatures within it, including the ones you don't know about."
ELECTRONIC INK MAY MAKE PRINTERS REDUNDANT
You might only need to buy one newspaper and a single book in your entire life thanks to a new invention from the E-ink company in Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The pages are printed in a special ink that can be re-written electrically. The ‘pages’ of the book are covered by millions of microcapsules containing white paint chips suspended in a blue dye. When an electric current is applied to the ‘page’ each individual capsule is told whether to show white or blue. Many of the capsules make up each letter of the print on the page. The pages can be re-written as often as required, just by plugging the book into a computer. E-ink spokesman David Resnic said “it will save a lot of trees”…
AN ANSWER TO THE UNWIELDY BROADSHEET
Trying to read an unwieldy newspaper on a crowded train is tricky - and may annoy your fellow passengers! But researchers in California could have the answer for those news-addicts amongst us. A newspaper could be beamed by radio to a 40cm plastic rod called a ‘newsreader’. Inside the rod is a coiled transparent rubber sheet coated with plastic. The sheet contains millions of microscopic metal balls in oil-filled cavities, each ball coloured half-black and half-white. Electric fields flip selected balls over so they look either white or black and display the words in response to a radio signal!
HOW OLD IS THE EARTH'S ATMOSPHERE ?
Scientists think that they now know how long ago the earth’s atmosphere became breathable. Researchers from the University of California analysed rock samples up to 3.8 billion years old and found that 2.2 billion years ago the amount of oxygen in the atmosphere suddenly increased, forming the protective ozone layer shielding the planet from harmful Ultraviolet rays from the sun, and allowing life to move from the water and invade the land.
Water from ancient rocks provides clues to life's origins
3rd Sep 2000
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