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22nd Oct 2006

How We Hear, Echolocation and Giant Whoopee Cushions

Helping us tune into the science of sound this week is Dr Bob Carlyon from the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, who explains how we hear, how we can concentrate on one voice in a noisy room, and what it sounds like to have a cochlea implant. From the hard of hearing to the most finely tuned ears on the planet, Professor Ian Russell from the University of Sussex describes how the greater moustached bat catches prey in complete darkness while flying at 40 miles per hour, Professor Trevor Cox from the University of Salford turns the sound of breaking wind into a record breaker, as he talks about the world's largest whoopee cushion, and in Kitchen Science, Derek and Dave investigate the science of balance with the help of a humble office chair and some unsuspecting volunteers...

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News

 

Like Bees To a Honey Pot

Researchers in the US have been studying tipsy fruit flies to try and understand what happens to our genes when we go out on the beers. Humans and fruit flies respond to alcohol in very similar ways, so researchers at North Carolina State University decided to...

 

Bugs Powered By Radiation

Scientists have discovered a population of bacteria thriving 2.8 kilometres underground, which rely on radiation produced by uranium for survival. The findings make the existence of life elsewhere in the universe much more likely. The discovery, which is publi...

 

Good Memory in The Genes

If you're like me, and have a terrible memory, then at last we may have an excuse and can blame it on our genes. Scientists in the US have identified a gene responsible for human memory, after studying more than a hundred people in Switzerland and Arizona. Aft...

 

Tuning in To The Music of Melanoma

US Researchers have developed a test which can detect the spread of melanoma, a form of skin cancer, by listening out for the presence of cancerous cells in the blood. The technique, known as photoacoustic detection, is sensitive enough to pick up just ten can...


Questions

 

The Earth's core is basically molten and the Earth is in the region of four billion or so years old. How come it hasn't cooled down over the last four and a half billion years, and why hasn't man tried to tap into all that energy?


 

If all these bats are whizzing about and making all these noises, how do they not fly into each other? How do they know who's noise is who's?


 

If bats can do this, why aren't aeroplanes equipped with the same sort of things?


 

I have very sensitive hearing and I don't like sudden loud noises or repetitive sounds. I am also very sensitive to sun light and bright lights. I was wondering if there's any medical condition or are the two related in any way?


 

Is it true that sound travels further in cold weather than in warm weather and how does this work?


 

Why is it that when you're in a car and going past a bunch of other parked cars all in a long row, you hear a swoosh for every other car you go past? Is it the gap in between the car filled with air that interacts with the turbulence made by the moving car that makes you hear this?



Kitchen Science

 

Dizziness and Office Chairs

Investigate what is happening when you get dizzy in some perculiar directions, with nothing but an office chair, and some soft grass.



Fact or Fiction

The average oxygen molecule in the air around you in travelling at over 1000 miles per hour
TrueTrue
Tea bags were invented in the 1850's
TrueTrue
Human hairs are about half a millimetre in diameter
TrueTrue
One in ten of the world's active volcanoes are in Japan
TrueTrue
When we take a deep breath there are more molecules of gas in our lungs that there are stars in the universe
TrueTrue
Australia's amazing mammal the Duck-Billed Platypus actually lays eggs
TrueTrue



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