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Coral Catastophe and a Fertile way to Destroy Diversity
21 Apr 2007
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28th Jun 2009

Driving into the Future


Ben Valsler

Helen Scales
Illustration of the Thatcher effect

This week, we look into new ways of putting a tiger in your tank!  We find out how pond life could help make eco-friendly biodiesel and how new types of batteries can power electric cars for further than ever before without running out of juice.  Plus, how Margaret Thatcher’s face can tell us how monkeys recognize each other, what sharks have in common with serial killers and why dolphins are a bit like jet fighters.  And in Kitchen Science, we see how batteries work in Arctic conditions.

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News

(c) Alex Dodge

Margaret Thatcher and the Evolution of Face Recognition

Research from Emory University this week shows that we, and our ancestors, have been recognising faces in much the same way for 30 million years or more. By watching how Rhesus Macaques respond to a well known optical illusion called the Thatcher effect, professor Robert Hampton and colleagues were...

(c) Mila Zinkova

Serial killer sharks

Scientists have shed light on how those iconic ocean predators, great white sharks, go about catching their prey. It turns out they have something in common with human serial killers. Great white sharks lurk in spots that don’t just guarantee them the best chance of encountering seals but they try ...

(c) Alan D. Wilson, www.naturespicsonline.com

In-Flight Mind Reading

In a first study of its kind, researchers have recorded what’s going on in a pigeon’s brain during flight. Writing in the journal Current Biology, researchers at the University of Zurich wanted to know if familiar landmarks could be associated with changes in brain activity. The exact methods th...

(c) Serguei S. Dukachev

Flying dolphins

Scientists have uncovered the secret behind some dolphin’s amazing aquatic acrobatics: they have flippers that work in the same way as delta wing, those characteristic triangular-shaped wings on fighter jet planes, or that feat of 20th century engineering, Concord. So, dolphins can literally fly thr...


Kitchen Science

Freezing batteries

We have a look at the chemistry of batteries and what happens if you cool them down.


Interviews

(c) Russell Trow

Racing Green - Electric and Hybrid Supercars

Electric and hybrid cars do have a bit of an image problem. Many people think they're a bit slow, a bit goody, goody, perhaps a bit worthy, but this week, Meera Senthilingam visited Imperial College London to find out how electric and hybrid cars could soon rival modern petrol hungry muscle cars....

(c) Brainiac at Wikipedia

Bipolar Batteries could be Better

So far, we’ve heard that electric cars have a great deal of potential but they're held back by their weight, capacity and the expense of their batteries. So new types of batteries are actually essential to seeing more electric cars on the road...

(c) Eva Decker
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Filling Up with Algae

Now, electric cars are not the only option we have for sustainable personal transport. Already, there are a number of vehicles on the roads that use biodiesel and that’s diesel that doesn’t come from fossil fuel but from living creatures, from living plants. Now, Anna Stephenson is a PhD student a...


QotW

(c) Softeis

How do I save carbon with a new car?

With the budget introducing the £2000 subsidy to scrap old cars, I'm trying to figure out how much energy and carbon goes into the manufacture of a new car. Considering the increase in efficiency of the new car, how many miles would I have to drive to achieve an overall carbon saving?...


nat cousins asked the Naked Scientists:

That's not very high mileage!

Your comment that 40,000 kilometres a year is a lot ...
- nat cousins - 13th Jul 09
Well the United States (9,161,923* SQ Km) is roughly 37 times larger than the United Kingdom (244,820* SQ Km).

According to https://www.cia...
- Chemistry4me - 13th Jul 09
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