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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Scientists have discovered the specific odour receptors used by the malaria-spreading mosquito species Anopheles gambiae to hunt down humans.
Can plastics pollute your body? We speak to Tamara Galloway who has identified a link between heart disease and bisphenol-A, the base of polycarbonate plastics...
How do hormones, like oestrogen, affect aqatic ecosystems? Professor Karen Kidd explains more...
If you reverse the polarity, do the sperm go backwards?
Martin Wagner explains how his team have been looking into the release of oestrogen-like chemicals from in our mineral water...
Meera Senthilingam gets her hands wet and dirty this week to see how the river Cam is kept clean...
One of the most basic ways of cleaning water is to use a filter. If you fancy getting a little dirty, why not have a go?
Can you get mercury poisoning from too much sushi?
If human males eat feminised fish, will they become more feminine too?”
How safe is the wax on apples? I end up eating up to a kilo of apples some days. What bugs me is the wax that covers the apples, to supposedly preserve them. How safe is this? What actually is it?”
I am especially curious to know if there was some shift in the seasons a long time ago? If we imposed our calendar system to the time of the dinosaurs for example, would we still find the seasons similar to autumn occurring around October or would the season have occurred at some...
What is aspartame and what does it turn into when it gets into the body?
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