Acupuncture works well for some to relieve pain and stress - but how is it done and how does it work. Guest acupuncturist Steve Jones joins the Naked Scientists to describe the acupuncture procedure.
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Why are some people left handed ? Most of the world around us and in us is assymetrical - from your heart being on the left, down to the sugar molecules in your DNA being right-handed. Chris McManus joins the Naked Scientists to discuss why some people are left handed.
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Chemist John Emsley discusses phosphorus. Discovered when early alchemists boiled up urine, looking for gold, and instead found a substance that spontaneously ignited, phosphorus has since spawned the match industry, a trade union, a succession of grisly murders, been used to wage war, and now as a fertiliser and food preservative.
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Chemists Graeme Hogarth and Ivan Parkin discuss why some copper coins can be picked up with a magnet, what liquid oxygen is like, how to make explosions and a novel kind of glass that never needs cleaning !
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Susan Greenfield, director of the Royal Institution, joins us to discuss how does the brain generate consciousness, what is consciousness, how can we study consciouness, what is unconsciousness, and are animals conscious in the same way that humans are ?
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Author and world-renowned authority on psychical research and psychical phenomena Dr. Tony Cornell joins The Naked Scientists to discuss what is a ghost, what is a poltergeist, how do scientists study ghosts and hauntings, and who can see ghosts.
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Dr. Jens Krause, from Leeds University, has developed a robotic fish that can be used in the laboratory to study how fish form shoals. He also discusses what we know about how fish behave in the wild and answers the age-old question of how long is the memory of a fish ?
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Dr. Tony Hooley, from the development company 1Limited, discusses the principles and applications of 3D surround sound, and a new surround-sound system which uses just one one speaker unit.
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Dr. Stacey Efstathiou, from Cambridge University, joins The Naked Scientists to talk about what is a virus, how viruses were discovered, how big are viruses, how viruses cause disease, how viral illnesses can be treated, and how viruses evade the immune system.
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Eukaryotic cells contain remnants of ancient bacteria called mitochondria, which provide energy for cellular processes. Changes in the DNA contained within mitochondria, which still shares many features with bacterial DNA, can be studied to follow the evolution of cells and humans.
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Genetically modified crops and plants and biotechnology is increasingly used in South America. GM Soybean (roundup-ready) saves farmers large amounts of money on herbicides, and since the GM crops need less spraying, there are fewer residues left on the crop, making it safer.
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How does the brain develop in the embryo, how does the nervous system respond to injury, including spinal cord injury, and what are the prospects for spinal cord repair ? Dr. Adrian Pini,developmental neurbiologist from GKT Medical School, London, tells us more.
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Using measurements taken from thousands of people it is possible to rebuild, in clay, what a person's face would have looked like during life. Caroline Wilkinson is a facial anthopologist and describes how a face is reconstructed using clay, the practical applications of facial anthropology, including forensic and archaeological work.
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SCUBA divers Shwen Gwee and Nick Cuttler talk about scuba diving, where to go diving, how scuba divers are helping with marine conservation, and what happens to your body when you scuba dive. Guest Ben Allanach, from CERN, joins us to talk about the big bang.
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Scientific evidence, including fingerprints, dental profiles, DNA technology including DNA fingerprinting and the use of DNA to identify key chracteristics of a criminal such as eye colour, ethnicity and sex, is one of the most important determinants of the outcome of a criminal investigation. DCI Tom Harper, from Essex Police, talks about how these techniques work and their potential constraints.
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You might be given just a part of body, sometimes a whole body, sometimes just a bone. But how old is the material, is it even human, and what were the events that lead to its being found where it was ? These are the questions that you ask a forensic archaeologist and Corinne Duhig came along to tell us how she goes about answering them.
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Changing the appearence of a part of the body, either because it is damaged by injury such as burning or cutting, by diseases such as breast-cancer, or as a natural consequence of ageing, is the domain of the plastic surgeon. But what sort of alterations are possible? George Lamberty, consultant plastic surgeon, joins us to talk about it.
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A serious problem with many anti-cancer therapies is their failure to selectively target the tumour, avoiding collateral damage to other healthy tissues. One way to surmount this problem is to engineer viruses which selectively multiply within tumour cells, and not within healthy tissue. This is the strategy adopted by Professor Moira Brown who is using the HSV strain 1716 mutant for Glioma therapy.
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For Brain Awareness Week, the Naked Scientists talk with Professor Joe Herbert about what is depression, what is post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), how depression can harm the brain, how disease can affect the brain, including causing memory loss and mood changes, and how we can treat psychological diseases.
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Peter Brennan, an expert on smells and odours, discusses how the nose picks up smell, why animals have a more sensitive sense of smell than people, what is a smell, what are pheromones, including how pheromones work, and how is smell important for sexual attraction.
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Peter Weissberg, consultant cardiologist from Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge, talks about causes of heart disease, what is a heart attack, treatments for heart disease, including coronary bypass surgery, angioplasty and coronary stenting, and symptoms of a heart attack.
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Transplantation, including kidney transplants, liver transplants, heart and lung transplants and even bowel transplantation involves taking an organ from one person and putting it into another to correct a disease process. But what does transplant surgery involve, including immunosuppression, what are the success rates for organ transplants and how long does a transplanted organ survive ?
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Lake Vostoc is the world's largest sub-glacial lake and has remained sealed off from the outside world for millions of years. Scientists are debating whether the lake contains life, how to access the lake without contaminating it, and what Lake Vostok can tell us about the prospects of finding life in outer space.
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Dr. Vincent Janik, from St. Andrews University, describes dolphin, whale and other marine mammal communication, how to study dolphin behaviour and dolphin language, and why whales beach themselves.
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The Around The World Yacht Race is one of the most gruelling challenges. Successful participant Dr. Chris Price, who is also a physician researching strokes, describes his experience of sailing around the world, including how to make fresh water, how to plot your course and position, why some people are seasick and who makes a better sailor - a man or a woman !
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Neurologist Roger Barker, from the Cambridge Brain Repair Centre, discusses what are stem cells, how can stem cells be used to treat degenerative brain diseases including Parkinsons Disease and Alzheimers Disease, and can animal stem cells remedy human brain injury.
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Egyptologist and Archaeologist Barry Kemp decribes what life would have been like in ancient Egypt at the time the pyramids were being built, how archaeology can reveal the origin of the pyramids and other historical events including famines and plagues.
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