Science On Top

Researchers have discovered the mechanism behind the link between blue-green algae and ALS, a type of motor neuron disease also known as Lou Gehrig's disease. Dr. Rachael Dunlop is lead author of the paper, and she joins us to talk algae, Guam, fruit bats and General "Stormin' Norman" Schwarzkopf. The foramen magnum is the hole in the base of your skull that the spinal cord passes through on its way to the brain. But it's position can tell a lot about how you - and your ancestors - walked. Bacteria can absorb fragments of DNA from the environment around them. This ability could be a previously ignored mechanism of evolution. A devastating earthquake in Pakistan created a new 'island', exciting geologists around the world. And it's already been littered with trash. A company in the UK has developed a plant that produces both tomatoes AND potatoes. So of course, they’ve called it the "TomTato".

A new form of exposure therapy could treat people's phobias - while they sleep. Can pasta make you drunk? A case study of a man with auto-brewery syndrome. Curiosity rover finds much less methane than expected, crushing hopes of finding life on Mars. A British team claims to have found evidence of extra-terrestrial life. They haven't. The life story of a blue whale has been mapped, with information from an unlikely source.

The Ig Nobel Prizes honour achievements that first make us laugh, then make us think. We take a look atthis year’s winners: from dung beetles to penis amputations! MEDICINE PRIZEA team of scientists from Japan, China and the UK for assessing the effect of listening to opera, on heart transplant patients who are mice.Classical music affects heart transplants PSYCHOLOGY PRIZEScientists from France, the USA, UK, The Netherlands, and Poland for confirming, by experiment, that people who think they are drunk also think they are attractive.“Beauty in the eyes of the beer holder” – people who think they’re drunk, think they’re hot JOINT PRIZE IN BIOLOGY AND ASTRONOMYA team from Australia, Sweden, Germany, South Africa and the UK for discovering that when dung beetles get lost, they can navigate their way home by looking at the Milky Way.Dung Beetles Watch the Galaxy (That’s How They Roll) ARCHAEOLOGY PRIZEAmericans Brian Crandall and Peter Stahl, for parboiling a dead shrew, and then swallowing the shrew without che

On Friday 13 September 2013, Dr. Pamela Gay gave a talk at Swinburne University in Melbourne, Australia about CosmoQuest.org and the need for citizen science. There were also some questions about black holes and supernovae. Our thanks to Swinburne University for hosting this lecture, and our apologies for the audio quality.

Fish expert Phil Kent joins us to talk more about the pacu, the alleged testicle-eating fish allegedly found off the alleged coast of Denmark. University of Washington researchers have sent a signal from one scientist's brain over the internet to control the hand motions of another researcher. The NSA is paying close attention. NASA has discovered one of the largest canyons in the world underneath the ice sheet that covers most of Greenland. The ice sheet is 3km thick in some parts, and scientists are surprised it hasn't worn away the canyon that was carved out four million years ago. The conventional understanding that babies are born sterile is being overturned in the face of growing evidence that mothers 'seed' their fetuses with bacteria from early on in the pregnancy. Babies can learn words while in the womb, and can remember those words after being born. By monitoring the brain waves of newborns, scientists have discovered the babies recognised 'pseudowords' they heard in the womb. A fish experiment sug

In a town with no previously recorded earthquakes, more than a hundred were recorded in one year. It's thought they were triggered by the disposal of waste water from fracking. A new world record has been set for the smallest sequenced genome, and it belongs to a symbiotic bacteria living in leafhoppers. Mother gibbons teach their daughters to sing, using a kind of 'baby talk'. And ancient 'bog body' has been found with the skin intact. The body may be that of a king, killed in a ritual sacrifice. Because axes. 'Chronic excreters' could be the big obstacle preventing the global eradication of Polio. A scientist jokes about a testicle-eating fish, and cable news anchors panic. And giggle.

Mighty Maggots v Flesh Nom Bugs was a Pozible campaign that raised $9,970 for a trial. The trial aims to assess the ability of maggots to improve the rate of healing for people with Bairnsdale Ulcer lesions. A new malaria vaccine has a 100% success rate in a small study. While promising, there are a lot of obstacles that need to be dealt with before this could be a viable Real World treatment. The Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) has admitted that radioactive water has been leaking from the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant into the Pacific Ocean. A material inspired by the cactus plant cleans tiny particles of oil from water. 100,000 adventurous people have signed up for a one-way trip to Mars. But did they read the timeline before signing on the dotted line?

Scientists have made "teeth-like structures" from stem cells generated from urine. Mark Post, a Dutch researcher has made a hamburger from cow muscle grown in a lab. The Cultured Beef was cooked at a PR event in London and tastes "close to meat". Brochosomes are tiny 'soccer-ball' structures secreted by leafhoppers that protect them from rain, spider silk and... their own waste. A new technique developed by the CSIRO uses X-Rays to find gold in ore samples. Fewer boys than girls were born in the months after the huge earthquake struck Japan in March 2011.

Dr. Pamela Gay is an astronomer and assistant research professor at Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville. She is the co-host of AstronomyCast, one of the longest running astronomy podcasts and Project Director for CosmoQuest.org. CosmoQuest is a non-profit organisation trying to engage people in both learning and doing science. In this conversation we talk about her research on variable stars, as well as her involvement in citizen science and amateur astronomy. We discuss science education and funding, how AstronomyCast began and Pamela's inspirations. You can find Pamela at her blog, StarStryder.com You can learn more about CosmoQuest at CosmoQuest.org You can listen to AstronomyCast at AstronomyCast.com

It was thought that the many eyes on a peacock's tail feathers were what impressed peahens. But a new - and really cool! - study suggests that when it comes to wooing peahens, size does matter. It's not the number of the eyes, but the width of the tail. Do dolphins use names? Well, sort of. They may use names to refer to themselves, but we don't know if they use names to refer to each other. Scientists at MIT have developed a technique to insert false memories into mice.  Three new studies have uncovered the genetic mechanism which controls regeneration in flatworms. Researchers at the University of Tokyo say they have created electronics thin and flexible enough to be considered “imperceptible.” Their first prototype, a touch sensor, is 30 times lighter than printer paper and one-fifth the thickness of sandwich wrap.

The iKnife knows when it's cutting through healthy tissue or cancerous tissue during surgery. In 91 tests, it correctly identified the tissue every time, and in less than a second. Chimpanzees and orangutans can use 'autobiographical memory' - previously thought to be unique to humans. In a series of tests, the apes were able to accurately recall an event that happened three years prior. Genetecists may have found a way to switch off the rogue chromosome that causes Down's syndrome.  The discovery of two giant viruses could mean an entirely new kingdom of life. More than 93% of their genes are unknown and not on any existing database. Robert Hooke's Micrographia is available as a free e-book thanks to Project Gutenberg. Also check the Wikipedia page. The 2013 NZ Skeptics Conference will be held in Wellington from the 6th to the 8th of September. Great speakers like astronomer Dr. Pamela Gay, climate scientist Professor Martin Manning, microbiologist Dr. Siouxsie Wiles and many more.

The Kepler spacecraft has found 134 confirmed planets outside our solar system and another 3,277 unconfirmed candidates. But has its time run out? NASA scientists are planning one last ditch effort to rescue the space telescope. Meanwhile Hubble has analysed a planet 63 light years away and found it's a deep blue colour! Also, it's big and moving really really fast. Lucas has found a gravity simulator that lets you build solar systems and watch as objects of different mass interact. It's mesmerising! A look back at some old Hubble photographs led planetary astronomer Mike Showalter to discover a new moon orbiting Neptune. The planarian is a simple flatworm, which can regrow its head after decapitation. But a recent experiment suggests they might be able to keep their memories from before the decapitation!

Human head transplants - technically maybe, but not really. Did scientists create a human liver from stem cells? Sort of, but not really. A bone marrow transplant cures two men of HIV - actually yes, but don't get your hopes up. Beware the toad with the weaponised moustache! Guillemot eggs clean themselves. Pluto's moons get official names, snubbing Stephen Colbert.

Shockwave from Russian meteor circled the globe twice Russian rocket crashes shortly after launch Global warming could be helping the spread of brain-eating amoebas Why routine autopsies should be the norm, not the exception A corn-eating pest thwarts farmers, but the bacteria makes them do it Scientists have sequenced the genome of an ancient horse Dopamine: why chocolate brownies are like cocaine Torch that runs on body heat invented by 15-year-old

Why naked mole rats don’t get cancer Thinking of home makes it harder to learn a foreign language Your vegetables are 'alive' up to a week after harvest Being bitten by a komodo dragon: not as bad as you thought, but still pretty bad Unlocking the parasitic secrets of 822 year old poo Unsurprisingly, 1 billion-year-old water tastes "terrible"

Temperatures on Mars rise and fall twice a day New phylum of bacteria discovered Ancient armoured fish had abs Leprosy from medieval knights is much the same as modern-day leprosy Supreme Court rules on human-gene patents

Australian Bird Moves Like Jagger and Sounds Like Space Invaders Comet Lovejoy flies into Sun to reveal solar secrets Australian squid eat sperm for better bodies and babies Growing Left, Growing Right- why your left is different to your right

400 Year old frozen plants get thawed out and revived. A Russian scientist claims to have found liquid blood in a 10,000 year old woolly mammoth carcass. The iron in beads worn by pre-Iron Age Egyptians came from meteorites. 1 in 13 museum visitors have 'ape-like' feet. An old theory about the evolution of the turtle's shell gets some supporting evidence. And a new therapy for schizophrenics shows promise.

Vitamin C kills tuberculosis in an accidental discovery. Why penguins can swim but not fly. A Neanderthal tooth gives a clue about the history of breastfeeding. The pathogen that caused the Irish Famine gets its genome sequenced. Our guts are full of bacteria, and even more viruses. The 'top ten' new species discovered in 2012. Cockroaches are evolving to avoid our traps. More show notes at http://scienceontop.com/104

UN says insects are the food of the future. Underground water reservoir untouched for over a billion years. Stem cells created with cloning technique. Plan to monitor endangered ecosystems, not just animals. Egyptians got it on more in Summer, and the co-evolution of humans and dogs. More show notes at http://scienceontop.com/103