Question Of The Week - From The Naked Scientists

We find out how it is possible for a single telephone wire to carry information for a telephone conversation, file downloads to a computer, WiFi access, and allow us to watch a film and listen to the news. Plus we ask can we make an infinitely powerful laser simply by adding more mirrors? Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

This week we speak with NASA's Planetary Protection Officer to find out if we could, and should, introduce life onto Mars. Plus we ask is a human producing Vitamin D a bit like a photosynthesising plant?..... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

Can the type of cutlery used to prepare and serve food really alter its flavour? And does it really change, or is it just our perception? Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

We apply some Naked Science force to this week's question and find out if we make a magnet so strong that is squashes, rather thanks sticks to, your white goods. Plus we ask do motorways create a microclimate? Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

This week we hone our noses and sniff out the answer to this stinker of a question...."Why do toenails, and even feet in general, smell cheesy? Plus we ask can we make a magnet so strong that is squashes, rather thanks sticks to, our white goods? Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

We find out if monitors, screens and e.books are more than your standard page turner leaving you tossing and turning and up all night. Plus we ask, why have women lost their hairy beard and chests..... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

This week we find out if a liberal slathering of oil based moisturiser makes up part of our daily calorie quota. Plus we ask, are monitor screens and e.books more than your standard page turner, leaving you tossing and turning and up all night?.... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

This week we find out why our bodies can't get their priorities right. We find out why we seek out food when we already have enough energy stored around our waists in the form of love handles and pot bellies. Plus we ask - will our skin soak up the calories in sun cream? Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

This week we find out about the inequality of the temperature scale as a listener asks: "If we can have a lower limit on temperature - absolute zero - so cold that nothing happens, why do we not have an upper limit - a temperature that is so hot that atoms and particles are so hot that they are ripped into the most elementary units and become so excited that they cannot react with anything around them?" Plus we wonder why we don't always get our priorities right........ Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

Could you get cancer from someone else? Tasmanian devils can catch cancer transmitted through biting. Are there instances of cancers being transmitted this way in humans? Can you catch cancer through a blood transfusion? Plus we ask, why is there not an upper absolute in the temperature scale...... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

If there were a large object, say a meteorite falling straight down where you are standing, what kind of warning would you notice? Would there be an accompanying sound? Or would you not know until it's too late? Plus we ask, can you catch cancer?..... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

We know that nothing persists for ever so surely plastics in the sea have to break down at some point. How long does it take? And where does the plastic end up? Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

As the joke goes.....if you cross a kangaroo with a sheep you get a wooly jumper. Is it now possible with modern techniques to cross different animals to make one completely new species? Plus we ask will the plastics in the oceans ever degrade? Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists