Crowdscience

When it comes to speed, humans have got nothing on cheetahs - or greyhounds, kangaroos or zebras for that matter. It’s over long distances we really come into our own: when running for hours or even days, our body structure and excellent sweating skills make us able to outpace much faster mammals.But what are the limits of human endurance? Can we run ever further and faster, and what’s the best diet to fuel such ambitions?This week’s questions come from two CrowdScience listeners in Japan who already know a fair bit about stamina, having run several marathons and long-distance triathlons between them. We head to Greece, legendary birthplace of the marathon, to witness an even more arduous challenge: hundreds of athletes following in the footsteps of the ancient Greek messenger Pheidippides, to run an astonishing 246km across the country. The ever-so-slightly less fit CrowdScience team do our best to keep up, and try to discover the secrets of these runners’ incredible endurance.Presenter: Marnie Chesterton Pr

One of the more surprising consequences of the pandemic has been the trend for people wanting to move out of cities and back to the countryside. Not everyone has that privilege of course, but undoubtedly for some living in urban areas during lockdown, the lack of access to green spaces took its toll on their mental health and physical well-being. Now, with renewed hope of a global vaccine roll-out, ensuring more people have better access to nature is more important than ever, especially in cities of glass, steel and concrete. Italian CrowdScience listener Enrica loves nothing better than walking along the verdant riverbank near her home after a hard week at work. But is this activity doing more than making her feel good? Is it having an actual effect on her health? Presenter Anand Jagatia meets Enrica and visits a radical scheme in the city of Milan, where officials have been working hard to increase urban green features and have committed to planting 3 million trees and building twenty new parks by 2030.One

As regular listeners may recall, CrowdScience has delved into the strange world of fungi before, as we dug down into the forest floor to reveal how plants and trees are connected to the vast mycelial network known as the “wood wide web”. But what makes this network possible and how might it have evolved? Fungi are incredibly clever, or at least , it appears that they’re capable of displaying complex behaviour that gives them the appearance of intelligence. In this episode, we speak to fungal ecologist and author of a new book, Merlin Sheldrake, about fungal “brains”, the evolution of magic mushrooms and zombie insects – the astonishing way certain fungi can take over the bodies of ants and wasps in order to sow their spores above ground.Presented by Anand Jagatia Produced by Rami Tzabar for the BBC World Service.Image: Getty Images

At Christmas, is there a better gift than knowledge? CrowdScience has cooked up its own version of 'secret Santa', with members of the team setting one another the challenge of answering surprising questions from all over the world. Are humans the only animals to exercise? Can you get colder than absolute zero? Why are sounds louder at night? When it comes to food dropped on the floor, is there such thing as the "three second rule"? And, does honey really have healing properties? Producers and presenters from the CrowdScience team speak to all manner of experts, from zoologists through to material scientists, to find the answers. Presenter: Marnie Chesterton Producer: Caroline Steel

CrowdScience listener Simon has a problem. He’s always bumping into things, dropping tools and knocking stuff over. And he’s sick of it. He wants to know what is going on. Was he born like this? Or is it contagious? And most importantly, can he do anything about it, or is he going to be the proverbial ‘bull in a china shop’ for the rest of his life?Host Anand Jagatia gets on the case, investigating the complex coordination needed for the simplest movements, like throwing a ball and catching it. With help from Dr Andrew Green, an exercise physiologist from Johannesburg University, he delves into our secret “sixth sense”, proprioception, which helps us locate our limbs without looking. Anand discovers that an easy task, like kicking a football, needs multiple parts of the brain to coordinate in order to work smoothly. Assistant Professor Jessica Bernard from Texas AMU studies the brain, particularly the cerebellum, a part that controls smooth movements. Dr Bernard explains how tiny glitches and larger lesions i

The space between stars is usually measured in light years, but this makes it less easy to acknowledge the true scale of the distance. Even the closest star system to Earth, Proxima Centauri, is 4.2 light years or 40.13 trillion kilometres from Earth. If we are ever going to bridge the gap between the stars, we will have to have some very fast spaceships, with extremely reliable, long-lasting technology on board. So does science allow for these spacecraft to exist? That’s what listener Allan wants to know, and to find out, Presenter Anand Jagatia speaks with Tracy Drain, a systems engineer at NASA JPL responsible for overseeing the development and missions of multiple unmanned interplanetary probes including some around Jupiter and Mars. She tells us the challenges involved with simply keeping our spacecraft working for the long-haul.Even if we can overcome issues of wear and tear over time, powering a ship to other star systems will not be easy. Today’s chemical rockets are too inefficient for the job, so we

From dumping raw sewage into rivers to littering the streets with our trash, humans don’t have a great track record when it comes to dealing with our waste. It’s something that CrowdScience listener and civil engineer Marc has noticed: he wonders if humans are particularly prone to messing up our surroundings, while other species are instinctively more hygienic and well-organised.Are we, by nature, really less clean and tidy than other animals? Farming and technology have allowed us to live more densely and generate more rubbish - maybe our cleaning instincts just aren’t up to the vast quantities of waste we spew out? CrowdScience digs into the past to see if early human rubbish heaps can turn up any answers. We follow a sewer down to the River Thames to hear about The Great Stink of Victorian London; turn to ants for housekeeping inspiration; and find out how to raise hygiene standards by tapping into our feelings of disgust and our desire to follow rules.Presented by Marnie Chesterton and produced by Cathy

This year, dramatic wildfires wreaked havoc across the globe from Australia to Siberia. CrowdScience listener Melissa wants to know the extent to which climate change is a factor in blazes that appear to be increasing in both frequency and intensity.Presenter Anand Jagatia hears how scientists use alternative worlds in computer models, to understand the role that global warming plays. After Siberia’s hottest ever year on record, he discovers the impact of increasing temperatures on boreal forests – and how they could help release huge stocks of carbon that has been stored in the soil. But is there anything we can do to prevent this happening? He visits the UK’s Peak District region, where conservationists are re-wilding a massive area with a special species of moss, which may offer a solution to an increase in infernos.Presented by Anand Jagatia and Produced by Melanie Brown for the BBC World Service. [Image: Forest Fire. Credit: Getty Images]

Every year, Western Afghanistan is hit with a fierce 120-day wind, and listener Hamid wants to know what causes this phenomenon? He’s from the city of Herat, where what starts as a gentle breeze in the morning can pick up to become a dangerous gale just a few hours later, devastating buildings and causing power outages. The BBC’s Abdullah Elham in Kabul tells us the country has plenty of other ‘friendly’ wind but this one is considered ‘fierce’. CrowdScience talks to Professor Amir Aghakouchak to discover more about the phenomenon, and learns about the pollution problems Herat’s summer storm causes in neighbouring Iran. But it’s not all bad news. Professor Lorraine Remer explains how NASA used satellites to map how wind transport Saharan sand almost half way round the world, fertilising the Amazon rainforest. Presented by Marnie Chesterton and produced by Marijke Peters for the BBC World Service[Photo: Tree in wind in desert. Credit: Getty Images]

We all feel pain on a regular basis; when we stub a toe, break a bone or even experience heartbreak. Bebeto from Cameroon wants to know how to cope with a pain in his wrist that just won’t go away. Does a positive mindset help? Or perhaps meditation? Marnie Chesterton speaks to psychologists and neuroscientists to find the answers. We hear from two people with very different experiences of pain. Lucy has fibromyalgia and experiences pain all over her body every day. While Stephen has a rare genetic condition which means he doesn’t feel physical pain at all. But they both argue that pain shouldn’t always be unwanted. Perhaps we need to embrace and accept our pain in order to beat it. Presented by Marnie Chesterton. Produced by Caroline Steel for the BBC World Service[Image: Man in pain. Credit: Getty Images]

CrowdScience listeners come in all shapes, sizes and ages. This episode is dedicated to our younger listeners who, as we’ve learned before, are experts at asking those superficially obvious questions that for parents, are anything but easy to answer. To start off with, Sylvia, asks why elephants are so big? As we hear from our expert – mammals were at one time, much larger – so perhaps the question should be, why aren’t they bigger? We investigate what drives body size in the animal kingdom.Presenter Marnie Chesterton, together with our ‘cub’ reporter Arlo, goes in search of the most brilliant scientific minds to respond to a slew of other queries. Shambhavi, from Singapore wonders why humans have five digits on each hand? And Benni from California asks why dogs don’t get sick when they drink from muddy puddles? Do dogs have some amazing ability to fight off viruses and bugs?Beyond the confines of our planet, we’ve also got a question from Olivia, from Sydney, Australia, who regularly contemplates the univers

We’ve probably all got a friend who sings along wildly out of tune - or maybe you are that person. But why are some of us apparently tone deaf, while others can hold a melody? Can you train yourself to sing in tune, or is it mostly down to raw talent?These musical questions, from CrowdScience listeners Jenny and Anastasia, certainly struck a chord with us. Anastasia loves to sing but her friends tell her she’s off-key - or that “a bear trod on her ear,” as they say in her native Russia. Is it possible for her to improve her singing voice, and what are the best ways of going about it?Both musicians and scientists help us tackle these questions, and explain what’s going on in our ears, brains and throats when we try to sing the right notes. We learn about congenital amusia, a condition which makes it almost impossible to tell if you’re in tune or not, and attempt to tease out the relative influence of our genes and our environment when it comes to musical ability.Presented by Marijke Peters and produced by Cath

All living things are related to each other, from elephants to algae, e-coli to humans like us. Within our cells we hold genetic information in the form of DNA or RNA. But despite viruses sharing these molecules, many scientists don't consider them to be 'life'. Viruses cannot reproduce on their own, but some can insert their DNA into a host to pass genes sideways through the branching tree of life. As a result, viruses’ relationship with life is.... complex. Two of our listeners had viruses on the mind, so they sent in the same question to CrowdScience. Senan from Singapore and Melvin from South Africa want to know how viruses began to see if this can tell us whether they shared a common ancestor with humans. To dig into this complexity Marnie Chesterton speaks with an expert on Koala genetics – Dr Rachael Tarlinton. Koalas are in the middle of tackling a retroviruses, a type of virus that plants DNA into our cells as a reproduction strategy. Her research could reveal why humans life has so much viral DNA w

Curious CrowdScience listeners have suddenly been struck by the oddity of their behaviours. Elise ponders why she blushes. Thankfully, listener David is a vascular surgeon and knows a thing or two about blushing, as he performs operations on people debilitated by constant red-dening. He has some answers for us, but asks why did blushing evolve?In the past, red cheeks have been linked to necrophilia, repressed cannibalism, and even a de-sire for men to experience menstruation! Thankfully, research has come a long way since then, as blushing experts Peter de Jong and Corine Dijk explain. Scientists believe that it evolved as a nonverbal signal to show someone you’re sorry or that you care about what they think. This would have important for our survival in the group, en-suring we didn’t get into a fight or get kicked out the group. Anand Jagatia gets to grips with blushing and other bodily behaviours – including a question from Thai listener Nitcha who wonders why we yawn as well as a question from Mohamed in G

Crowdscience solves a range of listeners’ cosmic mysteries, from the reason we only ever see one side of the moon, to why planets spin, and discover the answer can be found in the formation of the solar system. We talk to astronomer Dr Carolin Crawford to understand how stars are made, and investigate the art of astronomy with journalist Jo Marchant, hearing how the ancient Greeks came up with a zodiac long before the invention of a telescope, revealing an intimate relationship between humans and the night sky.Presenter: Marnie Chesterton Producer: Marijke Peters [Image: The Solar System. Credit: Getty Images]

Why am I embarrassed to be naked? Chumbuzzo in Zambia wonders. And what would happen if we ditched our clothes and embraced nudity? Presenter Anand Jagatia and Producer Caroline Steel spend the day naked with other naturists to see if they can shift their embarrassment. Maybe there are good evolutionary reasons to cover up or perhaps we are contributing to inequality and negative body image by hiding our real selves? Marnie Chesterton explores different cultural attitudes to nudity and finds out about the science behind embarrassment. Clothes optional. Presented by Marnie Chesterton. Produced by Caroline Steel for the BBC World Service

Many of us willingly subject ourselves to pain and irritation by eating chilli. CrowdScience listener Tina wonders what’s driving this apparent masochism: why does ‘feeling the burn’ make so many of us feel so good?It’s just one of several tasty questions we tuck into in this episode. Also on the menu is stew: why does it taste better the next day? Listener Helen’s local delicacy is Welsh cawl, a meat and vegetable concoction. Tradition dictates it should be eaten the day after it’s made, but is there any science behind this?And we finish the meal with cheese. Listener Leander asks what makes some cheeses blue, some hard and crumbly, and some run all over your fridge. How is milk transformed into such radically different end products?Presented by Marnie Chesterton and Alex Lathbridge Produced by Cathy Edwards, Marnie Chesterton and Alex Lathbridge for the BBC World Service.[Photo:Woman eating red Chilli Pepper. Credit: Getty Images]

What does science say about controlling urination, and other bodily functions? We tackle three queries about peeing triggers, pooing positions and missing sweat. This episode CrowdScience presenter Marnie Chesterton poses some of the best listener follow-up questions that have landed in our inbox to a panel of experts.Listener Samuel in Ghana is wondering why watery sounds seem to induce urination. Producer Melanie Brown heads out to survey whether this is the case for individuals in an actual crowd at a public fountain in London. And urologist and trustee of the International Continence Society Marcus Drake talks Marnie through how he uses the sound of running water during his work as a hospital doctor helping patients with common but distressing peeing issues, and the limitations of research into this question.And he’s not the only listener who wants us to dig deeper into topics we’ve explored on the show before. Anna in Tokyo also got in touch after hearing our show about toilets, to ask if there is a toil

If you’re one of the millions of people who used lockdown to try something new like baking sourdough bread, you may well be wondering what’s happening chemically inside your loaf, especially if the end result keeps changing. Well, you’re not alone. Listeners Soheil and Sean are both keen bakers but want to know more about the thing that makes bread rise: yeast. What is yeast? Where does it come from and can you catch it? And how hard is it to ‘make’ yourself? Soon after lockdown took effect, commercial supplies of the stuff disappeared from supermarket shelves across the globe. The shortage also affected brewers the world over. A big fan of yeast in most of its forms, Marnie Chesterton took on the challenge of creating her own. She talks to the brewers who hunt rare strains to create the perfect beer, and hears from the biologist who says these amazing microbes, used for thousands of years, could be used to make food production more sustainable. And she discovers how this simple ingredient could be instrument

Squelching into the science of slime, Chhavi Sachdev seeks to find out why it took so long for listener Helen Tyson to remove slime from her fingers, after she picked up a tiny slug while gardening. This unfortunate and hugely repulsive experience set Helen to wonder what it is about the structure of slug slime that makes it gloopy, so she sent Chhavi to meet with slug slime expert Professor Andrew Smith who reveals how the complex molecular structure of this pervasive fluid makes it so difficult to scrub off.Slime is used by all sorts of creatures including the Giant African Land snail, which invaded India by hitching a ride on imported timber. But invasive species biologist Dr TV Sajeev reveals that these snails are themselves giving a lift to another meningitis-causing parasite that can infect people. Chhavi looks for these massive molluscs in her own garden in Mumbai. Marine biologist Helen Scales describes how animals can use slime for catching food, mating, defence, or even transportation, and Chhavi sp