Episodios
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It’s sometimes said that timing is everything and this week the pair investigate the mystery of rhythm, discovering why some of us might be better at staying in tempo.
From the daily cycle of dawn and dusk to sea tides and circadian clocks, rhythm governs many aspects of our lives, and cognitive psychologist Dr Maria Witek says it makes sense we also place great importance on its presence in music. She specialises in ‘groove’, or the feeling of pleasure associated with moving to a beat – and it’s not just something the dancers among us enjoy; groove has even been used to treat patients with Parkinson’s Disease.
Neuroscientist Professor Nina Kraus has studied drummers’ brains and found their neurons fire with more precision. She explains that teaching kids rhythm can improve their language and social skills. But no need to take her word for it, because Skunk Anansie’s drummer Mark Richardson is in the studio to put Hannah to the test. Can she handle a high hat at the same time as a snare?
Contributors:Dr Maria Witek, University of BirminghamProfessor Nina Kraus, Northwestern UniversityMark Richardson, drummer with Skunk Anansie
Producer: Marijke PetersExecutive Producer: Alexandra FeachemA BBC Studios Audio Production
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9 year old listener Koby sends Hannah and Dara on a mission to find the shiniest thing in the world. And so they enter a world of mirrors…
The journey takes them into the subatomic goings on of shiny metal surfaces, where electrons waggle and dance and send light waves back at *just* the right angle. Our curious duo play with an astonishingly reflective plastic film that can be found hidden in devices we all use. And they probe the mysterious power of refraction, harnessed to make the $2 million mirrors which reflect the lasers at the huge LIGO experiment.
And everyone ponders the surprisingly reflective properties of a pint in space.
Contributors:
Dr Felix Flicker: University of Bristol, author of The Magick of Matter Professor Stuart Reid: University of StrathclydeQuinn Sanford: optical engineer from 3MGariLynn Billingsley: Optical Sciences Group Leader at LIGO
Producer: Ilan GoodmanExecutive Producer: Alexandra FeachemA BBC Studios Audio Production
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Would you eat food that fell on the floor? That’s the question Hannah and Dara are getting their teeth into this week as they put the so-called ‘5 second rule’ through its paces.
For some people it’s 3 seconds, and for others its 10 – especially if it involves a dropped ice cream and a screaming child. But microbiologist Don Schaffner says there’s no safe amount of time to leave food on the floor if you’re planning to eat it. And while you might think buttered toast would pick up the biggest number of bugs, it may surprise you to hear that wet foods like watermelon are actually the worst when it comes to attracting harmful bacteria. If all this is putting you off your dinner, the bad news is that the rest of your kitchen is also a microbiological minefield. Research shows nearly 70% of us keep our fridges are the wrong temperature, which sparks a lively discussion about whether it’s ever safe to reheat rice.
For home hygiene guru Sally Bloomfield it’s all a question of being a bit more clever about the kind of germs we expose ourselves to and weighing up risks.
Contributors:
Dr Don Schaffner: Rutgers UniversityDr Ellen Evans: Cardiff Metropolitan UniversityProfessor Sally Bloomfield: International Scientific Forum on Home Hygiene
Producer: Marijke PetersExecutive Producer: Alexandra FeachemA BBC Studios Audio Production
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While chatting at the back of class, best mates Abi and Sofia got curious about bubbles. How do you make really giant ones? Could you even get one around the entire planet?
Hannah and Dara set out to investigate. They hear from a renowned 'bubbleologist', and learn how NASA helped him blow his way to a world record. They coax a physicist to reveal the secrets of his peer-reviewed bubble-juice formula, and investigate how bubbles work in space and in the ocean.
Our curious duo also discover an audacious project aiming to build a Brazil-sized raft of bubbles... in space!
Contributors:
Dr Helen Czerski, UCLDr Justin Burton, Emory UniversityDr Awesome, BubbleologistProfessor Carlo Ratti, MIT
Producer: Ilan GoodmanExecutive Producer: Alexandra FeachemA BBC Studios Audio Production
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Curious Cases is returning! Superstar mathematician and broadcaster Hannah Fry teams up with legendary comedian and fellow science nerd Dara Ó Briain for an all-new series of the show which takes your quirkiest questions and solves them with the power of SCIENCE.
In this short preview ep, our dynamic duo tease some of the upcoming episodes in which they enlist the world’s top experts to tackle the most profound and puzzling questions to have ever trickled through your curious minds: Could you power a spaceship with a lemon? Can you actually die of boredom? Why do some people *taste* words? Why does Hannah have absolutely no sense of rhythm? And could we stop climate change with massive space bubbles!?
Producers: Marijke Peters and Ilan GoodmanExecutive Producer: Alexandra FeachemA BBC Studios Audio Production
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There is a bizarre number in maths referred to simply as ‘i’. It appears to break the rules of arithmetic - but turns out to be utterly essential for applications across engineering and physics. We’re talking about the square root of -1. WHICH MAKES NO SENSE.
Professor Fry waxes lyrical about the beauty and power of this so-called ‘imaginary’ number to a sceptical Dr Rutherford. Dr Michael Brooks tells the surprising story of the duelling Italian mathematicians who gave birth to this strange idea, and shares how Silicon Valley turned it into cold hard cash. It's all about oscillations, Professor Jeff O’Connell demonstrates. And finally, Dr Eleanor Knox reveals that imaginary numbers are indispensable for the most fundamental physics of all: quantum mechanics.
Imaginary, impossible…but essential!
Contributors: Professor Jeff O’Connell, Ohlone College California, Dr Michael Brooks, Author of 'The Maths That Made Us', and Dr Eleanor Knox, Philosopher of Physics at KCL and a Senior Visiting Fellow at the University of Pittsburgh.
Producer: Ilan Goodman
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This episode will render you oblivious, conked out and blissfully unaware. It’s about anaesthetics: those potent potions that send you into a deep, deathly sleep. Listener Alicia wants to know how they work, so our sleuths call on the expertise of consultant anaesthetist Dr Fiona Donald. Fiona shares her experience from the clinical frontline, and explains what we do and don’t know about how these chemicals work their mind-numbing magic. We hear about ground-breaking research led by Professor Irene Tracey, which reveals how a pattern of slow brain waves can be used to determine the optimum dosage of these dangerous drugs.
And finally, Drs Rutherford and Fry wonder: what does all this tell us about normal consciousness? Professor Anil Seth shares how we can use brain tech to measure different levels of conscious awareness – from sleepy to psychedelic.
Presenters: Hannah Fry and Adam RutherfordProducer: Ilan Goodman
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‘Can we bring back extinct species?’ wonders listener Mikko Campbell. Well, Professor Fry is pretty excited by the prospect of woolly mammoths roaming the Siberian tundra once more. And everyone is impressed with the science that might make it happen. But Dr Rutherford comes out STRONGLY against the whole thing. Can our expert guests win him over?
Dr Helen Pilcher shares the tale of Celia the lonely mountain goat, and makes the case for cloning to help protect species at risk of extinction. Professor Beth Shapiro sets out how biotech company ‘Colossal’ plans to engineer Asian elephants’ DNA to make a new group of mammoth-like creatures. And we hear how genetic technologies are being used in conservation efforts around the world.
BUT WHAT ABOUT T-REXES? Not gonna happen. Sorry.
Contributors: Dr Helen Pilcher, author of ‘Bring Back the King: The New Science of De-Extinction’, Professor Beth Shapiro from the University of California Santa Cruz, Dr Ben Novak of Revive and Restore and Tullis Matson from Nature’s SAFE.
Presenters: Hannah Fry and Adam Rutherford
Producer: Ilan Goodman
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The Great Pyramids of Giza are awesome feats of engineering and precision. So who built them - and how? Was it a mysteriously super-advanced civilization now oddly extinct? Was it even aliens?
Nah, course not! Rutherford and Fry investigate how these inspiring monuments were really constructed, and learn about the complex civilisation and efficient bureaucracy that made them possible.
Professor Sarah Parcak busts the myth that they were built by slaves. In fact, she reveals, it was gangs of well-paid blokes fuelled by the ancient Egyptian equivalent of burgers and beer. And Dr Chris Naunton explains how it was not some mysterious tech, but incredible organisation and teamwork which made it possible to transport massive stone blocks over long distances several thousand years before trucks arrived.
Dr Heba Abd El Gawad points out how racism led to bizarre assumptions in the history of archaeology, and how those assumptions linger in contemporary conspiracy theories which refuse to accept that Egyptians could have built the pyramids themselves!
Presenters: Hannah Fry and Adam Rutherford Contributors: Professor Sarah Parcak, University of Alabama, Dr Chris Naunton, Egyptologist and broadcaster, Dr Heba Abd El Gawad, University College LondonProducers: Ilan Goodman & Emily Bird
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Magnets are inside loads of everyday electronic kit - speakers, motors, phones and more - but listener Lucas is mystified: what, he wonders, is a magnetic field?
Our sleuths set out to investigate the mysterious power of magnets, with the help of wizard / physicist Dr Felix Flicker - author of the The Magick of Matter - and materials scientist Dr Anna Ploszajski.
They cover the secrets of lodestones - naturally occurring magnetic rocks - and how to levitate crystals, frogs and maybe even people.
Matthew Swallow, the Chair of the UK Magnetics Society, explains why magnets make the best brakes for rollercoasters, and Dr Ploszajski explains how magnetically-induced eddy currents are used to sort through our recycling.
Finally, Dr Flicker persuades Adam and Hannah that to really understand magnetic fields you have to leave classical physics behind, and go quantum... So our sleuths take a leap into the strange subatomic realm.
Contributors: Dr Felix Flicker, Lecturer in Physics at Cardiff University and author of ‘The Magick of Matter’, Dr Anna Ploszajski, materials scientist and author of ‘Handmade’, Matthew Swallow, Chair of the UK Magnetics Society
Presented by Hannah Fry and Adam RutherfordProducer: Ilan Goodman
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Close your eyes and think of a giraffe. Can you see it? I mean, *really* see it - in rich, vivid detail? If not - you aren’t alone! We’ve had scores of messages from listeners who report having a ‘blind mind’s eye’. They don’t see mental images at all and they want to know why. Jude from Perth wants to know what makes her brain different, and Diane from Scotland wonders whether it affectes her ability to remember family holidays.
Our sleuths learn that this is a condition recently termed ‘aphantasia’. They meet the chap who came up with the name, Professor Adam Zeman, a neurologist from the University of Exeter, and quiz him on the brain mechanisms behind this mystery. Professor Julia Simner - a psychologist who, herself, doesn’t see mental images - shares the surprising research into how aphants differ slightly from others in a range of cognitive skills. We also hear about the world class artists and animators who can’t visualise - but can create beautiful, imaginary worlds. Philosophy professor Fiona Macpherson from the University of Glasgow, deepens the mystery: perhaps this largely hidden phenomenon is behind some of the most profound disagreements in the history of psychology. Our mental experiences are all very different - maybe that’s why thinkers have come up with such different theories about how our minds work. Search for the “VVIQ” or Vividness of Visual Imagery questionnaire to take the test yourself. Look for “The Perception Census” to take part in this massive online study of perceptual variation. And look up the 'Aphtantasia Network' if you're curious to find out more.
Presenters: Hannah Fry and Adam Rutherford Contributors: Professor Adam Zeman, Professor Julia Simner, Professor Fiona Macpherson Producer: Ilan Goodman
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The new series kicks off very soon! As a little aperitif, Hannah and Adam review some surprising studies published in scientific journals. Warning: contains fruity language and grisly medical scenarios…
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What do you get if you smash two hydrogen nuclei together? Helium and lots of energy. That’s no joke – it's nuclear fusion!
Nuclear fusion is the power source of the sun and the stars. Physicists and engineers here on earth are trying to build reactors than can harness fusion power to provide limitless clean energy. But it’s tricky...
Rutherford and Fry are joined by Dr Melanie Windridge, plasma physicist and CEO of Fusion Energy Insights, who explains why the fourth state of matter – plasma – helps get fusion going, and why a Russian doughnut was a key breakthrough on the path to fusion power.
Dr Sharon Ann Holgate, author of Nuclear Fusion: The Race to Build a Mini Sun on Earth, helps our sleuths distinguish the more familiar nuclear fission (famous for powerful bombs) from the cleaner and much less radioactive nuclear fusion.
And plasma physicist (another one!) Dr Arthur Turrell describes the astonishing amount of investment and innovation going on to try and get fusion power working at a commercial scale.
Contributors: Dr Melanie Windridge, Dr Sharon Ann Holgate, Dr Arthur Turrell
Producer: Ilan Goodman
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Sneezes, wheezes, runny noses and red eyes - this episode is all about allergies. An allergic reaction is when your immune system reacts to something harmless – like peanuts or pollen – as if it was a parasitic invader. It’s a case of biological mistaken identity. Professor Judith Holloway from the University of Southampton guides our sleuths through the complex immune pathways that make allergies happen and tells the scary story of when she went into anaphylactic shock from a rogue chocolate bar. Professor Adam Fox, a paediatric allergist at Evelina Children’s Hospital, helps the Drs distinguish intolerances or sensitivities – substantial swelling from a bee sting, for example - from genuine allergies. Hannah’s orange juice ‘allergy’ is exposed as a probable fraud! Hannah and Adam explore why allergies are on the increase, and Professor Rick Maizels from the University of Glasgow shares his surprising research using parasitic worms to develop anti-allergy drugs! Producer: Ilan Goodman Contributors: Professor Judith Holloway, Professor Adam Fox, Professor Rick Maizels
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Hungry for pi? Chow down on this!
Pi is the ratio between a circle’s diameter and its circumference. Sounds dull – but pi turns out to have astonishing properties and crop up in places you would never expect. For a start, it goes on forever and never repeats, meaning it probably contains your name, date of birth, and the complete works of Shakespeare written in its digits.
Maths comedian Matt Parker stuns Adam with his ‘pie-endulum’ experiment, in which a chicken and mushroom pie is dangled 2.45m to form a pendulum which takes *exactly* 3.14 seconds per swing.
Mathematician Dr Vicky Neale explains how we can be sure that the number pi continues forever and never repeats - despite the fact we can never write down all its digits to check! She also makes the case that aliens would probably measure angles using pi because it’s a fundamental constant of the universe.
NASA mission director Dr Marc Rayman drops in to explain how pi is used to navigate spacecraft around the solar system. And philosopher of physics Dr Eleanor Knox serves up some philoso-pi, revealing why some thinkers have found pi’s ubiquity so deeply mysterious.
Hannah grins with delight for most of show. It’s all maths!
Producer: Ilan Goodman
Contributors: Matt Parker, Dr Vicky Neale, Dr Marc Rayman, Dr Eleanor Knox
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Why are some smells so nasty and others so pleasant? Rutherford and Fry inhale the science of scent in this stinker of an episode.
Our sleuths kick off with a guided tour of the airborne molecules and chemical receptors that power the sense of smell. Armed with a stack of pungent mini-flasks, Professor Matthew Cobb from the University of Manchester shows Hannah and Adam just how sensitive olfaction can be, and how our experience of some odours depends on our individual genetic make-up.
Dr Ann-Sophie Barwich from Indiana University reveals how most everyday smells are complex combinations of hundreds of odorants, and how the poo-scented molecule of indole turns up in some extremely surprising places.
With the help of a flavoured jellybean and some nose clips, Hannah experiences how smell is crucial to flavour, adding complexity and detail to the crude dimensions of taste.
Speaking of food, listener Brychan Davies is curious about garlic and asparagus: why do they make us whiff? Professor Barry Smith from the Centre for the Study of the Senses reveals it's down to sulphur-containing compounds, and tells the story of how a cunning scientist managed to figure out the puzzle of asparagus-scented urine.
Finally, another listener Lorena Busto Hurtado wants to know whether a person’s natural odour influences how much we like them. Barry Smith says yes - we may sniff each other out a bit like dogs - and cognitive neuroscientist Dr Rachel Herz points to evidence that bodily bouquet can even influence sexual attraction!
Producer: Ilan Goodman
Contributors: Professor Matthew Cobb, Professor Barry Smith, Dr Ann-Sophie Barwich, Dr Rachel Herz
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How do winds start and why do they stop? asks Georgina from the Isle of Wight. What's more, listener Chris Elshaw is suprised we get strong winds at all: why doesn't air just move smoothly between areas of high and low pressure? Why do we get sudden gusts and violent storms?
To tackle this breezy mystery, our curious duo don their anoraks and get windy with some weather experts.
Dr Simon Clark, a science Youtuber and author of Firmament, convinces Adam that air flow is really about the physics of fluids, which can all be captured by some nifty maths. The idea of pressure turns out to be key, so Hannah makes her own barometer out of a jar, a balloon and some chopsticks, and explains why a bag of crisps will expand as you walk up a mountain.
Professor Liz Bentley, Chief Executive of the Royal Meteorological Scoiety, reveals how the dynamics of a simple sea breeze – where air over land is heated more than air over water – illustrates the basic forces driving wind of all kinds.
Then everyone gets involved to help Adam understand the tricky Coriolis effect and why the rotation of the Earth makes winds bend and storms spin. And Professor John Turner from the British Antarctic Survey explains why the distinctive features of the coldest continent make its coastline the windiest place on earth.
Producer: Ilan Goodman Contributors: Dr Simon Clark, Professor Liz Bentley, Professor John Turner
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DO WE HAVE YOUR ATTENTION?
Good! But how does that work!?
Our intrepid science sleuths explore why some things immediately catch your eye - or ear - while others slip by totally unnoticed. Even, on occasion, basketball bouncing gorillas.
Professor Polly Dalton, a psychologist who leads The Attention Lab at Royal Holloway University, shares her surprising research into ‘inattentional blindness’ - when you get so absorbed in a task you can miss striking and unusual things going on right in front of you.
Dr Gemma Briggs from the Open University reveals how this can have dangerous everyday consequences: you are four times more likely to have a crash if you talk on the phone while driving - even handsfree.
Drs Rutherford and Fry also hear from stroke survivor Thomas Canning, who developed the tendency to ignore everything on the left side of space, despite his vision being totally intact. And Dr Tom Manly, from the University of Cambridge’s Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, helps our sleuths unpack the neuroscience of this fascinating condition.
Producer: Ilan Goodman Contributors: Professor Polly Dalton, Dr Gemma Briggs, Dr Tom Manly
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We asked you to send us the boldest, barmiest bits of published research you could find and, dear Curios, you didn't disappoint! It’s time for some silly science.
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The world is full of colour! But, wonders listener Maya Crocombe, ‘how do we see colour and why are some people colour blind?’
Dr Rutherford and Professor Fry set out to understand how special light-sensitive cells in our eyes start the process of colour perception, why people sometimes have very different experiences of colour and whether, in the end, colour is really just ‘in our heads’.
Dr Gabriele Jordan from Newcastle University explains why lots of men struggle to discriminate between certain colours and why there were lots of complaints from colour-blind viewers when Wales played Ireland at rugby.
Professor Anya Hurlbert, also from Newcastle University, tackles the most divisive of internet images: The Dress! Did you see it as blue-black or yellow-gold? Anya explains why people see it so differently, and why our ability to compensate for available light is so useful.
Finally, Dr Mazviita Chirimuuta, a philosopher at the University of Edinburgh, gives us her take on what all this means: are colours real, or just in our minds?
If you want to see some of the images and activities referenced in the episode read on...To take the colour perception test which Hannah and Adam do in the epsiode, search for the 'Farnsworth Munsell Hue test' - you can do it online for free.To see the Dunstanborough Castle illusion as described in the episode, check out the Gallery section on the Curious Cases BBC website.To learn more about colour blindness, and for support and resources go to colourblindawareness.org
Producer: Ilan Goodman
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in March 2022.
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