11 May 2023
About this episode
Lab-grown meat may be cruelty free, but is it really better for the environment? Not at the moment. In fact, the team finds out how it’s up to 25 times worse than normal meat. And with prices still astronomically high, will it ever become a viable replacement?
Are we waking up the sleeping Arctic ocean? Melting sea ice from rising global temperatures is having a knock on effect on one of the Arctic’s major ocean currents, the Beaufort Gyre. Rowan speaks to earth scientists Harry Heorton and Michel Tsamados of University College London, authors of a new paper looking at the changes to the gyre. Rowan asks them whether we’re approaching a climate tipping point where changes become self-perpetuating and irreversible.
In the unlikely event that you have ever wondered what a church organ would sound like if it was played on another planet - wonder no more! Thanks to Timothy Leighton, professor of ultrasonics at the University of Southampton, we get to hear a church organ as it would sound on Mars, Jupiter and Venus. The team explains how this work might come in handy during future missions to these planets.
When it comes to sharing their food, chimps are just like 4 year-old kids. The team finds out about a new study which clues us into the evolution of altruism in apes.
Vitamin D supplementation has been the subject of a lot of controversy. Do we need to take them or not? The team highlights a new kind of study which shows how vitamin D can help fight off certain diseases.
And the team signs off the show by playing a genius entry to this year’s Eurovision song contest - EuroFISHion, a track recorded with hydrophones at the SeaLife London Aquarium.
On the pod are Rowan Hooper, Clare Wilson and Alice Klein. To read about these subjects and much more, you can subscribe to New Scientist magazine at newscientist.com.
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