Latest Episodes for this Channel
Tue December 30 2008
Reindeer and Santa Claus are the topic of this week's Mr Science Show. With Christmas here, we thought we'd look at some Christmas news, and this week...
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Reindeer and Santa Claus are the topic of this week's Mr Science Show. With Christmas here, we thought we'd look at some Christmas news, and this week we take a look at reindeer facts and the
problems Santa is having at the North Pole. Due to global warming, and the global financial crisis, Santa has had to put his North Pole residence up for auction and is currently looking for a new
place in Lap...
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Reindeer and Santa Claus are the topic of this week's Mr Science Show. With Christmas here, we thought we'd look at some Christmas news, and this week we take a look at reindeer facts and the
problems Santa is having at the North Pole. Due to global warming, and the global financial crisis, Santa has had to put his North Pole residence up for auction and is currently looking for a new
place in Lapland.Merry Christmas from the Mr Science Show!Listen to his podcast here:And remember to tell us your science highlights from 2008 to go into the running for some sciencey prizes. Answers
will also contribute to our year-in-review podcast early in 2009. Let us know here.
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Sun December 21 2008
Geek Pop is the world’s only sci-pop festival - a free online music event featuring songs about science. The festival brings together science-in...
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Geek Pop is the world’s only sci-pop festival - a free online music event featuring songs about science. The festival brings together science-inspired artists from around the globe in a gleeful
celebration of geek culture. In 2009, Geek Pop will take place between 6-15th March.This week on the podcast I spoke to Hayley Birch, the organiser of Geek Pop, about the festival, where the idea
came...
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Geek Pop is the world’s only sci-pop festival - a free online music event featuring songs about science. The festival brings together science-inspired artists from around the globe in a gleeful
celebration of geek culture. In 2009, Geek Pop will take place between 6-15th March.This week on the podcast I spoke to Hayley Birch, the organiser of Geek Pop, about the festival, where the idea
came from and what type of music we can look forward to.You can subscribe to Geek Pop updates by sending an email to news@geekpop.co.uk with the subject SUBSCRIBE ME RIGHT UP. Or register your
attendance at the Facebook event.We've looked at the various scientific aspects of music in the past on Mr Science, just check out our music label.Listen to his podcast here:And remember to tell us
your science highlights from 2008 to go into the running for some sciencey prizes. Answers will also contribute to our year-in-review podcast early in 2009. Let us know here.
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Sun December 21 2008
Some people find mathematics perplexing, whilst others find it beautiful. This week on the podcast, I spoke to two young men professionally employed t...
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Some people find mathematics perplexing, whilst others find it beautiful. This week on the podcast, I spoke to two young men professionally employed to communicate mathematics to school-children
around the country. Both these guys have a long history in science communication - I got to be good friends with them back in my science circus days.Jamos McAlester travels Australia with Tenix
Questacon M...
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Some people find mathematics perplexing, whilst others find it beautiful. This week on the podcast, I spoke to two young men professionally employed to communicate mathematics to school-children
around the country. Both these guys have a long history in science communication - I got to be good friends with them back in my science circus days.Jamos McAlester travels Australia with Tenix
Questacon Maths Squad, which is an outreach program of Questacon – The National Science and Technology Centre. The Maths Squad aims to inspire students and teachers about maths, and show how
science and technology, and in particular maths, play an important role in our everyday lives. The Maths Squad also offers professional development workshops for teachers. Initially started in 1976,
it has now visited thousands of towns across Australia, and there aren't too many places in Australia that Jamos hasn't been. The program makes almost 500 puzzle-based activities accessible to
students and aims to highlight the broad and narrative nature of maths and its essential and pervasive range of applications. Jamos has a particular love of maths and thinks that people often find
maths boring because it is taught out of context:"calculations are the spelling of maths, not the story."Marcus Finlay is a proactive, scientifically inclined, primary school teacher from Melbourne.
As opposed to most teachers, Marcus inspires his students about science and maths rather than running away from the topics, and lists his class's attempts to build model tsunamis in the classroom as
his science highlight of 2008. Back in 2001, Marcus and I wrote The Marco Show about a couple of wizards who sung songs and turned themselves in dogs - you can read about this ridiculous show on Mr
Science from 2006.I spoke to Marcus and Jamos from The Mathematical Association of Victoria's annual conference, both were giving key-note addresses on the communication of mathematics.Listen to his
podcast here:And remember to let us know your science highlight from 2008. You will go into the running for some sciencey prizes and we'll take a look at your highlights in a podcast episode in early
2009. See the form here.
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Mon December 01 2008
This week on the podcast, we take a look at the latest climate change news, and start reflecting on the science year that was, as we close in on 100 p...
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This week on the podcast, we take a look at the latest climate change news, and start reflecting on the science year that was, as we close in on 100 podcast episodes (this is episode 92).The news
items we discuss this week are:CO2 build-up in the atmosphere may prevent a coming ice-age. Ice-ages occur roughly every 100,000 years and are possibly due to small shifts in Earth's orbit which
change th...
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This week on the podcast, we take a look at the latest climate change news, and start reflecting on the science year that was, as we close in on 100 podcast episodes (this is episode 92).The news
items we discuss this week are:CO2 build-up in the atmosphere may prevent a coming ice-age. Ice-ages occur roughly every 100,000 years and are possibly due to small shifts in Earth's orbit which
change the amount of solar energy hitting the surface. A build-up of CO2 and its associated heating may warm the Earth so much that the next ice-age is skipped. Humanity has burnt about 300
gigatonnes of carbon from fossil fuels during its existence, and even if only 1000 gigatonnes are eventually burnt (from total reserves of about 4000) then it is likely that the next ice age will be
skipped, whilst the next five could be skipped if all recoverable fossil fuels were burnt. For more information, see the story at ABC Science;The bouquet of wine reflects the amount of fossil-fuel
derived CO2 in the air at the time and place of the growing of the grapes. Carbon-14, an isotope of carbon, is made when Nitrogen atoms high in the atmosphere absorb neutrons from space (cosmic rays)
. Over time, Carbon-14 decays to Nitrogen-14 , and so fossil fuels, made millions of years ago from decaying organic matter, contain almost no Carbon-14. Therefore, when fossil fuels are burned, the
resultant CO2 is almost Carbon-14 free. As CO2 is used by plants to grow, the amount of Carbon-14 in the atmosphere at the time of growing is reflected, in this case, in the wine's bouquet. A low
level of Carbon-14 means there was a lot of fossil fuel generated CO2 in the atmosphere at the time of growing. More information on Discovery Science;Wind farms could steer storms. Future mega-wind
farms for renewable energy generation could have a massive effect on the weather because the large wind speeds they generate could cause disrupted air-ripples that spread out like waves over massive
areas. The waves could even steer storms on the other side of the globe. More information on Discovery Science;Tibetan glaciers are melting faster than ever seen before. The Himalayan glaciers are
melting so fast that the usual techniques for dating glaciers can't be used. Glaciers can be dated by looking for traces of leftover radioactivity from US and Soviet atomic bomb tests in the 1950s
and 1960s. In the Tibetan samples, there are no signs at all of these tests, and the exposed surface of the glacier dates to 1944. More information at ABC Science;If you are gazing at the sky this
weekend (Thanksgiving to our American friends), then look to the sky to see Jupiter, Mars and the moon all gathered together.We also start reflecting on the year that was with my much better-half
Eugenia, who had to put up with me recording this here little podcast, and then having to listen to the episodes and smile! Her highlights from the year?The no-brainer research that said in the UK
you should wear thick-clothes, especially denim, to protect yourself from skin-cancer. We never saw the sun over the 2007 summer anyway...And on from this show, the Science of Sumo wrestlers - we
employed the sumo diet on our recent travels.Listen to his podcast here:
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Wed November 19 2008
Dr Christopher Pettigrew, a post-doctoral researcher at the Department of Biochemistry in University College Cork, is no stranger to putting science o...
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Dr Christopher Pettigrew, a post-doctoral researcher at the Department of Biochemistry in University College Cork, is no stranger to putting science on stage.With the 2009 AAAS Dance your PhD
competition up-and-running, we decided for this week's episode of the podcast to chat to Chris about his experiences in the public performance of science.Chris has been involved in the communication
of many d...
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Dr Christopher Pettigrew, a post-doctoral researcher at the Department of Biochemistry in University College Cork, is no stranger to putting science on stage.With the 2009 AAAS Dance your PhD
competition up-and-running, we decided for this week's episode of the podcast to chat to Chris about his experiences in the public performance of science.Chris has been involved in the communication
of many difficult subjects through artistic means, such using interpretive dance to explain the Australian Goods and Services Tax (GST) and DNA . Chris plans on building upon his experiences in
Australian theatre whilst in Cork, Ireland. As Dr Pettigrew says:"Nothing says Double Helix like a rapid twirl."Listen to his podcast here:The 2009 AAAS Dance your PhD final contestants have been
selected. To read more about them and watch their videos, visit The 2009 AAAS Science Dance Contest homepage.Do you have any scientific ideas that you would like to see put on stage? Please let us
know by leaving a comment here, or by emailing us.
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