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BBC Radio 4

Hannah Fry and Dara Ó Briain tackle listeners' conundrums with the power of science!

The Curious Cases of Rutherford & Fry

Fruit-powered batteries are the ultimate school science experiment, but they’re normally used to power a pocket calculator. This week’s listener wants to know if they could do more, and sends the team on a quest to discover whether they could used to send a rocket into space?

Professor Saiful Islam is the Guinness World Record holder for the highest voltage from a fruit-based battery, but disappoints the team when he reveals they produce very little power. He used 3,000 of them and only managed a measly 2 Watts. Given that spaceships are famously difficult to get off the ground, it seems a lemon battery might just fail the acid test. 

Author Randall Munroe is undeterred and suggests alternative ways to get energy from citrus, including burying them to make oil. Then the team discuss the pros and cons of switching to a lemon-based diet. 

For battery expert Paul Shearing, all this raises a serious question, about how we will power the planes of the future. He suggests solar power could play a part in short-haul flights and discusses some of the exciting battery materials being tested today.

Contributors:

Randall Munroe, author
Professor Paul Shearing, Oxford University
Professor Saiful Islam, Oxford University 

Producer: Marijke Peters
Executive Producer: Alexandra Feachem
A BBC Studios Audio Production

9. A lemon-powered spaceship

Wake up! It’s time for a dreamy new episode of Curious Cases all about the science of sleepwalking. 

Listener Abigail has done some strange things in her sleep, from taking all the pictures off the wall, to searching for Turkish language courses. And she wants to know: WHY IS THIS HAPPENING?

It turns out Abigail is not alone. Hannah and Dara hear weird and wonderful stories of extreme sleepwalkers - from the lady who went on midnight motorbike excursions, to the artist who does all his best work while asleep. They delve into the neuroscience to find out how you can remain in deep sleep while walking, talking or even peeing in your mum's shopping basket. They learn about some cutting edge research where the participants were sleep deprived and then half-woken with scary sounds, and they zero in on the key triggers, from a boozy night out to a squeaky bed.

Contributors
Professor Russell Foster: University of Oxford.
Professor Guy Leschziner: King’s College London and Guys’ and St Thomas’ hospital 
Lee Hadwin: the sleep artist
Professor Francesca Siclari: The Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience

Producer: Ilan Goodman
Executive Producer: Alexandra Feachem
A BBC Studios Audio Production

10. Night Walkers

When you die, would you want to be frozen so that one day you might be brought back to life? Listener Elspeth wants to know if that’s even possible. So Hannah and Dara embark on a quest to explore the chiling science of ‘cryobiology’: preserving living things at really low temperatures.

It turns out there are already thousands of people alive who were once suspended in antifreeze and stored in liquid nitrogen - when they were just a small clump of cells! There’s even a frog which can turn into a ‘frogsicle’ for months on end. But re-animating full size humans is a challenge no one has solved…yet. Will some miraculous nanotechnology of a distant future solve the problem? 

Contributors:

Professor João Pedro de Magalhães: University of Birmingham 
Hayley Campbell: Author and broadcaster
Professor Joyce Harper: UCL 
Dr Hanane Hadj-Moussa: The Babraham Institute, Cambridge 
Garrett Smyth: Cryonics UK

Producer: Ilan Goodman
Executive Producer: Alexandra Feachem
A BBC Studios Audio Production

11. Freeze Me When I Die

Anyone who has ever done a long car journey with kids will be familiar with the idea of being bored to death – but can this feeling really be fatal? 

Hannah and Dara hear about a club where members count roundabouts and collect milk bottle tops, but boredom expert Wijnand van Tilburg explains these dull-sounding hobbies might actually have mental health benefits. He explains that science and comedy are stereotypically both seen as exciting subjects but warns them their chat about Venn diagrams might tip the balance the other way. 

Mind-wandering specialist Mike Esterman reveals why we're rubbish at staying on task when there are more rewarding things to do, and sets the pair a challenge to play a computer game that distracts them with pictures of cute babies and fluffy animals.

Contributors:

Dr Wijnand van Tilburg: University of Essex
Dr Mike Esterman: Boston Attention and Learning Lab

Producer: Marijke Peters
Executive Producer: Alexandra Feachem
A BBC Studios Audio Production

12. Bored to Death

The buzz of a fly hovering just above your head has got to be one of the most irritating sounds around, but this week we try to work out just how fast they could be flying. Could a claim horseflies reach speeds of up to 90 mph possibly be true, and Dara wants to know if this is what makes them so difficult to swat?

Entomologist Erica McAlister is better known as the ‘fly lady’ and speaks up in defence of these tiny creatures, explaining there are 7,000 known species in the UK alone. Which makes it all the more shocking there are several that don’t have wings.

For Professor Graham Taylor the question of speed comes down to a simple calculation, and the team try to work out whether a horsefly beats its wings fast enough relative to its size to travel so rapidly. He explains horseflies aren't clever, but scientists are interested in their simple brains and are studying them to use as models for drones and mini robots.

Contributors:

Dr Erica McAlister, Natural History Museum
Professor Graham Taylor, Oxford University 

Producer: Marijke Peters
Executive Producer: Alexandra Feachem
A BBC Studios Audio Production

13. The Fastest Fly

Hannah Fry and Dara Ó Briain return to tackle listener's questions with the power of science!

Curious Cases is back!

“Diamonds are nonsense!” Hannah boldly proclaimed in a previous episode. But listener Guy is a diamond enthusiast, and he and his diamond-loving pals were NOT OKAY WITH THIS. He demanded we re-open the case, and here we are...

SO in this glittering showdown, Dara is on a quest to flip Hannah’s perspective from “meh” to “marvelous.” And for Hannah, some uncomfortable facts soon emerge. It turns out that diamonds are much more than just overpriced bling. They're the secret ingredient in all sorts of high-tech gadgets with a whole arsenal of little-known superpowers.

Enter electrochemist Julie Macpherson, who blows Hannah’s mind by showing how diamonds can slice through ice like butter, thanks to their unmatched ability to conduct heat. Not impressed yet? Physicist Mark Newton makes a diamond glow in the dark, using nothing but his phone flashlight. 

And that’s just to start! These ultra-robust gems can scrub nasty chemicals from water, serve as supercharged electrodes, and even reveal deep-earth secrets locked away for billions of years. 

By the end of this episode, will Hannah finally admit diamonds are forever cool? 

Contributors:

Charlie Bexfield - Gemmologist and diamond specialist
Julie MacPherson - Professor of Chemistry at the University of Warwick
Mark Newton - Professor of Physics at the University of Warwick
Grahame Pearson - Professor of Earth Sciences from the University of Alberta

Producer: Ilan Goodman
Executive Producer: Sasha Feachem
A BBC Studios Audio Production

The Diamond Throwdown

For any of you who have ever told a porkie pie, don't worry, this week we hear why we all do it... and discover that deception is actually good for social bonding. From the red squirrels who cry wolf to scare off the competition, to kids who look you in the eye as they tell bare faced lies, this is a behaviour that occurs across all species. And one man who's particularly good at it is Traitors contestant Paul Gorton who reveals he felt absolutely no guilt about his tv trickery. But it seems that while we're masters at telling tall stories, we're terrible at detecting them, because we've all been focusing on completely the wrong cues. 

Contributors: 

Paul Gorton 
Professor Richard Wiseman 
Professor Sophie van der Zee 

Producer: Marijke Peters 
Executive Producer: Alexandra Feachem 

A BBC Studios Audio Production

Liar, Liar

Hannah and Dara tackle a disarmingly simple question: is anything in the universe truly invisible? After ruling out mysterious Nordic spirits and ‘Dara’s ire’, our curious duo start to track down the invisible waves all around them. Including, it turns out, some which are emanating from their VERY OWN FACES! An infrared camera reveals Hannah’s nose as a particular hotspot.

Turning their gaze to bigger things, they wonder: what does our own galaxy look like when viewed in this invisible spectrum? Infrared reveals vast loops and whorls of dust and gas - gigantic structures otherwise totally hidden. But there are even cooler surprises. Ever wondered what an X-ray of the universe looks like? Turns out it’s a sparkly map of white-hot black holes! 

Back on earth, the discussion turns to ways of making objects disappear by bending light in tricksy ways. But why is the fancy science of ‘metamaterials’ still struggling to make a proper invisibility cloak? Sorry, Harry Potter fans.

In the end, our physicists reveal a universe bursting with even more elusive, even more mysterious stuff: dark matter and dark energy. Prepare to see the unseen in a whole new light!

Contributors:

Matthew Bothwell - the Public Astronomer at the University of Cambridge and author of The Invisible Universe
Andrew Pontzen - Professor of Physics at Durham University
Mitch Kenney - Assistant Professor in metamaterials at the University of Nottingham 

Producer: Ilan Goodman
Executive Producer: Sasha Feachem
A BBC Studios Audio Production

Invisibility Quest

What happens in your brain when Cupid’s arrow strikes? As a teenager, Alison developed an intense crush on George Harrison from the Beatles. But, she wants to know, why do we develop these feelings for pop stars we’ve never actually met? And what potent swirl of neurochemistry drives those fierce emotions?

With neuroscientist Dr. Dean Burnett and evolutionary anthropologist Dr. Anna Machin as their guides, Hannah and Dara investigate everything from the brain’s chemical fireworks during a crush to the evolutionary perks of love and bonding. Along the way, they dissect teenage infatuations, lifelong love affairs with football teams, and why love can feel as addictive as heroin.

There’s even a guest appearance from two cute rodents: the monogamous prairie voles and their more, shall we say, commitment-phobic cousins, the montane voles, who gave us early clues about the role of the ‘cuddle’ hormone oxytocin. 

Whether you're a hopeless romantic or a hard-nosed skeptic, prepare to fall head over heels for the science of love.

Contributors:

Dr Anna Machin - evolutionary anthropologist and author of Why We Love
Dr Dean Burnett - honorary research fellow at Cardiff Psychology School, author of The Idiot Brain and The Happy Brain. 
Carmine Pariante - Professor of Biological Psychiatry at King’s College London

Producer: Ilan Goodman
Executive Producer: Alexandra Feachem
A BBC Studios Audio Production

Love Neurons

Today the team examine the chemistry of tea, in answer to the following question sent in by Fred Rickaby from North Carolina:

"When we are preparing a cup of tea and the cup contains nothing but hot, brewed tea we need to add milk and sugar. My wife always adds the sugar first, stirs the cup to make sure it is dissolved and then add the milk. So, is that an optimum strategy for adding milk and sugar to a cup of tea?” 

Adam consults Prof Andrea Sella from University College London about the perfect formula for a cup of tea. Inside his tea factory in Kent, Master Blender Alex Probyn teaches Hannah an unusual method for tasting tea.

Most importantly, the duo discovers whether you should add milk first or last. But can tea professionals really tell the difference?

If you have any questions for Drs Rutherford & Fry to investigate send them to curiouscases@bbc.co.uk

Presenters: Hannah Fry, Adam Rutherford
Producer: Michelle Martin

The Tea Leaf Mystery

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