Crowdscience

Do you find your bearings quickly or are you easily disorientated? Do your friends trust you with the directions in a new city? Finding our way in the physical world, whether that is around a building or a city, is an important everyday capability, one that has been integral to human survival. This week CrowdScience listener David wants to know whether some people are ‘naturally’ better at navigating, so presenter Marnie Chesterton sets her compass and journeys into the human brain. Accompanied by psychologists and neuroscientists Marnie learns how humans perceive their environment, recall routes and orientate themselves in unfamiliar spaces. We ask are some navigational strategies better than others? Professor Hugo Spiers from UCL shares his latest lab for researching navigation and tells us that the country you live in might be a good predictor of your navigation skills. But is our navigational ability down to biology or experience, and can we improve it? With much of our modern map use being delegated to

As we enter our teenage years, many of us feel like life is just getting started. But for dogs, celebrating a ‘teen’ birthday is a sign of old age, entering a phase when things start slowing down. Listener Susan was besotted with her beloved corgi Copper John and wants to know why our furry companions rarely live as long as us. We investigate what accounts for the huge differences in lifespans across animal species. From fish that live a few weeks, to sharks who can survive for 500 years, what are the factors that affect the ticking on our biological clocks? Central to this field is the idea of ‘live fast, die young’, with some animals burning more quickly through their ‘life fuel’. But is this rate set in stone?Presenter Anand Jagatia find out how animals’ growth, reproduction and anti-ageing methods contribute to the length of their survival. Dr Kevin Healy, a macroecologist at the University of Galway, discusses some of these theories, explaining how the dangers and luxuries faced by animals during their

Maybe you have a deep, booming voice. Or perhaps it’s light and mellifluous. Some people’s voices are honey-smooth while others are as rough as gravel. But why does your voice sound the way it does? CrowdScience listener Hannah in Berlin is training as a teacher and will be using her voice a lot in the classroom in future. She wants to understand more about it: how can she improve the quality of her voice and protect it? And what factors - physical, genetic and environmental - determine the sound of your voice in the first place? Together with presenter Marnie Chesterton, Hannah pays a visit to speech tutor Prof Viola Schmidt at the Ernst Busch University for the Performing Arts in Berlin. Viola and actor Aurelius give us a masterclass in just what your voice can do, as they throw words and sounds to each other across the rehearsal room at a dizzying pace. And Viola gives Hannah a few top tips on using her voice clearly and authentically in the classroom. Hannah’s isn’t the only voice-related question in t

CrowdScience listeners David and Tatiana have long been captivated by an unusual dinner table discussion: the peculiar change they’ve noticed over the past 16 years in the sunlight streaming through their bedroom window in Ostend, Belgium. They’re convinced that the room has not only become sunnier but that the actual angle of sunlight has shifted.Intrigued by their observations, we head to Ostend. Our mission: to investigate three of their theories, enlisting expert help along the way.Theory 1 – A celestial anomaly? René Oudmaijer at the Royal Observatory of Belgium considers whether our shifting position in the solar system might explain the change.Theory 2 – Movement in the Earth’s crust? Alejandra Tovar from the Geological Survey of Belgium examines tectonic data to see if the Earth’s crust is moving enough to alter the angle of sunlight.Theory 3 – Subsidence? Structural engineer Kath Hannigan helps us inspect the building for signs that it may be sinking or twisting.And we explore one final theory of our

Fungi are a mysterious and understudied life form. And to add to the intrigue, some of them actually glow in the dark. This phenomenon has sparked CrowdScience listener Derek's curiosity, and he's asked us to investigate.Presenter Caroline Steel gets on the case. This is just one example of the natural wonder that is bioluminescence – living organisms that glow. How do they produce their light, and is there any reason for it? Caroline visits a bioluminescent bay in Puerto Rico, and Dr Brenda Soler-Figueroa explains what makes it sparkle.But it turns out there are many different explanations for why living things glow. Fungi, which listener Derek is particularly interested in, are neither plants nor animals, but an entirely different kingdom of life that we know much less about. Professor Katie Field takes on the task of trying to grow us some bioluminescent mushrooms, while Prof Cassius Stevani explains how – and importantly, why – they glow.And finally – could we ever harness the power of bioluminescence to

Can learning new languages make us forget our mother tongue? CrowdScience listener Nakombe in Cameroon is concerned that his first language, Balue, is slipping from his grasp. He has learned multiple languages through his life, but Balue is the language of his family and home. It’s central to his identity and sense of belonging. So why does it seem to be fading from him, and what can he do to get it back?We search for answers, investigating what happens in our brains when we struggle to recall languages, as well as the social and economic factors that lead to language loss. Presenter Anand Jagatia asks Michael Anderson from the University of Cambridge, an expert on memory and forgetting, whether forgotten languages disappear from our brain, or just become difficult to access. Linguist Monika Schmid from the University of York takes us through the phenomenon of first language attrition, and has words of reassurance and advice for Nakombe and others in his situation.And we meet Larry Kimura from the University

While there is a myriad of deodorants, shower gels and perfumes helping us stay fresh and fragrant today, that hasn’t always been the case. How did humans stay clean in the past, or did they not care so much? And is there an evolutionary reason for human body odour in the first place? These are questions that CrowdScience listener Sarah has pondered on trips in her camper van, when she wants to keep clean, but washing isn’t always convenient. In search of answers, presenter Anand Jagatia delves into the sweaty details: where body odour comes from, why some people's armpits don't smell, and whether this heady stink serves any purpose. Could our natural odour really help to attract a partner, or is it just a smelly bacterial by-product? Anand explores the intriguing mystery of human pheromones, and hears how for hundreds of years, Europeans were terrified of washing. Contributors: Dr Madalyn Nguyen, Dermatologist Dr Kara Hoover, Biological Anthropologist, University of Alaska Fairbanks Katherine Ashenburg,

2024 is the biggest election year in history. From Taiwan to India, the USA to Ghana, by the end of the year almost half of the world’s population will have had the chance to choose who governs them. But there are a huge number of possible voting systems – and listener James wants CrowdScience to find out which is the fairest. To do so, we create a fictional country called CrowdLand to try out different electoral systems. Presenter Caroline Steel consults mathematician David McCune and political scientists Eric Linhart and Simon Hix, and we hear from listeners around the world about how they vote in their respective countries. Can we find the perfect voting system for CrowdLand? Contributors: Prof David McCune, William Jewell College, USA Prof Eric Linhart, University of Technology Chemnitz, Germany Prof Simon Hix, European University Institute, Italy Actors: Charlotte Bloomsbury Ross Virgo Presenter: Caroline Steel Producer: Florian Bohr Editor: Cathy Edwards Production Co-ordinator: Ishmael Sorian

With huge heads on top of spindly stalks, how do sunflowers defy gravity to stay standing? That was a question sent to CrowdScience by listener Frank, whose curiosity was piqued by the towering sunflowers on his neighbour’s deck. They stay up not only when the weather is fine, but, even more impressively, during strong winds. Could this feat of strength, flexibility and balance inspire the construction of tall buildings? It's a question that takes presenter Anand Jagatia to a sunflower festival in England, to see how the sunflower’s long evolutionary lineage has honed its structure. And from tall flowers to tall buildings, we turn to structural engineers, asking how these concepts factor into the design of the world’s tallest skyscrapers. Can ideas drawn from sunflowers or other natural structures help buildings withstand wind, or even storm surges?Contributors: Stuart Beare, partner and grower at Tulley’s Farm Roland Ennos, Visiting Professor in Biological Studies, University of Hull Sigrid Adriaenssen, P

The Moon and Earth are drifting gradually further apart. Every year the gap between them increases by a few centimetres. We know that the Moon’s gravity has an important effect on Earth - from controlling the tides to affecting the planet’s rotation - but slowly, imperceptibly, over billions of years, that influence will diminish as the Moon moves away. For CrowdScience listener Tony in the UK that idea poses another question. What if we were to look back in time? What effects did the Moon have when it was closer to Earth? Would it counteract the planet’s gravity more so that, at the time of the dinosaurs, a Brontosaurus would weigh a little less that it would if it existed now? It’s an intriguing question. And, given that it involves both the Moon AND dinosaurs, it’s one that’s got presenter Anand Jagatia really excited! Anand begins his journey on Brighton beach on the South coast of the UK. He’s there to watch the full Moon rise - and get a few insights on Tony’s question - from astronomer Darren Bask

18 is the age of majority, or maturity, in most countries around the world. Depending where you live, it might be when you can vote, buy alcohol, or get married. But what's so special about 18 that makes it the beginning of adulthood? CrowdScience listener Lynda didn't feel very mature back then. She recalls a difficult decision that made her wonder what science has to say about when we’re truly grown up. How developed are we, physically, mentally and emotionally, by the age of 18? And how much does this differ between people, or from culture to culture? Presenter Caroline Steel digs around for answers with the aid of neuroscientist Sarah-Jayne Blakemore, biological anthropologist Barry Bogin, and cultural anthropologist Bonnie Hewlett. And even some teenagers. Contributors: Barry Bogin, Emeritus Professor of Biological Anthropology, Loughborough University Sarah-Jayne Blakemore - Professor of Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Cambridge Professor Bonnie Hewlett - Associate Prof

An apex predator is a killer. Usually large and terrifying, they enjoy the privilege of life at the top of a food chain. Nothing will eat them, leaving them free to wreak carnage on more vulnerable creatures. In biology, it’s a term normally reserved for animals like polar bears, tigers and wolves. But CrowdScience listener Eoin wonders whether there’s a non-animal candidate for apex predator: the car. After all, worldwide, more than 1.5 million humans die on the roads each year, while pollution from traffic kills millions more. And that’s just the impact on us. What are cars doing to all the other species on this planet? Host Anand Jagatia hits the road to investigate. En route, we’ll be picking up some scientists to help answer the question. It turns out to be so much more than a question of roadkill: cars, and the infrastructure built to support them, are destroying animals in ways science is only now revealing. How did the wildlife cross the road? We go verge-side to test four different approaches. And we

Many of us experience an inner voice: we silently talk to ourselves as we go about our daily lives. CrowdScience listener Fredrick has been wondering about the science behind this interior dialogue. We hear from psychologists researching our inner voice and discover that it’s something that begins in early childhood. Presenter Caroline Steel meets Russell Hurlburt, a pioneering scientist who devised a method of researching this - and volunteers to monitor her own inner speech to figure out what’s going on in her mind. She discovers that speech is just part of what’s going on in our heads, much of our inner world in fact doesn’t involve language at all but includes images, sensations and feelings. Caroline talks to psychologist Charles Fernyhough, who explains one theory for how we develop an interior dialogue as young children: first speaking out loud to ourselves and then learning to keep that conversation going silently. No one really knows how this evolved, but keeping our thoughts quiet may have bee

It would be quite a superpower to regrow entire body parts. CrowdScience listener Kelly started pondering this after a discussion with her friend on whether human tongues could regrow. Finding out that they couldn't, she asked us to investigate the extent of human regenerative abilities. Presenter Alex Lathbridge travels to Vienna, a hotbed of research in this area. He meets an animal with much better powers of regeneration than humans - the axolotl. In Elly Tanaka’s lab he finds out how she studies their incredible abilities – and shows off his new axolotl tattoo.Why can these sweet-looking salamanders regrow entire limbs while we can’t even regrow our tongues? Palaeontologist Nadia Fröbisch has looked into the evolutionary origins of regeneration, and it goes a lot further back than you might think. And in fact, even humans are constantly regenerating, by renewing the building blocks of our bodies: cells. New cells grow and replace old ones all the time – although, in some parts of the body, we do keep hold

Why do we have two eyes? Two ears? Two arms and two legs? Why is one side of the human body – externally at least – pretty much a mirror image of the other side? CrowdScience listener Kevin from Trinidad and Tobago is intrigued. He wants to know why human beings – and indeed most animals - have a line of symmetry in their bodies. Yet, beyond their flowers and fruits, plants don’t seem to have any obvious symmetry. It seems that they can branch in any direction. Anand Jagatia sets out to find out why the animal kingdom settled on bilateral symmetry as the ideal body plan. And it takes him into the deep oceans of 570 million years ago. Paleobiologist Dr. Frankie Dunn is his guide to a time when animal life was experimenting with all sorts of different body plans and symmetries.Frankie shows Anand a fossil of the animals which changed everything. When creatures with bilateral symmetry emerged they began to re-engineer their environment, outcompeting everything else and dooming them to extinction. Well... nearl

It's a simple metal box that moves nearly all of our goods around the world. Designed for uniformity and interchangeability, the shipping container has reshaped global trade and our lives in the nearly 70 years since its creation. But listener Paul wants to know if these heavy steel containers could be made with lighter materials to cut down on the fuel needed to transport them, especially when they're empty. Could we make shipping containers a more efficient process and reduce the shipping industry’s sizable greenhouse gas emissions?Host Anand Jagatia travels to Europe's largest port in Rotterdam looking for answers. Speaking to environmental scientists and industry insiders along the way, he takes a look at how the humble container might be modified to once again remake global shipping, from materials, to designs, to how it’s shipped. And thinking outside the box, we explore which innovations might benefit the whole system – from machine learning to new, carbon-free energy sources. For an industry that’s no

When listener Watum heard about the Titan submersible implosion in the news in 2023, a question popped up in his mind: if a machine that we specifically built for this purpose cannot sustain the water pressure of the deep ocean, how do fish survive down there? In this episode, we travel with marine biologist Alan Jamieson to the second deepest place in our oceans: the Tonga trench. Meanwhile, presenter Caroline Steel speaks to Edie Widder about the creatures that illuminate our oceans, and travels to Copenhagen to take a closer look one of the strangest deep sea creatures and its deep sea adaptations. But even fish have their limits! Scientist Paul Yancey correctly predicted the deepest point that fish can live, and it all comes down to one particular molecule. So is there anything living beyond these depths? Well, there is only one way to find out… Contributors: Prof Alan Jamieson, University of Western Australia Luke Siebermaier, Submersible Team Leader, Inkfish Dr Edie Widder, Ocean Research & Conser

CrowdScience listener Azeddine from Algeria has had bad handwriting since he was a child. In fact, it was so untidy that, when he later became a chemistry lecturer, his university students complained that they couldn’t read his lecture notes. That was when he decided he had to do something about it. And it got him wondering… why do some of us have very neat handwriting while other people’s is almost unreadable? Why do his sisters all write beautifully when his natural style is quite the opposite? Presenter Alex Lathbridge – who admits that his handwriting isn’t always the tidiest – sets out to answer Azeddine’s question. He explores the different factors which determine how well we write. How much of it is inherited? What part does family and education play? And what’s actually going on in our brains when we apply pen to paper? Alex talks to anthropologist Monika Saini in Delhi who has analysed writing styles within families and in different regions across India. She tells him about the genetic and

In many languages across the world, all nouns are classed as either male or female, or sometimes neuter. The English language, however, only signals gender in its pronouns - he, she, it or they. For inanimate objects, gender just crops up in occasional examples like ships or countries, which, for some reason, are deemed female. This lack of gender in English intrigued CrowdScience listener Stuart, since the other languages he knows all highlight whether something is male or female. Did English ever have gender, and if so, where did it go? Presenter Anand Jagatia dives into some Old English texts to uncover the idiosyncrasies of its masculine and feminine nouns, and learns why these gradually fell out of use. But why do other languages assign gender to nouns – male, female, and sometimes many more categories too? And does this affect the way we think?Contributors: Andrew Dunning, Curator of Medieval Manuscripts, Bodleian Library, Oxford University Rachel Burns, Departmental Lecturer in Old English, Oxford

Buildings inspire many emotions, like awe, serenity or even dread. CrowdScience listener Siobhan was struck by this as she passed a huge apartment block with tiny windows; it reminded her of a prison. So, she asked us to investigate the feelings that buildings can trigger. Architects have long considered how the effect of buildings on their occupants or passersby: asking whether certain features elicit feelings of wonder or joy... or sadness and fear. And now modern neuroscience has started to interrogate these very questions, too. How much of the way we feel about a building is to do with its intrinsic design, and how much is due to our individual brain chemistry and life experiences? Presenter Caroline Steel talks to designer Thomas Heatherwick about his ideas for improving public spaces; enters a virtual reality simulation in Denmark to learn about the emerging field of ‘neuroarchitecture’; and finds out why people just can’t agree what makes a ‘good’ or ‘bad’ building.Contributors: Thomas Heatherwick,