This deceptively simple question from listeners Andy, Mike and James is actually one of the hardest questions CrowdScience has ever tackled. Why? Because even scientists struggle to explain the true nature of the magnetic force and to do so in a way that even presenter Marnie Chesterton can understand is a serious challenge. What is a magnet? And just what is going on when magnets exert a force?
With the help of Melanie Windridge, Sean Giblin, Steve Bramwell, Charlotte New and Peter Morris we attempt to navigate the oddities of one of the most fundamental phenomena in the universe.
(Image: A horseshoe magnet attracting some hammer nails. Credit: Getty Images)
Anand Jagatia heads to the rainbow nation of South Africa, to answer listener Lucy’s deceptively simple question. He follows the path of early human migration to understand the relationship between light skin and latitude, and find out how the world become more multi-coloured as people ventured further away from the equator. And he learns how our genes have helped us adapt to less sunny environments, hearing from the remote KhoeSan tribe in the Kalahari desert, who took part in a massive study aimed at giving scientists a better understanding of pigmentation.
Producer: Marijke Peters
Presenter: Anand Jagatia
(Image: Four diverse women’s arms holding each others wrists in a circle. Credit: Getty Images)
Cameroon's defence minister and army chief escape an attack by Anglophone insurgents; after five years of civil war, the UN imposes an arms embargo on South Sudan, the same day women march for peace in Juba; and Sierra Leone: 100 days of President Bio - the pluses and minuses.
Kenyans wondering why twenty lawmakers went to Russia during the World Cup on the taxpayers' dime; a new study shows just how long a shadow Ebola cast on those who survived it; the multicultural roots of the ZCC; The Gambia's healthcare crisis.
This month World Book Club talks to internationally celebrated Indian writer Anuradha Roy about her much-loved novel, An Atlas of Impossible Longing.
Spanning three generations of an Indian family from the turn of the 20th century to India's partition An Atlas of Impossible Longing traces the intertwining lives of the inhabitants of a vast and isolated house on the outskirts of a small town in Bengal.
Centred on sensitive foundling orphan boy Mukunda and the wild and motherless daughter of the house, Bakul, the novel charts the unshakeable but oft-threatened bond that grows between them in a world where they feel abandoned by everyone else. A haunting and compelling story of love, loss, grief and the power of home.
Listener Pogo wants to know why there aren’t any cabbages – or any of the other vegetables – in his local forest. Where did they all come from? And could they someday disappear? Presenter Gareth Barlow goes hunting for wild snacks in a city park and unearths the evolution of our most beloved greens. The vegetables on our supermarket shelves today were not always nicely wrapped and tasty. Humans have been selecting for specific genes in plants for thousands of years by choosing to grow those we liked the most.
Tomatoes have been transformed from a small prickly desert plant in Peru into a water guzzler with round, juicy, sweet fruits. But with breeding – and sometimes cloning – of plants we have also created genetic bottlenecks in many of the crops we rely heavily on. This has left many of our vegetables across the world vulnerable to shifts in climate, natural disasters, wars and diseases.
To find solutions to this massive breach in food security, CrowdScience heads to the Millennium Seed-bank in England. By collecting and storing our most precious seeds in vaults beneath the ground, scientists are protecting the genetic diversity that we will need to overcome the challenges ahead.
Presenter: Gareth Barlow
Producer: Louisa Field
Picture: Man holding basket of vegetables
Credit: Getty Images/valentinrussanov
After nine hours of talks, European Union leaders agree a deal of sorts on migration; Ghana's electoral commission boss, Charlotte Osei, sacked, the information minister tells us why; Gambia's Adama Barrow's major reshuffle; and the Resident Presidents on the merits or not of a lie detector.
Why has Ghana slapped a ban on all imports of tilapia? The Ebola outbreak in the DRC could be over but the WHO remains cautious; families continuing to try and find missing relatives after a deadly fire in Nairobi; and LGBTQ Pride celebrations in Swaziland.
Sex – for most organisms - is about meeting the right partner. But what if you and your mate are stuck far apart with no ability to travel? This dilemma could put a bit of a downer on your sex life, but is faced by plants everywhere. Presenter Anand Jagatia uncovers the happy fact that not only have plants overcome this problem, they positively excel at it. From hay fever to honey, the sexual strategies of plants affect us daily, and we couldn’t live without their success. In this episode, CrowdScience is answering the questions you sent after a previous episode entitled ‘Can plants talk?’ which explored the way plants and trees use a fungal network to communicate. This time, we explore how plants ‘feel’ bees as they fly past, and more complex communication involving the ‘wood wide web’.
Presenter Anand Jagatia
Producer: Rory Galloway
(Image: A yellow dandelion flower attracts a pollinator in the evening sunlight. Credit: Getty Images)
Some of the biggest reserves of freshwater are right under our feet and they're really important for farming as well as providing us with water to drink. However, in some areas of the world, groundwater is being slurped up quicker than it can be replenished. In fact, about 1.7 billion people live in regions where groundwater is under stress, 60% of them in India and China. This figure is set to rise as the climate changes and as the population grows.
CrowdScience listener Waheed from Afghanistan wants to know if we will run out of groundwater and what the repercussions might be. Marnie Chesterton trots around the globe to find out, starting with a row on the River Thames before hearing from Afghanistan to understand what’s happening where Waheed lives. She learns of what has happened to London, Mexico and Malta when they over pumped their aquifers. Finally, Marnie looks to Bangalore where the population is booming to understand how they’re coping with increasing demands on water.
Presenter: Marnie Chesterton
Producer: Graihagh Jackson
(Image: Children holding their hands up - asking for drinking water. Credit: Getty Images)
