The eLife Podcast

This month, mobile phones are an excellent proxy to test for Covid-19, stress and hair going grey, signs that junk food inflammes the immune system, what makes rats want to help other rats, and the emerging infections in South America linked to conquest and the slave trade. Dr Chris Smith takes a look at more of the top science publishing in eLife... Get the references and the transcripts for this programme from the Naked Scientists website

This month, male baboons pay a high ageing price for climbing the social ladder, evidence for the reality of the widowhood effect whereby breaking a pair-bond provokes cancer growth, a new way to track where vaccine antigens go in the body, an integrated model for Alzheimer's Disease, and better ways to predict pain and analgesia in newborns... Get the references and the transcripts for this programme from the Naked Scientists website

This month: how hummingbirds hum, how elephants evolved anti-cancer genes so they can sustain big bodies, gorillas that grow up without their mothers, and why deforestation causes peaks and then troughs in malaria cases... Get the references and the transcripts for this programme from the Naked Scientists website

This month: the first self-blinded study into microdosing psychedelics, using DNA analysis to understand what bacteria is in river water, and what's the evidence for parasites preventing inflammatory diseases? Plus, comparing different methods for evaluating your cellular age, and an analysis of non-inclusive language used in life sciences journals... Get the references and the transcripts for this programme from the Naked Scientists website

This month: how a dose of magnesium can improve long-term memory, scientists scrutinise the world's sourdough microbes, and evidence that we're overlooking important COVID-relevant genes. Plus, shark behaviour in low oxygen environments, and using baboon mummies to solve a mystery of ancient times... Get the references and the transcripts for this programme from the Naked Scientists website

This month we hear about the animals that turn their dinner into solar panels, the first images of anti-nausea drug molecules engaging with their receptors, and what thousands of you told eLife about the people who support their colleagues at work. Plus, exercise stops cancer cells from growing and how we hold onto bad food memories... Get the references and the transcripts for this programme from the Naked Scientists website

This month we hear about an artificial intelligence (AI) breakthrough for infertility, how ketamine can mimic some of the decision-making difficulties seen in schizophrenia, a new device to observe and document mosquito feeding behaviour, the key to scar-free wound healing, and how open is open access publishing at the moment? Get the references and the transcripts for this programme from the Naked Scientists website

This month on the eLife podcast, artificial intelligence reveals a better test for prostate cancer, is the brain stuffed with neuronal stem cells, bonobos with cultural preferences, and why some insects play "follow my leader"... Get the references and the transcripts for this programme from the Naked Scientists website

This month on the eLife Podcast we hear about why whale-watching boats are just too noisy, how oily fish combats heart failure, breakthroughs in halting Huntington's disease, and how your wiggling ears can betray your intentions... Get the references and the transcripts for this programme from the Naked Scientists website

This month on the eLife Podcast we look at how sugar takes away the pleasure of consuming and makes you eat more, we find out what loneliness does to the brain, uncover new insights into how HIV infects females, and explore sex bias in biomedical research... Get the references and the transcripts for this programme from the Naked Scientists website

This month we explore how genetic plasticity enables sparrows to live alongside us and fish to evolve rapidly to life in caves. We also hear why "Test! Test! Test!" is so critical to safe healthcare provision during the coronavirus pandemic, how a new technique can find drugs that boost the fungal killing power of fluconazole, and how changes in land use have knock-on effects on soil-dwelling invertebrates... Get the references and the transcripts for this programme from the Naked Scientists website

This month, why screening at airports for Covid19 is unlikely to work, how flight forced bat viruses to become virulent, MRI scans of throat singers reveals how they produce multiple sounds at the same time, and the role that DNA does and does not play in education... Get the references and the transcripts for this programme from the Naked Scientists website

This month, new hearing tests to spot those likely to struggle with speech in noisy environments, how your DNA is at risk from hacking on a public database, plants with three parents, researchers recreate endometriosis in mice and show that cannabis might be an effective treatment, and the nerve fibres that make us like a cuddle. Get the references and the transcripts for this programme from the Naked Scientists website

Have these paralysed patients helped to reveal the brain basis of why we gesticulate when we talk? Also, new insights into how the body clock keeps track of the seasons, signs that immunity to Zika virus wanes with time, why human body temperature is lower than it was 150 years ago, and diversity in science: how can we better hold on to rare talent? Get the references and the transcripts for this programme from the Naked Scientists website

What accounts for the bomb-proof biology of the tardigrade? How do ants avoid traffic jams? Why thou shalt not abuse statistics in 2020, do badgers transmit bovine TB to cows, and is mental illness on the rise among early-career scientists? Get the references and the transcripts for this programme from the Naked Scientists website

This month, join Chris Smith to hear how sleep deprivation sends your endocannabinoids skyrocketing and triggers a tendency to binge, how many new genetic mutations you inherit from your parents, the gene for behaviour that turned out to be nothing of the sort, what good and bad learners have in common with youTube influencers, and from online collective whinge to paper in eLife: the careers of newly appointed PIs. Get the references and the transcripts for this programme from the Naked Scientists website

This month, doctors doing U-turns: the medical practices without much evidence to prop them up, wind-tunnel experiments reveal how geese fly at extreme altitudes, why mating makes bees go blind, stress remodelling the brain's myelin, and what goes on during a stint aboard the International Space Station? Join Chris Smith for a look inside the latest papers in eLife... Get the references and the transcripts for this programme from the Naked Scientists website

This month, the blind monkey that lacks a visual cortex but can still see, the bee-hunting wasps that use a gas cloud to keep harmful fungi at bay, adaptive optics that can image blood vessels of all sizes in the eye, the new field of palaeoshellomics, and how to mix a family with a scientific career... Get the references and the transcripts for this programme from the Naked Scientists website

This month, stunning fossil remains of a beetle that evolved to exploit ants and appeared rapidly after ants became social themselves, how inflammation in early life alters the ability of the nervous system to adapt to changing respiratory demands in adulthood, how DNA can be used to track where people picked up malaria, the researchers drawing up new ways to illustrate science, and meet Mike Eisen, eLife's new Editor-in-Chief... Get the references and the transcripts for this programme from the Naked Scientists website

How the brain handles sensations from amputated body parts, evidence that government vaccination campaigns to target measles really work, the heel-prick blood test at birth that can detect prematurity, testing the reproducibility of science at the level of a whole nation, and the multipartite viruses the spread as an infectious swarm: scientists show that they replicate different parts of the virus in different cells... Get the references and the transcripts for this programme from the Naked Scientists website

The shellfish that release insulin into the water to catch fish, brain activity patterns that predict future addictions, how to do gene drive experiments safely, and is the first author position gender neutral? Chris Smith talks to leading scientists publishing groundbreaking papers in eLife... Get the references and the transcripts for this programme from the Naked Scientists website

Why one in five published papers that use cultured cells may be wrong, the frog that sings underwater without air, genes that make you live longer, seeing evolution through bats' eyes, and do brainier people have bigger brain cells? Join Chris Smith as he talks to the authors of five hard-hitting new papers published in eLife... Get the references and the transcripts for this programme from the Naked Scientists website

This month in the eLife Podcast, how scientists got oestrogen signalling all wrong in breast cancer, fungus-farming ants and their microbial helpers, how smells influence memory, the tension between Pacific mineral riches and deep-sea species, and how oxytocin boosts bravery... Get the references and the transcripts for this programme from the Naked Scientists website

In this episode of the eLife Podcast, the nerves with a taste for salt, why fur seal pups succumb to hookworms, the oldest fossilised flowers ever found, the monkey business of chimp personalities, and the 11 million year old flying squirrel foung in a rubbish tip... Get the references and the transcripts for this programme from the Naked Scientists website

The wildlife impact of urban sprawl, how climate change will affect the distribution of mosquito-borne outbreaks, Devil Facial Tumour Disease 2, how LSD works in the brain and gender bias in peer review all go under the microscope in this latest episode of the eLife Podcast. Get the references and the transcripts for this programme from the Naked Scientists website

This special edition of the eLife Podcast marks our 50th episode and we've decided to mark the milestone by focusing on a field that's huge and tiny both at the same time: huge in terms of the rate at which the discipline's growing and the impact it's set to have our lives, and tiny because its subjects are microscopic. It's our microbiome, the community of micro-organisms that live on us and in us and outnumber our own human cells by maybe 50 fold: we're literally passengers in our own bodies, and over the next 30 minutes we'll hear how gut bacteria might alter your risk of diabetes, and how... Get the references and the transcripts for this programme from the Naked Scientists website

In this episode of the eLife Podcast, we hear about the RNA world, bovine TB, lung fibrosis, and why rock pigeons have different wing patterns... Get the references and the transcripts for this programme from the Naked Scientists website

In this episode of the eLife Podcast, signs that trees exchange genes over hundreds of kilometres, how our gut bacteria protect us from plant toxins, and new insights into the placebo effect... Get the references and the transcripts for this programme from the Naked Scientists website

In this eLife Podcast, echolocation in bats, chemical probes for open science, using aspirin to manage TB meningitis, brain topography, and combining science and parenthood... Get the references and the transcripts for this programme from the Naked Scientists website

How much of the world's scientific literature now sits in SciHub, we hear why statins might be making diabetes worse, if oxygen did - or didn't - hold back the evolution of multicellular life, the neurological basis of lip-reading, and how the brain can compensate for autism... Get the references and the transcripts for this programme from the Naked Scientists website

In this episode, we hear about disease control in insects, placental development, post-traumatic stress disorder, the mission to create a human cell atlas and how crickets amplify their song... Get the references and the transcripts for this programme from the Naked Scientists website

In this episode, we hear about self-esteem, a new genus of extinct horse, the future of biological engineering, tracking mosquitoes with mobile phones, and how a love rival causes salmon to increase their sperm speed... Get the references and the transcripts for this programme from the Naked Scientists website

In this episode, we hear about tool use in monkeys, sleep regulation, marsupial placentas, health campaigns and why science papers are so hard to read. Get the references and the transcripts for this programme from the Naked Scientists website

In this special episode we hear about photosynthesis, forensics, peer review, and the past, present and future of eLife. Get the references and the transcripts for this programme from the Naked Scientists website

In this episode of the eLife Podcast, biomarkers for epilepsy, how fish can recognise faces, insect anti-anti aphrodisiacs, and why striving for novelty may hinder the progress of science... Get the references and the transcripts for this programme from the Naked Scientists website

Hear about the sea urchin immune system, symbiotic bacteria in squid, anxiety and a training course to promote collaboration between scientists. Get the references and the transcripts for this programme from the Naked Scientists website

In this special episode of the eLife Podcast, we discuss diseases common in tropical countries including tuberculosis, Zika, malaria and schistosomiasis. Get the references and the transcripts for this programme from the Naked Scientists website

This month in the eLife podcast, how yeast makes an important drug from a plant root, why worms want to kill of males, and are we gender neutral when we pick people to referee papers? Get the references and the transcripts for this programme from the Naked Scientists website

In this episode we hear about helping people with paralysis to communicate, how exposing mice to nicotine can affect their sons, scaffold-building parasites, the origins of human handedness and plain-language summaries of research. Get the references and the transcripts for this programme from the Naked Scientists website

In this episode we hear about epilepsy, the sushi-belt model of transport in neurons, a mother in ancient Troy, the Amazon rainforest and bias in scientific reporting. Get the references and the transcripts for this programme from the Naked Scientists website

Unravelling the 6-million-year-long story of where we came from is a tricky business because palaeontologists have to rely on scarce, precious fossil remains that are hard to access and even harder to find in the first place. And there's a limit to what pieces of bone and teeth can reveal about our ancestors. But, occasionally, serendipity affords us a special glimpse into our past like it did in Laetoli, Tanzania, where a nearby erupting volcano captured the footsteps millions of years ago of a group of Australopithecines. In episode 34 of the eLife Podcast we heard from University of Perugia... Get the references and the transcripts for this programme from the Naked Scientists website

In this episode of the eLife podcast we hear about fossil footprints, taking medical research to the clinic, sleepy flies, team-working ants and diversity in science. Get the references and the transcripts for this programme from the Naked Scientists website

In this episode of the eLife podcast we hear about the first heartbeat, African sleeping sickness, elephant genetics, the rubber hand illusion and women in science. Get the references and the transcripts for this programme from the Naked Scientists website

In this episode of the eLife podcast we hear about ancient proteins, aging mice, mosquito nets, resourceful plants and cocktail party conversations. Get the references and the transcripts for this programme from the Naked Scientists website

In this episode of the eLife podcast we hear about human height, fish joints, colour vision, chimpanzees using tools and open science. Get the references and the transcripts for this programme from the Naked Scientists website

In this episode of the eLife podcast we hear about drug production, early career researchers, honeybees, human migrations and pain. Get the references and the transcripts for this programme from the Naked Scientists website

In this episode of the eLife podcast we hear about parasitic worms, dog tumours, epilepsy, DNA sequencing classes and social behaviour in mice. Get the references and the transcripts for this programme from the Naked Scientists website

In this episode of the eLife podcast we hear about aging, artificial fingertips, ancient DNA, antibiotic resistance and dengue fever. Get the references and the transcripts for this programme from the Naked Scientists website

In this episode of the eLife podcast we hear about midnight snacking, X-ray imaging of fossils, hummingbirds, monkeys gambling and axolotls regenerating... Get the references and the transcripts for this programme from the Naked Scientists website

Heat-seeking behaviour in mosquitoes, mass spawning in coral reefs, social organization in ants, fear in rats and tissue regeneration in newts go under the microscope in Episode 26 of the eLife Podcast... Get the references and the transcripts for this programme from the Naked Scientists website

In this episode of the eLife podcast we hear about deep-sea bacteria, cigarette smoke and lung disease, antibiotic resistance, unconscious perception, and the benefits of sleep. Get the references and the transcripts for this programme from the Naked Scientists website

In this episode of the eLife podcast we hear about Parkinson's Disease, depression, chickenpox, bats, beetles and how small prey can escape larger predators. Get the references and the transcripts for this programme from the Naked Scientists website

Where we came from is, arguably, one of the most important questions facing mankind. This week the story has become even more intriguing: the well-preserved remains of 15 individuals from a new species of human ancestor, called Homo naledi, have been unveiled by scientists in South Africa. The name means "star" in the local language and it's a nod to the rising star cave system where the remains - part of a spectacular assemblage of more than 1500 specimens - were uncovered. The finds also harbour another secret: it's possible that these individuals might have been put where the scientists... Get the references and the transcripts for this programme from the Naked Scientists website

In this episode of the eLife podcast we hear about cancer, dengue fever, sperm DNA and neurons that are sensitive to magnetic fields. Get the references and the transcripts for this programme from the Naked Scientists website

Tinnitus, hyperacusis, salamanders, chemical harpoons and the role of ultrasound and song in the mating rituals of mice and flies go under the microcope in this edition of the eLife Podcast. Get the references and the transcripts for this programme from the Naked Scientists website

In this episode of the eLife podcast we hear about echolocation, bacteriophages, babies and pain, a neural code for food abundance, and how zebrafish can make their own sunscreen. Get the references and the transcripts for this programme from the Naked Scientists website

In this episode of the eLife podcast we hear about herpes, breweries, model organisms, social interactions in rats and traumatic brain injuries in flies. Get the references and the transcripts for this programme from the Naked Scientists website

In this episode of the eLife podcast we hear about TB, HIV, social behaviour in ants, genetics in baboons and a surprising twist to the handshake. Get the references and the transcripts for this programme from the Naked Scientists website

In this episode of the eLife podcast we hear about controlling sperm by optogenetics, hibernation, body clocks, enzyme structure, and a way to overcome stress-induced infertility. Get the references and the transcripts for this programme from the Naked Scientists website

n this episode of the eLife podcast we hear about reproducibility, drug resistance, cells without walls, gene transfer, interspecies signalling, and stem cells. Get the references and the transcripts for this programme from the Naked Scientists website

In this episode of the eLife podcast we hear about influenza pandemics, eating too much, cannabis and the brain, HIV cure research, and the evolution of sea squirts... Get the references and the transcripts for this programme from the Naked Scientists website

In this episode of the eLife podcast we hear about the spread of the Ebola virus, the financial costs of research misconduct, aging in yeast, grooming in flies, and symbiosis between bacteria and fungal cells. Get the references and the transcripts for this programme from the Naked Scientists website

In this episode of the eLife podcast we hear about using photographs to diagnose rare genetic disorders, an unexpected benefit of exercise, hybridizing fish species, the mysteries of the MECP2 gene, and the risks and benefits of using gene drives to alter wild populations. Get the references and the transcripts for this programme from the Naked Scientists website

In this episode of the eLife podcast, the neuroscience of chewing, African sleeping sickness, skin cancer, and an ancient protein complex called TSET. eLife editor-in-chief Randy Schekman also shares his thoughts on scientific publishing... Get the references and the transcripts for this programme from the Naked Scientists website

In this episode of the eLife podcast we hear about neuropathic pain, gene therapy, insulin production, ageing in worms, and how flatworms grow new body parts. Get the references and the transcripts for this programme from the Naked Scientists website

In this episode of the eLife podcast we hear about the mating habits of flies, radiation resistance in bacteria, how insects learned to smell, and the Hawaiian bobtail squid... Get the references and the transcripts for this programme from the Naked Scientists website

In this episode of the eLife podcast we learn more about sleep, super Spy chaperones, swimming bacteria, orphan genes and the neuroscience of birdsong. Get the references and the transcripts for this programme from the Naked Scientists website

In this episode of the eLife podcast we discuss ants, rats, sharks and rays, and the pathogen that causes corn smut in maize. Get the references and the transcripts for this programme from the Naked Scientists website

In this episode of the eLife Podcast, the growing problem of drug resistance, severe brain damage, sugar versus sweetener, public dilemmas, and the evolution of translation... Get the references and the transcripts for this programme from the Naked Scientists website

In this episode of the eLife podcast we discuss doing protein crystallography with electrons, the discovery of a receptor for carbon dioxide, new insights into arthritis, how the brain responds to a missing hand, and the best shape for whiskers. Get the references and the transcripts for this programme from the Naked Scientists website

In this issue of the eLife podcast we discuss how chimpanzees use conceptual metaphors, the hyperactivation of spermatozoa, the use of bacteria to estimate the time of death, stem cells and smoking, and a new type of bacteria. Get the references and the transcripts for this programme from the Naked Scientists website

In this issue of the eLife podcast we discuss how flatworms can grow new heads and tails, how photosynthesis has evolved over time, social interactions between mice, the properties of "undead" cells, and interactions between steroids and genes. Get the references and the transcripts for this programme from the Naked Scientists website

The cocktail party effect and how the brain decides which sounds to attend to, genes dismissed as dead relics turn out to play significant roles in inflammation, iPS cells reproduce degenerative retinal disease, the genetic responses to flu jabs, and the discovery of stem cells in schistosomes... Get the references and the transcripts for this programme from the Naked Scientists website

How plants do molecular mathematics to thyme their starch consumption, how cancers evolve resistance to chemotherapy and how to combat it, how the retina and cornea keep themselves clear of blood vessels, watching T cell receptors in real time and do governments listen to scientists? Get the references and the transcripts for this programme from the Naked Scientists website

How multicellular life began, museum specimens surrender the identity of the bug behind the Irish potato famine, the Hepatitis B and D virus receptor discovered, why fog clouds driver judgement and where nucleosomes came from. Get the references and the transcripts for this programme from the Naked Scientists website