CrowdScience

<p>CrowdScience listener Gurmeet in India wants to know if plants can sense that we're around. She started wondering about this at a wellness centre where she was encouraged to hug a tree. She enjoyed the experience, but what about the tree? Did it enjoy being touched? And is there actually evidence that hugging a tree is good for us? </p><p>Anand Jagatia talks to scientists about what happens to a plant when it's touched. Molecular biologist Olivier van Aken, from Lund University in Sweden, exp

<p>CrowdScience listener Devin in Canada has just had a baby. Worried that all the good email addresses might be taken by the time his child needs one, he has already set up an account. But it got him wondering: how many email addresses belong to people who have died? </p><p>From websites and blogs to email accounts, social media profiles, gaming avatars and even our conversations with AI, we’re all leaving behind a trail of digital footprints that can outlive us. So what happens to them when we

<p>CrowdScience listener Lisa, who is from South Africa but now lives in the UK, has been a vegetarian for many years. Sometimes though, she still finds herself craving meats – like spaghetti bolognese or a burger. To satisfy these cravings, she eats ‘alt-meats’, products meant to look and taste like meat but made from vegetables. </p><p>This has her wondering though, are these alternative meats better for the planet than actual meat would be? And what about her health? Given that many of these

<p>Your heart pounds, your chest tightens, your stomach drops and your legs feel weak and shaky. Your palms are sweating and a tingling rush spreads through your arms and fingertips as your brain is overwhelmed with feelings of tension and fear. And yet, you’ve asked for this. You wanted to be on this ride, at this theme park, hurtling towards the ground at a frightening speed. But why? </p><p>An adrenaline rush is the body’s fight-or-flight response to intense fear, stress or excitement. It sen

<p>Some fish can deliver electric shocks that are four times more powerful than the electricity in your plug sockets at home. Crowdscience listener Mouhammed in Cameroon was stunned by this, so he charged us with finding out how they do it. </p><p>Presenter Caroline Steel heads to Bayreuth in Germany to meet some eels who have this amazing ability. Dr Stefan Schuster and Susanne Proschke introduce us to their collection of electric fish, and help us conduct some experiments to work out how the f

<p>CrowdScience listener Matt wants to know why he's warm blooded. He started thinking about this when he was watching some ants during the recent heatwave in Europe and wondered why their blood didn't boil. What are the pros and cons of being warm-blooded like us or cold-blooded reptiles like lizards? </p><p>Caroline Steel meets evolutionary biologist Dr Manuel Leal from the University of Missouri in the US, who explains the differences between ectotherms (cold-blooded animals) and endotherms (

<p>Why is it hard to concentrate, and why does it feel like such hard work? The CrowdScience inbox is full of questions like that, so for this show we’re concentrating on concentration and focusing on how we focus. </p><p>We’ll be answering questions about the extra energy the brain uses when we’re concentrating, whether mental effort can tire you out more than physical effort, why we zone out when faced with a difficult task and how the ability to multitask is governed by our overall cognitive

<p>Tuberculosis kills more than a million people every year. It’s the world’s leading cause of death from a single infectious agent. This is despite the fact that we've had a cure for TB since the 1940s and a vaccine that’s over 100 years old. So why is TB still causing so many people to die? </p><p>That’s what CrowdScience listener John in Tanzania wants to know, and presenter Marnie Chesterton is on the case. Over in Paris, she’s joined by Dr Claas Kirchhelle, historian of science, medicine a