All Podcast articles – Page 6

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  • Arrowroot crop in Bermuda
    Podcast

    Starch

    2019-04-19T09:31:00Z

    Inspired by a mention of arrowroot in Jane Austen's Emma, Mike Freemantle investigates how subtle differences in composition mean starch can be resistant dietary fibre or easily-digested nourishment.

  • Olive oil
    Podcast

    Aniline

    2019-04-12T09:30:00Z

    How an early synthetic dye chemical came to play a role in a mysterious disease outbreak in 1980s Spain

  • The book cover of The truth about fat
    Podcast

    Book Club – The truth about fat

    2019-04-09T14:00:00Z

    ‘Angry chef’ Anthony Warner wants you to understand why people really get fat and how society tricks us into blaming each other

  • Plume of talcum powder
    Podcast

    Talc: Magnesium silicate

    2019-04-05T10:30:00Z

    Coating your naked body with powdered magnesium silicate may sound strange, but it's an important part of many bathtime rituals

  • Sea buckthorn berries and oil
    Podcast

    Tocopherols

    2019-03-29T15:08:00Z

    Mike Freemantle discovers sea buckthorn fruits also called 'beauty berries' because of their high concentration of tocopherols and tocotrienols, collectively known as vitamin E

  • Sommelier smelling wine and taking notes
    Podcast

    Trichloroanisole: Cork taint

    2019-03-22T14:00:00Z

    If you've ever been unlucky enough to experience 'corked' wine, then 2,4,6-trichloroanisole, or TCA was likely the chemical culprit

  • Cub scout surrounded by flowers
    Podcast

    Vinblastine and vincristine: Vinca alkaloids

    2019-03-15T13:36:00Z

    Kat Arney unearths a story of an overlooked female researcher in the search for the origins of cancer drugs found in plants

  • The Vasa, restored and on display at the Vasa Museum in Stockholm
    Podcast

    Polyethylene glycol or PEG

    2019-03-08T13:28:00Z

    The simple polymer that preserves and protects ancient artifacts, and saved a historical Swedish shipwreck from complete collapse

  • Humble Pi cover wide
    Podcast

    Book Club – Humble Pi: A Comedy of Maths Errors

    2019-03-04T14:47:00Z

    Matt Parker uses comedy to explore the unique relationship between humans and maths and how numbers are behind errors large and small

  • Feather pen, inkwell and letter
    Podcast

    Ferrous sulfate

    2019-03-01T14:38:00Z

    The iron compound that has been turning oak gall extract into indelible ink for centuries, but is now eating though our ancient manuscripts and musical scores

  • Development of soybean root
    Podcast

    Nitrogenase

    2019-02-22T09:30:00Z

    The mysterious enzyme that can beat the world’s biggest chemical process when it comes to breaking the dinitrogen triple bond

  • Funeral mask of the Pharoah Tutankhamun
    Podcast

    Lazurite

    2019-02-15T12:09:00Z

    A brilliant rich blue rock, prized in antiquity as a gemstone and a prominent pigment, lazurite is the basis of lapis lazuli, the original ultramarine paint and – as Brian Clegg finds – it even adorns Tutankhamun's death mask

  • Tsetse Fly
    Podcast

    Melarsoprol

    2019-02-07T14:20:00Z

    Cases of sleeping sickness – human African trypanosomiasis – are in decline, dropping 86% in Africa between 2000 and 2014. Gege Li explores the role that this toxic, arsenic-based medication has to play.

  • A picture of the book cover of Inventing Ourselves
    Podcast

    Book Club – Inventing Ourselves

    2019-02-07T11:30:00Z

    Cognitive neuroscientist Sarah-Jayne Blakemore explores the unique period of brain development that occurs during adolescence

  • Pile of capsules Omega 3 on white background
    Podcast

    Omega-3 fatty acids

    2019-02-01T14:30:00Z

    Many consume cod liver oil due to 'a vague sense we should be taking them for something' – but what to the omega-3 fatty acids actually do?

  • A UH- 1D helicopter from the 336th Aviation Company sprays a agent orange on a dense jungle area in the Mekong delta - Illustration
    Podcast

    Cacodyl

    2019-01-25T14:30:00Z

    It made Robert Bunsen seriously ill, Michael Faraday thought it 'barbaric' to use in battle and even Fritz Haber – the 'father of chemical warfare' – abandoned it after a fatal accident in his lab. This week, Mike Freemantle tells the story of tetramethyldiarsine, otherwise known as cacodyl.

  • Russian gymnast David Delyavskiy's bronze medal from the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
    Podcast

    Bronze

    2019-01-18T14:12:00Z

    Kit Chapman takes us back to the 1904 Olympics in St Louis, via the bronze age and ancient Greece

  • Whisky tasting glasses
    Podcast

    Ellagic acid

    2019-01-11T09:30:00Z

    Louise Crane introduces the antioxidant that led to exaggerated claims that 'whisky helps fight cancer'

  • A Picture of the Hello World Book Cover
    Podcast

    Book Club – Gene Machine: The Race to Decipher the Secrets of the Ribosome

    2019-01-04T10:00:00Z

    2009 Nobel prize winner Venki Ramakrishnan takes us on a personal and professional journey to uncover the secrets of the ribosome

  • Nutmeg fruit and seeds
    Podcast

    Myristicin

    2018-12-17T15:56:00Z

    The spice that gives your Christmas eggnog its distinctive taste and aroma is also a toxic narcotic that played an important role in international history