Covid -19 origins

A dip in global cocoa prices got the Unexpected Elements team wondering about chocolate science. First, we look at how the microbial communities in cocoa beans fine tune the taste of chocolate. Also, could table sugar help us detect the missing bits of the universe? We look at ho ...  Show more

Identical twins on trial for murder in France have left forensic experts unable to answer the question of which one pulled the gun’s trigger. With both having the same DNA, it got the Unexpected Elements team thinking, when do identical twins cease to be identical?First, we look ...  Show more

If you took a fly into a really tall elevator and let it out at the top, would it still be able to fly? And what’s the absolute highest an insect could possibly go? It’s a question that’s been bugging CrowdScience listener Chee for a while, but presenter Alex Lathbridge is on ...

The All of Us Research Program is undergoing the herculean task of gathering genomic data from over one million people living in the United States, from widely different backgrounds, in the hopes of accelerating health care research. However, within the scientific community many, ...  Show more

NASA's Perseverance rover has been trundling around the Jezero crater since it landed successfully in February 2021. A few weeks ago it made its first attempt at collecting a sample of rock. Unfortunately the rock turned out to be so crumbly it disintegrated away. But Perseveranc ...  Show more

Data collated from swab samples taken in Wuhan’s market in the early days of the Covid pandemic suggest animals sold in the market were carrying the virus at the time. It’s the strongest evidence yet for an intermediate species – one which passed the virus on to humans after beco ...  Show more