Questions and Answers

Produced by the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), these naked Scientist podcasts look at a wide range of general science questions in an accessible and informative way. In these podcasts, the Naked Scientist answers questions from callers into Talk Radio 702 in South Africa.

Question and answer from the 25th May 2012
From Talk Radio 702 in South Africa, questions include:
• Will my wife look like my mother-in-law?
• What makes dog poo turn white?
• What was the nuclear impact of Fukushima?
• Where did my big ants go?
• Do microwaves alter water?
• Is the world changing shape?

Could lightning power a town?
Questions come from callers and include:
• What gives a flame its colour, and what is the hottest part?
• What limits the height of a skyscraper?
• How does post-exposure prophylaxis for HIV work?
• How do they put the lines on a clay tennis court?
• Why are some people better at withstanding temperature extremes?
• Can lightning be collected as a power-source?

How do cats navigate?
Questions answered in this podcast include:
• How cats find their way back to their former homes.
* The science of self-winding watches.
• Why sunlight triggers sneezes.
• How fast gravitational waves propagates.

STFC is a part of the Research Councils UK (RCUK) partnership of research councils.