• Describe the effects of an electric shock on a person.

• Explain why there are no standard mains sockets in a bathroom....

A podcast from the Planet Earth Online collection and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC). Willow, palm, miscanthus and other energy crops are being touted as a possible solution to Britain's growing energy security problems. There are suggestions that they could help replace fossil fuels, plugging...

In this podcast from the Natural Environment Research Council's (NERC) Planet Earth Online collection, Sue Nelson visits an indoor coral reef at the brand new Coral Reef Research Unit at the University of Essex.

Researchers are using the reef to look at the effects of ocean acidification on coral in a...

In this podcast from the Planet Earth Online collection and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), Richard Hollingham looks at where and how to find gold while Sue Nelson finds out why weather forecasters still struggle to predict sudden, violent summer storms. Other reports discover why scientists may be...

In this podcast from the Planet Earth Online collection and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), reporters find out what sexual conflict means for female guppies, how female promiscuity may be a good thing and why female mongooses all give birth at the same time.

In an extreme example of sexual...

This podcast from the Planet Earth Online collection and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) was recorded at the Diamond Light Source in Oxfordshire, England and discusses how two researchers are using hi-tech physics to study different aspects of the environment.

The Diamond synchrotron is like...

This activity is designed to enable students to be able to gain an understanding of how a human arm bends due to muscular contraction, to understand that a robot arm can use contraction or rotation to achieve movement and to understand that shape memory alloys can revert back to a previous shape when heated. Robot...

Jo Shien Ng works to develop more and more sensitive electrical components called 'avalanche photodiodes' used in everything from satellites that look at the Earth from space, to body scanners in hospitals and airports. She does this by applying an understanding of the behaviour of materials developed through...

A podcast from the Planet Earth Online collection and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC). British Geological Survey scientists have completed the first full geological survey of Lake Windermere in the English Lake District since the Royal Navy surveyed it in the 1930s.

Among other things, the...

A podcast from the Planet Earth Online collection and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC). In this recording, Richard Hollingham talks to expert seismologist Brian Baptie from the British Geological Survey, who uses musical software to find out if earthquakes are getting more frequent.

Another...

Libby works at the UK Space Agency, in Swindon.  She works with scientists and industry to ensure that they can run experiments on the International Space Station.  Libby works alongside astronauts who will be running the experiments on the space station.  She leads a team to ensure that research can be performed...

You may have seen Maggie Aderin-Pocock presenting BBC's The Sky at Night, asking Jeremy Paxman to hold a torch while she described a lunar eclipse, or on the sofa of a breakfast television show or The One Show talking enthusiastically about science. You may not know that she has hung out of the back of military...