From the ground breaking and life saving to the wacky and implausible, Dr Karl Kruszelnicki reveals some of the best moments in science.
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/greatmomentsinscience/
Gesamtlänge aller Episoden: 2 days 6 hours 7 minutes
Most distant star ever found
The star Earendel came into existence a long time ago, and is now famous as the most distant single star that astronomers have been able to obtain an image of.
Grasshopper can turn into locust
The Koran, the Bible, the Sanskrit Mahabharata, and the Greek Illiad all mention plagues of locusts, and they're seen as carvings in ancient Egyptian tombs. Large numbers of locust could have come about because, in certain circumstances, grasshoppers metamorphose—into locusts.
Ivermectin and COVID—Part 2 of 2
The drug ivermectin is really good for treating worms; unfortunately it was falsely promoted as a COVID cure due to data errors, drug trial anomalies, or insufficient publication review.
Ivermectin and COVID
There are many cases of drugs being repurposed once a new aspect of them is discovered—their new use is often very beneficial. One such drug is ivermectin. It works well against various parasitic infections. It does not work against COVID.
The swing of bowling
Ball games were happening 3,500 years ago, and ever since then we’ve bounced and batted in all sorts of fun ways. We're especially interested in the mechanics of a ball curving as it travels through the air—which happens in swing bowling.
Antarctic fiery flush
At Australia's Antarctic base they do lots of cool science stuff, and aim to create as little waste as possible—including the toilets. There's actually a toilet known as the 'Fire Breathing Dragon'—so more exciting than its official name of Electric Incinerating Toilet.
Wood for the future
Wood has a loads of potential—from it we can make semi-conductors, batteries, steel, concrete, even plastics. It does need a lot of processing but we already do that with materials like steel, glass and concrete.
Sydney smallpox epidemic
We're now quite familiar with terms like 'herd immunity' and 'epidemic', and that when separate groups of people—with separate germs—meet for the very first time, things can turn out badly. If you have never been exposed to a specific germ you won't be primed for protection against it.
Worm blobs
When digging the compost pile into the garden, Dr Karl noticed a ball of entangled shape-shifting worms. You might think 'yuck'—but there's a 'wow' factor because some animal groupings can generate intelligence, giving the group an advantage over solitary individuals.
Black holes bared
The final piece about why the 100 million or so black holes in our Milky Way galaxy are missing.