CrowdScience

Humans have used dogs' excellent sniffing talents ever since our ancestors figured out that canine companions could help them track down their next meal.But what about other animals? Can they take us beyond the limits of our own senses? That's what CrowdScience listener Beth wants to know, so we obligingly try to sniff out some answers.After immersing ourselves in the world of insect senses at our local zoo, we visit an insect lab in Germany to find out whether sniffer bees could take over from sniffer dogs. And could ants help us fly the drones of the future? We meet the scientists trying to turn ant vision into computer code, to send robots into places GPS can't reach.Presenter: Nastaran Tavakoli-Far Producer: Cathy Edwards(Photo: A bee on a human finger. Credit: Getty Images)

A cacophony of singing and screaming creatures’ accents are explored to answer: Can animals of the same species from different places communicate with each other? Presenter Geoff Marsh tries to identify how different these calls really sound for CrowdScience. From wolves to birds to whales and chimpanzees, most animals use sound to communicate, but if groups in different places vocalise in different ways, they may not be able to communicate with others.CrowdScience questioner, Kitty, sets us on an exploration of the vast and varied world of animal communication with inspiration from her dog Monty. Presenter: Geoff Marsh Producer: Rory Galloway(Photo: Three wolves howling on a cold day. Credit: Getty Images)

From worms who time their mating ritual with an inner lunar calendar, to how full moons could cause cows to give birth early. Listener Andreas sends CrowdScience on a mission to separate fact from fiction.Presenter: Marnie Chesterton Producer: Marijke PetersPicture: The moon rises over Kadam mountain in Uganda, on January 31, 2018, during the lunar phenomenon referred to as the 'super blue blood moon'. Credit: Yasuyoshi Chiba / AFP / Getty Images

Scientists have been searching for dark matter for 80 years, so CrowdScience wondered whether they could find it faster. Armed with a boiler suit, hard hat and ear defenders, Marnie Chesterton travels over a kilometre underground into a hot and sweaty mine to see how we could catch dark matter in action. She investigates various theories as to what it might be with popping candy and gazes at galaxies to determine how we know it exists in the first place. But most importantly, she questions whether it really matters. And, as our Singaporean listener Koon-Hou askes, what impact would finding it have on our everyday lives? Presenter: Marnie Chesterton Producer: Graihagh Jackson(Photo: Finding dark matter could have galactic implications. Credit: Getty Images)

Carbon is special, but is it necessarily the unique building block of life in the universe? Science fiction has long speculated on non-carbon biochemistries existing in the universe – notably in the work of authors such as Isaac Asimov as well as in the popular American TV series Star Trek, which once featured a rock-munching, silicon-based life form called ‘Horta’. Marnie Chesterton explores the real science behind this intriguing idea and wonders whether in the current search for Earth-like planets elsewhere in the galaxy, we should be looking at completely different possible sets of rules when it comes to the hunt for life? Producer Alex Mansfield Presenter Marnie Chesterton(Photo: Saturn viewed from Titan moon. Credit: Getty Images)

How far can you see? A few kilometres down the road? Or do you struggle to see past the end of your own nose? Well one listener thinks he might be able to see 15 quintillion miles away... but can he really? Marnie Chesterton and Bobbie Lakhera are on the case for this week’s multi-question human body special. As well as delving into the power of vision, they also discover why male mammals have nipples despite not needing to breastfeed, and Marnie puts herself in a giant refrigerator in the name of finding out why some people feel the cold more than others.Presenter: Marnie Chesterton Producer: Anna Lacey

Meet the entrepreneurs turning bugs into food and get top tips on how to cook them. In this week’s episode we return to the topic of edible insects and the story of Kahitouo Hein’s caterpillar factory in Burkina Faso, West Africa. Kahitouo is trying to turn a traditional food like the shea caterpillar, available for just a few weeks a year, into a year-long sustainable staple for the whole population. We also put your questions about edible insects directly to the researchers in Burkino Faso. Discover the best way to cook a bug, explore the curious effects of hornet venom and find out whether eating insects is better for the environment then eating red meat.Do you have a question we can turn into a programme? Email us at crowdscience@bbc.co.ukPresenter: Anand Jagatia Producer: Louisa Field(Photo: Worker at Kahit’s factory cooking caterpillars)

Most of us instinctively know when someone’s singing and when they’re talking. But since music and speech are both just sounds, how do our brains tell them apart? This week’s question comes from Eugene, a music teacher in Northern Ireland, who often hears music in people’s speech, and wonders why.Step forward, the ‘speech-to-song illusion’. This curious phenomenon means that when certain spoken phrases are repeated, they turn into music as if by magic. We talk to the Diana Deutsch, the scientist who discovered this illusion, and find out what it reveals about how the brain is adapted to understand both music and speech.But are some languages more musical than others? Many people around the world speak tone languages, where the pitch of a word affects its meaning. One such language is Dinka, spoken in South Sudan; we meet a Dinka speaker and hear how respecting the melody of the language is essential when writing songs.Presenter: Datshiane Navanayagam Producer: Cathy EdwardsDinka recordings courtesy of Elizabeth Achol and Anyang Malual(Photo:Young woman listening to music on yellow headphones. Credit Getty Images)

Discover why dogs have seamlessly integrated into human life through topics such as the dog-human bond during hunting, the domestication of dogs from wolves, the behavior of street dogs in Madagascar, and the gene mutation behind hyper-social behavior in dogs.

Crowdscience revisits the evidence on the best forms of biometric identification. Earlier in the year we explored digital fingerprints, gait (walking style) recognition and iris scanners. Today presenter Anand Jagatia looks at systems which use your face and your voice to identify you. One airline is currently testing facial recognition in airports as a means of replacing your passport. Meanwhile, Anand tries to fool a speech recognition system that measures over a thousand characteristics of your voice in order to protect your identity. But will it be able to cope if you have a cold?Presented by Anand Jagatia Produced by Marijke Peters.Picture: Facial Recognition Credit: Getty Images