CrowdScience

Reindeer castration, plants get chatty and more quirky science revealed in this Christmas special of CrowdScience where we will also be hearing from the people that make this series possible. That’s you – our listeners. CrowdScience has been on air for just over a year which means we’ve had over 60 adventures. Every time we put a show together there’s a heart-breaking process where amazing facts we wanted to share end up on the cutting-room floor. To celebrate the holidays we’ve gone scavenging for the best untold stories, edgy science facts and incidents from behind the scene. Presenter: Marnie Chesterton Producer: Louisa FieldPicture: Reindeer in Snow Credit: Getty Images

It lurks behind sofas and collects in corners, apparently appearing from nowhere. But what is household dust? And should we bother sweeping it away? That’s what Australian listener Moshe wants to know and what Marnie Chesterton is off to find out for this week’s CrowdScience. She embarks on a mission to discover not only what dust is made of, but whether it poses any health risks. Although most people sweep it away without a thought, dust contains all sorts of secrets about our habits and everyday lives. Marnie finds out how dust can reveal the pets you keep, the chemicals in your surroundings, the location of your house and how fecal bacteria can uncover whether more men or women live in your home.Presenter: Marnie Chesterton Producer: Anna Lacey(Image: Woman Vacuuming Up Dust. Credit: Getty Images)

Trees are old – they transcend human generations – but are they the oldest living things on Earth? This story began in June 2017 when we explored a question sent in from CrowdScience listener William. Many of you got in touch after the programme with questions of your own. So we’re revisiting our trees programme but also exploring another question from listener James, who wants to know what, pound for pound or gram for gram, is the strongest animal alive on Earth today? Marnie Chesterton wrestles with one of them and – spoiler alert – it’s not a gorilla. Presenter: Marnie Chesterton Producers: Jen Whyntie(Photo: Kumbuka, a 15-year-old western lowland gorilla. Credit: Oli Scarff/Getty Images)

Dodos are dead, but are they gone forever? Reviving extinct species is a trope of science fiction, but real-life scientists are working on every stage of the problem today. Meeting scientists focused on uncovering ancient animal genomes, or reviving individual cells to conserve species still around, Marnie Chesterton seeks out whether new technologies might, just possibly, bring back the iconic dodo. But what would it take to bring back that most iconic of extinct species? Following listener Rachel’s question, CrowdScience gets to grips with the dodo’s past, and finds out what’s left of this iconic bird, meeting the scientists inadvertently piecing it back together.Presenter: Marnie Chesterton Producer: Rory Galloway Picture: An accurate reconstruction of nesting Dodos Photo Credit: Dr Julian Hume

How does technology affect how we fall in love? Crowdscience travels to India to answer listener Erin’s questions about the impact of the internet on our search for soulmates. We meet the traditional matchmaker who says her service provides security in an era of digital fraud. And ask whether computer algorithms are the best way to help people make permanent romantic connections?Presenter: Chhavi Sachdev Producer: Marijke Peters(Photo: A couple kiss while taking a selfie. Credit: Getty Images)

Some of us want to be up with the larks, while others are more like night owls. But is our preference down to our genes, or more to do with habits and surroundings? We set out to find the answers, inspired by a question from Kira, a night owl CrowdScience listener in Philadelphia, USA.Our daily, or circadian, body clocks are a hot topic of discussion at the moment - this year’s Nobel Prize for Medicine went to three scientists who discovered the gene that makes these clocks tick. To answer our listener’s question, we need to know why different clocks tick at different rates, so we visit a specialist sleep centre to see how having a slow-ticking clock makes it hard for you to leap out of bed in the morning.And the morning sun helps all of us regulate our daily rhythm, so what happens when it doesn’t rise at all? We travel to Tromsø, in the far north of Norway, to see how morning and evening types fare during the long polar nights - and meet the reindeer who seem to be able to switch off their daily clocks altogether. Meanwhile down near the equator, we hear about the hunter-gatherer community in Tanzania where there’s nearly always someone awake.Sami song, the joik of Ráikku-Ánte, is performed by Ken Even BergDo you have a question we can turn into a programme? Email us at crowdscience@bbc.co.ukPresenter: Anand Jagatia Producer: Cathy Edwards(Image: L - Women smiling on a run R - Women DJ. Credit: Getty Images)

Sometimes our memory fails us and we wish facts would just stick better. Listener Mothibi is a student and has spent three years trying to remember as much as possible for his exams. He wants to know how he can train his brain to better to remember things – and does the brain have a limit on how much stuff we can cram into it? To find the answers presenter Marnie Chesterton seeks help from memory magician, Simon, at the European Memory Championship. Using the loci technique she accomplishes a memory feat she didn’t think possible. Thought to have been developed by the Greeks, the loci method is a technique that enables the brain to remember extraordinary amounts of information. It turns out, we all have the right wiring to remember more and better, but we need to train our brains.Also, CrowdScience heads to Cambridge University where Marnie Chesterton lands herself in a study. The scientists scan her brain while she exercises her memory muscles and we discover why sometimes memories get muddled up. Do you have a question we can turn into a programme? Email us at crowdscience@bbc.co.ukPresenter: Marnie Chesterton Producer: Louisa Field(Image: Woman scratching head, thinking brain melting into lines. Credit: Getty Images)

People often talk about being descended from apes. But go back a bit further and we have a more unlikely ancestor – fish. Improbable as it may sound, the creature that gave rise to every bird, reptile and mammal on Earth today lived a fully aquatic life. So how did it switch to life on land? And how hard was it to swap swimming for walking and breathing fresh air? That’s what CrowdScience listener Pierre in France wants to know, and what Marnie Chesterton is in Scotland to find out. She goes fossil hunting with members of the TW:eed Project team, as they try to uncover remains of creatures that are crucial in helping solve the puzzle of terrestrial life. She also discovers the landscape these early ancestors walked into – an alien and relatively empty world completely different to what we see today - where grass and flowers were yet to evolve. But not everything in this story is preserved in rock. Marnie goes to see a living relic of this period of evolution, and finds out what it can tell us about possibly the most important event in the history of our species.Do you have a question we can turn into a programme? Email us at crowdscience@bbc.co.ukPresenter: Marnie Chesterton Producer: Anna Lacey(Image: Artists impression of underwater environment of Carboniferous swamp depicting a rhizodont; a large predatory fish. Credit: Mark Witton)

Unpleasant man-made noise is something that disturbs many of us and even damages our health. But as millions more people move into crowded cities around the world, it's a cacophony that we almost unavoidably create ourselves. CrowdScience listener Diana from New York City in the USA got in touch to ask how we can temper the din and live a more peaceful life. Presenter Anand Jagatia heads to an acoustics lab at the University of Salford in Manchester, UK, to meet the researchers and engineers investigating the best ways to make cities more pleasant for our ears whilst still maintaining the ‘buzz’ of city life. And reporter Chhavi Sachdev takes us to Mumbai in India, where we discover how sound mapping is being deployed on the city’s streets as the first step to improve the life and health of its citizens.Do you have a question we can turn into a programme? Email us at crowdscience@bbc.co.ukPresenter: Anand Jagatia Producer: Jen Whyntie(Image: Children cover their ears as the truck convoy front passes. Credit: Getty Images)

Is there any scientific proof of an afterlife? Six months ago, CrowdScience tackled a question from a listener who wanted to know whether there was life after death. But following more listener emails, presenter Marnie Chesterton returns to the subject to investigate the world of ghosts, souls and parapsychology. She meets Professor Susan Blackmore, who studies out-of-body experiences and has spent decades hunting for scientific proof of life after death. And she visits the woman who, despite dying in the 1950s, is alive and thriving on a cellular level and helping scientists find cures for cancer, Parkinson’s and other diseases, in laboratories across the world…Do you have a question we can turn into a programme? Email us at crowdscience@bbc.co.ukProduced and Presented by Marnie Chesterton