CrowdScience

You don’t have to be a “super-recogniser” to know that human facial features are extremely varied. Just look around you. Yet look at a most other animals and you’d find it hard to tell individuals apart. So why are human faces so diverse?We’ll also be finding out why salt tastes salty (warning: lots of spitting and gargling ahead) and one listener wants to know what would happen if one of the key ocean current systems, the North Atlantic Conveyer, slowed down or stopped altogether. Presenter Marnie Chesterton heads to the beaches on the West Coast of Scotland in search of answer. Do you have a question we can turn into a programme? Email us at crowdscience@bbc.co.uk Presenters: Marnie Chesterton and Geoff Marsh Producers: Laura Hyde and Jennifer Whyntie

Childbirth is different for everyone. Depending on who you ask, it’s one of life’s greatest and worst experiences - and can be anything from traumatic and excruciating to life-affirming and spiritual. But what pretty much every mother will agree on is that it hurts. But why is such a fundamental aspect of life so painful? And why do some women find it worse than others? Presenter Gareth Barlow – who doesn’t expect to be giving birth ever – goes on a quest to understand the experience of female labour pain and why evolution hasn’t given women an easier ride. He discovers the latest research into the nature and experience of pain and whether the idea of male/female pain thresholds, is a real thing. We also hear from CrowdScience listeners about their own experiences, and find out if having a supportive birth partner can help bringing new life into the world that little bit easier.Do you have a question we can turn into a programme? Email us at crowdscience@bbc.co.ukPresenter: Gareth Barlow Producer: Anna Lacey(Image: New born baby with mother. Credit: Getty Images)

Even if you spent your entire life on a plane, the chances are you’d never crash – commercial air travel is remarkably safe. But after hearing about a recent air tragedy, two brothers in Kampala wondered if commercial airplanes could ever have ejector seats – like fighter jets do - to give passengers a last option for escape.We meet 98-year-old John Oliver “Jo” Lancaster, one of the first people ever to eject out of a plane, and discover the seemingly insurmountable barriers to fitting ejector seats into passenger jets. And we find out that an awful lot of work goes into making flying as safe as it is, as we visit an air accident investigation lab, practise an emergency exit from a passenger cabin and deal with a multiple engine failure …in a plane simulator. But are any safety ideas as radical as ejector seats on the horizon? We assess a controversial design that would parachute the entire passenger cabin down to earth should the worst happen.Do you have a question we can turn into a programme? Email us at crowdscience@bbc.co.ukPresenter: Marnie Chesterton Producer: Cathy Edwards(Image: Person blasting out of a plane cockpit on an ejection seat Credit: Martin-Baker Aircraft Company Ltd)

Sex is responsible for the large variety of life on earth. Without the two sexes there is no sexual reproduction which means no shuffling of the genetic make-up – and no survival in a changing environment. But why do we have two sexes in the first place and does nature determine your sex? It’s with these questions and more that listener Du from Singapore persuaded the CrowdScience team to investigate the weird and wonderful world of sex. You might think that Nature would have standardised something as important as ensuring the continuation of the species. Far from it – species do sex in many different ways – some stranger than others. Presenter Marnie Chesterton unpicks the zoological oddities of sex and along the way learns about her own sex chromosomes. We also meet an unlikely bird keeper, who is the proud owner of a female duck that is morphing into a male. Will her boyfriend, a male mandarin duck, mind the change?Do you have a question we can turn into a programme? Email us at crowdscience@bbc.co.ukPresenter: Marnie Chesterton Producer: Louisa Field(Image: Male and female mandarin ducks. Credit: Getty Images)

Biometrics are being used everywhere to recognise us. On this edition of CrowdScience we try out the tech that tells us apart. We find out just how unique our irises are and meet a man who can pick people out from a crowd of thousands just by analysing the way they walk. Do you have a question we can turn into a programme? Email us at crowdscience@bbc.co.ukPresenter: Anand Jagatia Producer: Marijke Peters(Image: Fingerprints being looked at under a magnifying glass. Credit: Getty Images)

Our planet is getting rather cosy. In just over 200 years, the global population has grown from 1 billion to almost 7.5 billion – and the best estimates suggest it’s going to keep on increasing. But just how far can it go? When will we reach ‘peak human’? That’s what CrowdScience listeners Alan Donaldson and Francoise Brindle want to know: what’s the latest estimate for how many people the Earth can support? It’s a question that’s been bothering some of the world’s greatest thinkers for hundreds of years, and now presenter Marnie Chesterton goes on her own quest for answers. Her journey takes her through the technology and innovation that keeps our growing population alive, and she looks to Dhaka, Bangladesh, to find out what a more densely populated world might feel like. But are there signs that things are already levelling off? And could improving photosynthesis allow populations to grow without destroying the environment?Do you have a question we can turn into a programme? Email us at crowdscience@bbc.co.ukPresenter: Marnie Chesterton Producer: Anna Lacey(Image: People on busy street. Credit: Getty Images)

Mining asteroids, moons or even other planets has remained firmly within the realm of science fiction. But as certain elements become increasingly scarce on Earth, private companies and even nation states are looking to make extra-terrestrial mining a reality. Presenter Marnie Chesterton heads to an Earth-based mine in Scotland to see just how tricky space mining could be, and what possibilities it holds. On the way she discovers what laws govern this new far frontier, and hears from a space prospector who already has designs on key sites for exploration. Could our solar system's asteroids really become self-fuelling gas stations for spaceships?Do you have a question we can turn into a programme? Email us at crowdscience@bbc.co.ukPresenter: Marnie Chesterton Producer: Jen Whyntie(Image: Double the Rubble Artist Concept. Credit: NASA)

For most people the idea of chewing on a caterpillar or tucking into a tarantula is pretty unpalatable. Yet according to the United Nations, some two billion people around the world consume insects regularly. This prompted World Service listener Saman from Pakistan to ask the BBC CrowdScience team “are insects a serious food source?”To tackle this question, we head to Burkina Faso in West Africa where shea caterpillars are an important part of the local diet in a place where food security is low and malnutrition is high.Here we follow scientist Charlotte Payne as she tries to crack the tricky science behind the caterpillar’s life cycle and see how local entrepreneur Kahitouo Hien is trying to change lives and reduce malnutrition with edible caterpillars.Do you have a question we can turn into a programme? Email us at crowdscience@bbc.co.ukPresenter: Anand Jagatia Producer: Louisa Field(Image: Bowl of cooked Caterpillars. Credit: BBC/Anand Jagatia)

Why do we have so many accents - even when we’re speaking the same language? What's happening in our brains and mouths to make us sound so different from each other? This week’s question from listener Amanda takes CrowdScience to Glasgow in Scotland: home to one of the most studied - and distinctive - accents of English. Along the way we visit a voice coach to try and learn a Texan accent, use ultrasound to see what different sounds look like inside our mouths and find out how a brand new dialect was formed when many accents collided in New Zealand.Do you have a question we can turn into a programme? Email us at crowdscience@bbc.co.ukPresenter: Nastaran Tavakoli-Far Producer: Cathy EdwardsNew Zealand Mobile Unit recordings courtesy of Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision(Image: A mouth screaming white letters. Credit: Thinkstock)

Do your joints ache when it's raining? Are you blighted with headaches when the wind picks up? If the answer’s yes then you're definitely not alone. People have been linking their heath to the weather since the time of the Ancient Greeks - but is the effect real?CrowdScience heads for the hills and gets closer to the clouds to have a go at answering this 2,500 year old question. People who believe they’re sensitive to the weather aren’t always taken seriously. But presenter Datshiane Navanayagam hears about the latest ground-breaking experiments that show there's a lot more to it than folklore. And if you've ever wondered why you're particularly prone to aches and pains in the winter, the answer could all be in your genes.Do you have a question we can turn into a programme? Email us at crowdscience@bbc.co.ukPresenter: Datshiane Navanayagam Producer: Anna Lacey(Image: Man looking up to grey clouds. Credit: Thinkstock)