Mr Science Show Marc West

I have started a new podcast called The Pod - I'd love you to have a listen and tell me what you think! Mr Science Show is not gone though, it will continue on boldly! The Pod is about ocean swimming - there is more to ocean swimming than swimming in the ocean - and will cover a whole spectrum of topics. It is likely to be a very sciencey show! So here's Episode One, which is a science-based episode on flesh-eating sea lice. For more information, please check out the notes over on The Pod.

A few weeks back, I had a great chat about birthday mathematics with Glynn Greensmith on the It's Just Not Cricket show on ABC Radio. It was great! We discussed how when you are born in the year influences your latter life, some counter-intuitive probabilities regarding shared birthdays, a bit of astrology and whatever else popped into our heads. The audio belongs to the ABC - see here for more on the show.

2016 is the International Year of Pulses, which aims to heighten public awareness of the nutritional benefits of pulses as part of sustainable food production aimed towards food security and nutrition. I spoke to Daniel Tan from the University of Sydney's Faculty of Agriculture and Environment about his research into pulses, including genetic resistance to heat waves and climate change, plant physiology and genetics, crop modelling and why he is known throughout the University as "The Hot Scientist". Feel free to leave your favourite pulse recipe below in the comments! Some good ones are here. Listen below:   Songs in this episode (all Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial (3.0)): Certain Death (Pulse Mix) by Future Boy; Dj Rkod - Pulse (George Ellinas Remix) by George_Ellinas; Pulsed Sensations by AudioLogic; Pulse by Pitx; Pulse by Psychadelik Pedestrian; God is hot (feat. MommaLuv SkyTower) by Wired Ant.  

Happy 2016! This week, I spoke on ABC Radio Central West about some of the science we can expect in 2016: 2016 is the International Year of Pulses, which aims to heighten public awareness of the nutritional benefits of pulses as part of sustainable food production aimed towards food security and nutrition. The Year will create a unique opportunity to encourage connections throughout the food chain that would better utilize pulse-based proteins, further global production of pulses, better utilize crop rotations and address the challenges in the trade of pulses. 2016 will also see some interesting astronomical events, although it will be hard to beat 2015. My favourite upcoming events are: The Juno mission to Jupiter  The continuing Akatsuki mission to Venus. This mission is a testament to the usefulness of maths: originally, the orbiter could not get into orbit around Venus due to on-board failures, and orbited the Sun for 5 years, until the mathematicians got together and figured out how to get the craft back into orbit around Venus using the remaining working thrusters. After 5 years! Listen in to this show below on ABC NSW's soundcloud page, or grab the mp3. As always, thanks for Kia!

2015 was a magnificent year for physics. Not only was it the International Year of Light and light-based technologies, it was an outstanding year of astronomical achievement, culminating with the magnificent New Horizons photos of Pluto. It was also 100 years since the Theory of General Relativity was published, and 50 years since the Cosmic Background Radiation was discovered. Australia also broke a couple of astronomical world records: The most people stargazing across Australia, and in a single location at ANU. One of the organisers of this world record was Tom Gordon, a science communicator at The University of Sydney who runs Kickstart Physics (Instagram), which are physics workshops aimed at year 12 science students and teachers. Tom, along with Christie McMonigal and Shane Hengst, runs the STEMPunk podcast, chatting about science communication and Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM): Communicating scientifically with science communicators. Who better to talk to about this splendid year in Physics than Tom? Listen in here: Songs in this episode (in order of play - all Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial (3.0)): Sharks with Lasers by spinmeister; Red Giant by Fireproof_Babies; Fate of the Sun by Fireproof_Babies; Beyond Jupiter - Instrumental by Ivan Chew; Spaced Invaders 2011 (90 BPM) by coruscate  

From a recent chat with ABC Central West, this week is definitely a correlation of the week. Two separate stories on the topic of love and attachment highlight a couple of statistical concerns you need to be wary of when drawing conclusions from research: The correlation of wedding / engagement ring cost and marriage longevity (concern: correlation does not necessarily equal causation); Does your cat really love you? (concern: sample size) Listen in below or on the mp3 (and all credit again to ABC and Kia). References: Francis-Tan, A., & Mialon, H. (2015). A DIAMOND IS FOREVER” AND OTHER FAIRY TALES: THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN WEDDING EXPENSES AND MARRIAGE DURATION Economic Inquiry, 53 (4), 1919-1930 DOI: 10.1111/ecin.12206   Potter A, & Mills DS (2015). Domestic Cats (Felis silvestris catus) Do Not Show Signs of Secure Attachment to Their Owners. PloS one, 10 (9) PMID: 26332470