We are made of stars

Our guest today has been researching one of big questions: what are we made of? There seems to be a progression from older, simpler forms of life up to more complex forms such as ourselves. As we move 'up' the tree of life, we use more and more of the available types of matter. Older life forms use fewer elements than newer forms. You could say, they accessorise themselves with a greater number of elements. Aditya Chopra, is a PhD student at the Planetary Science Institute at the ANU, and a student of past Fuzzy guest, Charley Lineweaver. Read about Aditya in today's Canberra Times. Also, today we bring you some of the science behind goings on at the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, on the Deepwater oil rig. We talk about the risks, and the extreme efforts we now have to go through to secure our oil supplies. PS we play a sneak preview of our new Charley Lineweaver Fuzzy promo....but....our silly presenter did not play the version promised as created by Tom McCoy.  Next time... MP3 57 min, 26MB Now available through iTunes http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=371913970