PODCAST · science
Planet Earth
by Natural Environment Research Council (NERC)
Planet Earth Podcast, selected by the Naked Scientists
Episodes
-
How plastic pollution may harm marine life
This week in the Planet Earth Podcast: Tamara Galloway, Matt Cole and Ceri Lewis of the University of Exeter talk about their research on the effects of fragments of plastics from food packaging, drinks bottles and even facial scrubs on marine wildlife. Like this podcast? Please help us by...
-
The evolution of the British peppered moth
This week in the Planet Earth Podcast: Ilik Saccheri and Arjen Van 't Hof of the University of Liverpool describe how the British Peppered Moth changed from peppered to black during the Industrial Revolution in northern England. Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists
-
Tidal energy, turtle mating habits
This week in the Planet Earth Podcast: a look at the potential to generate up to 20 per cent of the UK's electricity from tidal energy; and why understanding the nuts and bolts of turtles' sex lives could help protect those most at risk. Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked...
-
Our ancient ancestors, deep sea worms
This week in the Planet Earth Podcast: why textbook illustrations of our early ancestors may have to be re-drawn; and why underwater canyons contain a wealth of life, including some rather ugly-looking worms. Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists
-
Using Genetics to Save the Ash Tree
This week in the Planet Earth Podcast: decoding the ash tree's entire genetic sequence to produce a strain which is more resilient to ash dieback; the challenges of extracting biofuels from algae; and the latest news on Planet Earth Online. Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the…
more -
Avian pox in UK great tits, top conservation issues
This week in the Planet Earth Podcast: how a virus brought to the UK by insects poses a worrying threat to the country's great tit population; and which new technologies could affect global biodiversity in 2013. Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists
-
Climate tipping points, basking sharks, primates
This week in the Planet Earth Podcast: why understanding where plankton congregates can help us protect basking sharks and other marine creatures; how primates planning ahead tells us about our own intelligence; and how to predict dangerous climate tipping points. Like this podcast? Please help…
more -
Planet Earth Podcast highlights from 2012
This week in the Planet Earth Podcast: a look at some of the highlights from 12 months of the Planet Earth Podcast, including: a hairy crab; earthquake monitoring in Turkey; air quality around London before the Olympics -- and early disease detection; Europe's oldest cave art; what the first...
-
Citizen science projects, plants and greenhouse gases
This week in the Planet Earth Podcast: how you can get involved in any one of the wealth of UK citizen science projects that have taken off recently, and why a little-known gas given off by many trees, ferns and mosses, could be contributing to global warming. Like this podcast? Please help us by...
-
Bat calls, weather balloons, telomeres and ageing
This week in the Planet Earth Podcast: an online tool to identify bats is helping to protect them, and it could make a scientist of us all. Also, an audio diary from a researcher from the National Centre for Atmospheric Science who's on the Isle of Arran in Scotland; and why there's more to…
more -
Solutions to urban flooding, peatland carbon storage
This week in the Planet Earth Podcast: a look at potential solutions to urban flooding, and why scientists are so keen to measure carbon dioxide flow through the UK's Norfolk Fens. Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists
-
Unique plants in Bristol, contraceptives and fish
This week in the Planet Earth Podcast: how conservationists are using science to help protect rare plants found only in Bristol's Avon Gorge, and are feminised fish changing wild fish populations? Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists
-
Man-made salt marshes, ground heat, storms
This week in the Planet Earth Podcast: why salt marshes are so important, but are difficult to recreate; how storms are made; and why the ground beneath our feet could provide decades of natural heating. Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists
-
Future-proofing forests, noisy gannets, Antarctica
This week in the Planet Earth Podcast: the steps scientists are taking to make sure the trees we plant today can cope with tomorrow's warmer climate; tracking gannets to find out how environmental change might affect them; and a tropical Antarctica. Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting...
-
Forecasting solar storms, fish personalities
This week in the Planet Earth Podcast: why accurately forecasting solar storms is becoming increasingly important; and how understanding how fish shoal could interest economists. Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists
-
Early tetrapods, upland rivers, North Anatolian Fault
This week in the Planet Earth Podcast: what the first creatures to walk on land looked like; the connection between the biodiversity of upland rivers and the ecosystem services they provide; and in an audio diary from Turkey, a University of Leeds researcher on the North Anatolian Fault. Like…
more -
Bees and sex, acid rain's legacy, cold water corals
This week in the Planet Earth Podcast: sex and the survival of honey bee colonies; why rivers are still recovering from the legacy of acid rain; and collecting coral from the Atlantic seabed. Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists
-
Early African dairy farming, seabird migrations
This week in the Planet Earth Podcast: how dairy farming in Africa 7000 years ago led to the speedy evolution of the gene that lets us digest milk; and how climate change could be having a detrimental effect on seabirds and fish in the Southern Ocean. Like this podcast? Please help us by…
more -
Brown water, bats and streetlights, plant methane
This week in the Planet Earth Podcast: how browner drinking water presents problems for the water companies; the effect of street lighting on bats and their commuter routes; and how ultraviolet light makes plants emit methane. Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists
-
Urban heat, ancient cave art, bold birds
This week in the Planet Earth Podcast: a look at how urban heat islands will alter under climate change, and how these changes might affect your health, as well as our railways, roads and energy supplies. Also: why Europe's oldest cave art might not have been painted by humans at all. Like this...
-
Bees, nanomaterials, and methane on Mars
This week in the Planet Earth Podcast: how knowing exactly which bees pollinate which crops may help us grow food more sustainably; and a look at the effects of tiny particles called nanomaterials on the environment and our health. Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists
-
Medical diagnostics, the value of nature
This week in the Planet Earth Podcast: a look at how technology designed to measure air pollution may soon be used to smell disease on a patient's breath; and the steps British researchers are taking to put a value on all the benefits of nature that we often take for granted. Like this podcast?...
-
Cold water corals, meteorites, new greenhouse gases
This week in the Planet Earth Podcast - scientists describe why the planet's least understood but most diverse species of coral is under threat. Also, what the meteorite strike that wiped the dinosaurs out would've been like; and why co2 isn't the only greenhouse gas we should be worried about....
-
Drought and record rainfall, indoor avalanches
This week in the Planet Earth Podcast: researchers explain why, despite record rainfall, England is in drought. Later, how scientists are using indoor avalanches to figure out where to put buildings and roads. Finally, news of ice loss in Antarctic, and the benefits of bat dung. Like this…
more -
Microscopic plants, using volcanic ash for dating
This week in the Planet Earth Podcast - we take a closer look at tiny marine plants, which underpin the entire marine food chain and play a vital role in the Earth's climate. Also, how scientists are using volcanic ash called tefra to tell how people may have responded to rapid environmental...
-
Fungal threats, hydrothermal vents, green buildings
This week in the Planet Earth Podcast, how fungal infections could threaten our food security as well as the planet's amphibians; work under way to understand the ecosystems around the hydrothermal vents in the Southern Ocean; and how it's people, not buildings, that use energy. Like this…
more -
Air pollution, dwarf elephants and water footprints.
This week in the Planet Earth Podcast, Richard Hollingham hears about new air-quality monitoring that could help mitigate the effects of bad-air days; the effect of climate change on Mediterranean dwarf elephants; and exactly how many litres of water it took to make his morning coffee. Like this...
-
Invasive signal crayfish, shags, night-shining clouds
This week in the Planet Earth Podcast: Richard Hollingham finds out why the American signal crayfish is driving out one of the UK's native species; in our latest audio diary, Hannah Grist from the University of Aberdeen talks us through her research on European shags; and what noctilucent clouds...
-
River Thames pollution, Arctic freshwater bulge
This week in the Planet Earth Podcast, Sue Nelson goes to the River Thames in central London to find out why nitrate pollution has trebled since the 1930s. Later on, she talks to a researcher about an unusual freshwater bulge in the Arctic, and asks if we should be concerned. Finally, we hear a...
-
Testing satellites on Earth, hedgerow wildlife
This week in the Planet Earth Podcast: Sue Nelson visits RAL Space at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Oxfordshire to find out how scientists check if the scientific equipment they put on satellites will work properly once in space. Later she goes to Buckinghamshire to hear how simple…
more -
Revitalising urban rivers, hot conservation topics
This week in the Planet Earth Podcast - Richard Hollingham goes to the River Wandle in south-west London to find out how scientific research is helping to revitalise this heavily-used river; later he goes to Cambridge to hear about some of the hottest conservation topics for 2012. Like this...
-
The Hoff Crab, North Sea fisheries, flood prediction
It's not often that science news goes viral, but when researchers dubbed a new species the 'Hoff Crab' more people than usual seemed to take notice! Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists
-
Parkour and orang-utans, risks from solar storms
This week in the Planet Earth Podcast - Sue Nelson goes to Birmingham to find out how the James Bond film Casino Royale and orang-utan conservation are linked; later she meets a scientist from the British Geological Survey to learn which parts of the UK power grid are most at risk during solar...
-
The Thames Barrier, the colour of prehistoric birds
This week in the Planet Earth Podcast - Sue Nelson goes to the Thames Barrier to find out how engineers use science to decide whether or not to raise or lower it, helping to stop storm surges from flooding London; while Richard Hollingham meets a scientist who developed a technique that reveals…
more -
The Ozone Hole, Starlings in Fair Isle, Forest Fires
This week in the Planet Earth Podcast - Richard Hollingham talks to one of the scientists behind the discovery of the ozone hole to find why it's still there; how research on starlings on an island famous for its sweaters could help bird conservationists; and why forest fires in North America...
-
Treating snakebites, and European shags
This week in the Planet Earth Podcast - Sue Nelson visits the largest collection of venomous snakes in the UK to find out how researchers are developing antivenoms to help African snakebite victims; and what scientists are doing to understand why populations of the European shag are declining.…
more -
Neanderthal mammoth hunters in Jersey
This week in the Planet Earth Podcast: Richard Hollingham meets scientists and archaeologists who are working to preserve one of the most important Neanderthal settlements in north-west Europe to find out how they lived; later on, he visits the local primary school to find out what schoolchildren...
-
The deep sea, ancient proteins, Arctic research
This week in the Planet Earth Podcast - how scientists find out about life in the oceans' deepest trenches; how identifying proteins from 50 milion year old reptile skin could help us store radioactive waste; and studying the effects of climate change in the Arctic. Like this podcast? Please help...
-
Spreading aliens, Arctic experience, and Antarctica
This week in the Planet Earth Podcast, how hikers and walkers could be unwittingly changing the landscape by spreading alien species; what it's like to work as a marine biologist in the Arctic in temperatures of minus 40C; and exactly how stable is the West Antarctic Ice Sheet? Like this podcast?...
-
Engineering the climate to tackle climate change
This week in the Planet Earth Podcast: in a geoengineering special edition, we take a closer look at some of the technologies we may have to resort to using to avert dangerous climate change. Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists
-
Stonehenge, microscopic plants, and baboons
This week in the Planet Earth Podcast, why scientists are working with the National Trust to restore the chalk grasslands around Stonehenge; how researchers are using satellites to study microscopic plants; and the etiquette of dining and bullying in baboons. Like this podcast? Please help us by...
-
Where do all the salmon go, and making CO2 bricks
This week in the Planet Earth Podcast, how scientists are using fish scales to figure out why the UK salmon population is falling; and how carbon dioxide emissions from power stations could be used to make household bricks. Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists
-
Searching for life in Lake Ellsworth
This week in the Planet Earth Podcast: why scientists are planning on drilling three kilometres beneath the Antarctic ice sheet in one of the most ambitious exploration projects ever undertaken; and how worms that feed on dead whale bones at the bottom of the ocean may be distorting the whale...
-
Rip Currents and Carbon Capture
This week, why understanding rip currents at Perranporth in north Cornwall could help save lives; how exactly does carbon capture and storage (CCS) work and how can scientists be sure that carbon will be stored forever? Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists
-
WWII bunkers, thugs and aliens, and calving glaciers
This week in the Planet Earth Podcast, why weathermen are using a converted World War II bunker to monitor clouds; how thug species such as bramble, nettle and bracken can be just as damaging to woodlands as alien plants; and why scientists are going to Greenland to deploy a network of sensors in...
-
Bumblebee declines, microbes, and amazing birds
This week in the Planet Earth Podcast - what UK farmers are doing to protect the country's vanishing bumblebees, butterflies and other pollinating insects; how scientists are trying to figure out how many types of microbes there are on our planet and why they all matter; and why birds are more...
-
Cuckoos at Wicken Fen, snow, and radiocarbon dating
This week in the Planet Earth Podcast - the cunning tricks the cuckoo uses to get another bird to do the parenting, why researchers are studying snow in Sweden, and how an improved radiocarbon dating technique may put a few scientists' noses out of joint. Like this podcast? Please help us by...
-
Flood defences, the Southern Ocean, and whiter clouds
This week in the Planet Earth Podcast, why removing some man-made coastal flood defences might not be such a harebrained idea, what it's like studying gas exchange in the wilds of the Southern Ocean, and, in what could be the first case of 'natural' geoengineering, how forests could be whitening...
-
Science from a plane, and forecasting space storms
This week in the Planet Earth Podcast: how a specially-designed twin turboprop research plane is helping scientists in a huge range of subjects from archaeology to ecology, and why a violent space storm could spell trouble for communications systems across the world. Like this podcast? Please…
more -
Volcanic ash and sediment time machines
This week in the Planet Earth Podcast, how last year's eruption of the Eyjafjallajkull volcano in Iceland gave scientists an unparalleled opportunity for research, and why sediment from rivers like the Thames can act like time machines to bygone eras. Like this podcast? Please help us by…
more
We're indexing this podcast's transcripts for the first time — this can take a minute or two. We'll show results as soon as they're ready.
No matches for "" in this podcast's transcripts.
No topics indexed yet for this podcast.
Loading reviews...
Loading similar podcasts...
Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does Planet Earth have?
Planet Earth currently has 81 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Planet Earth about?
Planet Earth Podcast, selected by the Naked Scientists
How often does Planet Earth release new episodes?
Planet Earth has 81 episodes. Check the episode list to see recent publication dates and frequency.
Where can I listen to Planet Earth?
You can listen to Planet Earth on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts Planet Earth?
Planet Earth is created and hosted by Natural Environment Research Council (NERC).
URL copied to clipboard!