And the Hello I'm Chris Smith and this week we have a second special edition of the

Naked Scientists recorded in New Zealand where I teamed up with Simon Morton from Radio New Zealand's

This Way Up program.

At the Paramount Theatre in Wellington, we were joined by a panel of six scientists to talk about

their work, including how ultraviolet light is being used

to make plants grow better, new treatments for multiple sclerosis, we focus on

global warming with a look at how it's affecting the Antarctic ice sheet and temperatures in the deep oceans

and as we were in New Zealand we'll be hearing how computer scientists are tracking down their

elusive national bird, the kiwi.

The Naked Scientists Podcast is powered by UKfast.co.uk.

Up first though is Nicola Gaston, a material scientist at Victoria University of

Wellington where she works on nanoparticles. In other words, the science of

the very small.

A nanoparticle is simply something that's very small.

So a nanometer is something which is much, much, much, much smaller than a meter.

But from my point of view because I deal with

nanoparticles from the other point of view as a chemist I think about

atoms and building materials up from individual atoms. So I think of

tens or hundreds or thousands of atoms being nanoparticles.

What can we do with them?

Why are scientists so interested or excited by nanoparticles?

In general, it's because they have a whole lot of surprises so their properties change really

...