Stripping down science, the naked scientists.

The Naked Scientists. catching criminals and tackling terrorism.

This week we're exploring two ways to sniff out concealed explosives

and a new technique to lift fingerprints from surfaces that have been cleaned or burned.

Hello, it's Sunday June the 24th, I'm Helen Scales, and also here this week is Chris Smith.

Hello, and in the news this week, a new way to halt the degenerative brain condition, Huntington's

disease, plus what do you think of this?

That music actually evolved from a much less melliflua starting sound using the same principles

of natural selection that control how species change. You can hear how Darwin tunes,

which is the website behind that tune, works very shortly.

The Naked Scientists Podcast is powered by UK Fast. The UK's best hosting provider on the web at UK Fast.

The UK's best hosting provider on the web at UKfast.co. UK. With the advent of global terrorism, it's become apparent that people will go to extreme

lengths to conceal bombs.

So quickly and accurately detecting trace amounts of

explosives could not only save lives but it could make air travel safer, quicker, and

a lot more convenient. And now researchers at St Andrews University have invented an explosive

detecting plastic that could be used at airports and even on minefields.

Dodd Graham Turnbull is the inventor, he's with us,

Heligram.

Good evening. So tell us how did this work get started, plastics to pull out explosives.

I've heard of plastic explosives, but not the other way around.

We're using plastics to find explosives.

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