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The Naked Scientists Podcast

The Science of Flight

The Naked Scientists Podcast

Dr Chris Smith

Science Radio, Engineering, Naked Scientists, Natural Sciences, Technology, Life Sciences, Health & Fitness, Medicine, Science

4.6957 Ratings

🗓️ 25 March 2007

⏱️ 55 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This week we explore the science of flight. Dr Graham Taylor from Oxford University talks about the aerodynamics of insect flight and how video camera back-packs allow him to see how eagles fly, and Jenny Goodman describes how future aircraft might be flying at six times the speed of sound while withstanding temperatures hot enough to melt stainless steel in 5 seconds! In Kitchen Science, Ben Valsler sticks with the flight theme and finds out how a hot air balloon works. Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

Transcript

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0:00.0

Stripping down science, the naked scientists.

0:07.0

Hello, welcome to this week's edition of the naked scientists with me Chris Smith and with Helen's

0:12.1

girls, hi Helen. Hi Chris. Now this week

0:14.5

CO2 and climate change is it a lot of hot air or there's some serious

0:19.4

consequences for the planet in store well we'll be looking at a very serious

0:22.2

situation for the oceans in store where we'll be looking at a very serious situation for the oceans

0:23.6

coming up shortly also researchers have taken a big step forward towards developing a vaccine to

0:28.7

stop malaria and that might come in handy here in the UK if climate change does make us warm up much more.

0:34.0

And also researchers can now track cells as they move around the body, which can give us new insights

0:38.4

into how cancer spread and how the immune system fights disease.

0:41.6

We'll be finding out about that and more in this

0:43.5

week's show Helen. Yeah also this week we're exploring the science of

0:46.6

flight. We'll be hearing from Oxford University researcher Jenny Goodman

0:49.8

how an invention she's working on could see you flying from London all the way to Sydney

0:54.4

in just a couple of hours. Plus we'll also be talking to Graham Taylor, who's also from Oxford,

0:58.8

who will be introducing us to the flight simulator he's built for insects and talking about how he straps

1:04.0

backpacks on birds to work out how they maneuver a loft. Sounds fantastic all that's

1:08.8

on the way but if you're in the mood to win something we've got the most

1:11.7

incredible flight-related

1:13.0

prize for you this week and it's all thanks to the London Science Museum.

1:15.7

It's a remote-controlled aeroplane. Apparently it's good to work for distances of up to

1:20.2

300 feet away from you and they say it's allegedly

...

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