Why can’t you tickle yourself?
CrowdScience
BBC
4.8 • 1K Ratings
🗓️ 29 May 2020
⏱️ 46 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week the kids take over. Our younger listeners are as curious as their parents, it seems, so presenter Marnie Chesterton seeks out the finest minds and attempts to answer a raft of their science questions, including why can’t you tickle yourself? Why don’t our eyebrows grow as long as the hair on our heads? Not content with humankind, these whizz kids have been pondering deeply about other animals. Ava, 9, from the UK wants to know if any other animals kill for fun, like some humans do. Not limited by planet Earth, these little thinkers have been contemplating even weightier questions. Joshua, 13, from Kenya wonders if our Solar System rotates around anything. And Seattle-based Michael, 10, puzzles over what would happen if a black hole collided with a wormhole. These and other mysteries are uncovered by Marnie and her experts. Presenters: Marnie Chesterton & Arlo Byrne Producer: Dom Byrne
[Photo: Children Tickling each other, Adorable laughter. Credit: Getty Images]
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Take some time for yourself with soothing classical music from the mindful mix, the Science of |
| 0:07.0 | Happiness Podcast. |
| 0:08.0 | For the last 20 years I've dedicated my career to exploring the science of living a happier more meaningful life and I want |
| 0:14.4 | to share that science with you. |
| 0:16.1 | And just one thing, deep calm with Michael Mosley. |
| 0:19.4 | I want to help you tap in to your hidden relaxation response system and open the door to that |
| 0:25.4 | calmer place within. Listen on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:30.0 | Well, me and my teacher were talking about this and I wanted to... |
| 0:37.0 | This week the kids are taking over. |
| 0:39.0 | I like to think about space and stuff is just something I like to think about a lot. |
| 0:43.2 | Our younger listeners are as curious as their parents it seems, so we're attempting to answer |
| 0:48.0 | a backlog of their fantastic questions. |
| 0:50.5 | It's interesting how, like why is it any different to the hair in our head. |
| 0:55.0 | We'll be tackling such diverse themes as the length of eyebrow hair to why some animals kill for kicks all the way to black holes and wormholes. |
| 1:05.8 | We have a lot to get through so let's crack on. |
| 1:08.1 | That's Arlo from Brighton in the UK being tickled by his unrelenting dad who also happens to be the producer of this program Dom. |
| 1:18.5 | And Dom has enlisted Arlo to assist making this program, so free child labour, well done, if nothing to keep Arlo busy |
| 1:27.8 | whilst off school. So Arlo, you are with me now. Thank you so much for doing this. Do you mind helping us on |
| 1:35.7 | crowd science? No it's actually really fun. I'm going to be helping just choosing |
| 1:41.6 | questions from kids around the world and trying to speak to them. |
| 1:45.6 | That's great so I will let you do that and mainly I will be sitting in the back garden reading a book and maybe pouring myself a cocktail |
| 1:55.9 | whilst you do the work for me so brilliant. You also sent in a crowd science question a while back what was that? |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.