BioSounds

Although you won’t hear it tick, your body has its own internal clock regulating your circadian rhythm. Your circadian rhythm is your sleep-wake pattern over the course of a 24-hour day. Most living things have it, including animals, plants, and even some microbes.

Circadian rhythms affect your sleep patterns as well as other ways your body works, like your body temperature, eating habits, and hormones. When your internal clock gets out of sync, it might cause problems with your health. They’ve been linked to different disorders including diabetes, obesity, and depression. Maintaining healthy habits can help you respond better to this natural rhythm of your body.

In this final episode of BioSounds season 3, our correspondent Rouaa Ben Chaabene, interviews Prof. Emi Nagoshi from the faculty of Sciences where she talks about her work on circadian rhythms and how it can be linked to Parkinson’s disease.

The nuclei of cells are full of noncoding RNAs, meaning RNAs that will not make proteins, however their functions is sometimes not really clear. In the last few years more and more roles have been attributed to this “junk” and it is now clear that they are important in health and disease. In all of this, what are piRNAs? What is their link to fertility? What is the perspective of RNA-based technologies? Prof Pei-Hsuan Wu gives us some interesting insights, interviewed by Olimpia Bompadre and presented by Rouaa Ben Chaabene.

How do chameleons change colour? How do elephants get skin cracks all over? And what are the benefits when scientists from different domains work together to solve these questions? Professor Michel Milinkovitch discusses his interdisciplinary approach to research on animal skin and patterns with Zoé Valbret. Introduced by Olimpia Bompadre.

For more information on Professor Milinkovitch's research visit: https://www.lanevol.org/

Scientific articles mentioned:
Elephant skin: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-06257-3
Chameleon nanocrystals: https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms7368

How many languages do you speak? What are the benefits of learning more languages? In this episode, you will hear from Prof. Stephanie Durrleman interviewed by our correspondent Jiabin Xu, where they explore the scientific evidence showing the benefits of bilingualism.
Now imagine you are a physician and you are approached by bilingual parents of kids who have autism spectrum. You know these kids may have impairment of social communication, and restricted and repetitive behaviours or interest. Should you suggest the parents to stick with only using one language at home, or address their kids in a multilingual environment? Find out more in this episode presented by Zoe Valbret.

Imagine the point of time when we lost concentration during an experiment because we were thinking about a song lyrics....

What if we could get feedback about our brain activity at the exact point of time? Could this feedback help us train our brain? Is it possible to treat brain disorders by training the brain?

In this episode, our correspondent Nathalia Williams dives deep with Dr. Tomas Ros on why he thinks we can treat brain disorders without medications and as to what motivates him to do science. Episode presented by Jiabin Xu.