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Discovery

Discovery

BBC World Service

Explorations in the world of science.

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Top 10 Discovery Episodes

Goodpods has curated a list of the 10 best Discovery episodes, ranked by the number of listens and likes each episode have garnered from our listeners. If you are listening to Discovery for the first time, there's no better place to start than with one of these standout episodes. If you are a fan of the show, vote for your favorite Discovery episode by adding your comments to the episode page.

Discovery - Protein: Powerhouse or piffle?
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09/30/24 • 26 min

Take a trip around the supermarket and you'll see shelves of products claiming to be 'high in protein'. Scroll through your social media and you'll find beautiful, sculpted people offering recipes and ideas for packing more protein into your diet.

Science presenters Dr Julia Ravey and Dr Ella Hubber have noticed this too. They wanted to unpick the protein puzzle to find out what it does in our bodies and how much we really need. Can this macronutrient really help us lose weight, get fit and be healthier?

Along the way, they speak to Professor Giles Yeo from the University of Cambridge, Bridget Benelam from the British Nutrition Foundation, Paralympian hopeful Harrison Walsh, and food historian Pen Vogler.

Presenters: Dr Julia Ravey and Dr Ella Hubber Producer: Alice Lipscombe-Southwell Editor: Martin Smith

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Discovery - Affectionate touch
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10/26/20 • 28 min

Claudia Hammond looks at the neuroscience behind our sense of touch. Why does a gentle touch from a loved one make us feel good? This is a question that neuroscientists have been exploring since the late 1990's, following the discovery of a special class of nerve fibres in the skin. There seems to be a neurological system dedicated to sensing and processing the gentle stroking you might receive from a parent or lover or friend, or that a monkey might receive from another grooming it. Claudia talks to neuroscientists Victoria Abraira, Rebecca Bohme, Katerina Fotopoulou and Francis McGlone who all investigate our sense of emotional touch, and she hears from Ian Waterman who lost his sense of touch at the age of eighteen.

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Discovery - Obsessed with the Quest: Humpback Heat Run
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05/06/24 • 26 min

Underwater cameraman Roger Munns set himself and his team an incredible challenge. In 2008, they visited Tonga to film the biggest courtship ritual of the animal kingdom, the humpback heat run, for the very first time underwater and up close.

In the first few days, Roger had intimate encounters with the whales but most of the time, he was sat on the back of the boat, waiting to find a heat run. After two unsuccessful weeks, he started to wonder whether they would ever see one.

But a few days later somebody spotted a heat run, and everything sprang into action. Roger got in position and dove down ten meters underwater on a single breath. From then on, his job was just to wait and hold his camera ready. In a moment that seemed to stretch out time, he waited, nervously, for a group of 40-ton bus-sized whales to speed past him...

And Victor Vescovo describes his adventures into the deep, diving to the deepest parts of all five oceans.

Victor's longest dive was solo to the lowest point on Earth - the Challenger Deep at the bottom of the Marianas trench in the western Pacific. On reaching the bottom, some 35,853 feet below the ocean surface, should something have gone wrong, there was no hope of rescue.

Victor describes his feelings before making this historic descent and on the way down. Touching down on the sea bed, he was astounded by the abundance of marine life. Victor describes how he hopes that the mapping, observations and sample collections he has made on his dives will advance scientific understanding of the deep oceans, and where his eternal quest to explore might take him next.

Produced by Florian Bohr and Diane Hope

Credits:

Humpback whale mother and calf sounds - Acoustic Communications CNRS team & CETAMADA

Humpback whale calf sounds - Lars Bejder (MMRP Hawaii), Peter T. Madsen (Aarhus University) & Simone Videsen (Aarhus University)

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Discovery - Fed: The invention of chicken
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07/02/24 • 26 min

Dr Chris van Tulleken is on a mission to find out what we’re eating, why, and who or what might be influencing our decisions. And he’s starting his quest to uncover food truths with the most eaten meat in the world, and one of the most numerous animals on our planet: chicken.

He’s recently been forced to confront a serious gap in his food knowledge - what happens before it gets to our plates - and has decided this, the world’s most popular meat, is an ideal starting point.

Chris’ initial investigations reveal the vast scale of modern chicken consumption; and how a once revered jungle fowl was manipulated to become a modern food success story, a fast-growing heavy-breasted beast to feed the masses.

Now, he's torn: is this a triumph of human ingenuity – or the creation of a monster?

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Discovery - Fed: The Ethical Consumer's Dilemma
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07/15/24 • 26 min

We’ve heard about the potential problems around chicken welfare. But how does that square with their impact on the environment?

Dr Chris van Tulleken finds out what it takes to produce the most eco-friendly chicken meat possible. And makes a devastating discovery. Welfare concerns, and environmental credentials, often pull in OPPOSITE directions. Does he want to eat the happiest birds, or the ones kindest to the planet?

Halfway through his poultry quest, Chris remains massively conflicted: he loves chicken, but some of what he’s discovered makes him question how much he eats it. Will he still be able to look at it the same way as he goes deeper down the rabbit hole? And more importantly, should he keep serving it up to the family?

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Discovery - Fungal pandemic threat
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05/29/23 • 27 min

We are familiar with fungal infections like Thrush and Athlete’s Foot, but fungal diseases that can kill are on the increase. The World Health Organisation is so concerned that it has published its first ever list of life threatening fungi. James Gallagher hears stories of hospitals being shut down, a ruined honeymoon and fungal infections that consume human tissue leaving terrible disfigurement. Add to that The Last of Us, a hit video game turned TV series where a parasitic fungus manipulating the brains of ants has jumped to people. Sounds fanciful but while this particular fungus could not cross from ants to humans, Dr Neil Stone explains why invasive fungal infections are on the rise and a potential pandemic should not be dismissed.

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Discovery - Patient zero Ticking time bomb
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05/17/21 • 41 min

In 2012 doctors in Tennessee started seeing patients with unusual symptoms. It became a race against time to find a diagnosis. A series of investigations revealed that the patients were infected with a fungus that was causing a form of meningitis. But where did they pick up the fungus? Olivia Willis speaks to the public health specialists who worked out what linked the people who succumbed to the infection: it turned out to be a contaminated spinal drug. In the end they discovered that more than 700 people across 20 US states had received the drug and more than 50 died. An ABC Science Unit. ABC Radio National and BBC World Service co-production. Producers: Jane Lee, Cheyne Anderson Senior Producer: Carl Smith Executive Producer: Joel Werner Sound Design: Tim Jenkins Photo: Patient sitting on hospital bed waiting, Credit: Portra Images/Getty
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Discovery - Patient zero: Spillover in suburbia
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05/10/21 • 41 min

A horse mysteriously falls ill in her paddock, and before long dozens of other horses from her stables are sick. As the horses start to die vicious, painful deaths, their trainer falls into a coma and is placed into intensive care. The race is on to figure out what's making both species sick, and where it came from. What they find will resonate throughout the following decades and might help us uncover the origins of COVID-19. Olivia Willis tells the story of how it was discovered that a virus carried by a fruit bat was responsible for the horrific deaths. The virus is now named Hendra, for the Brisbane suburb where the outbreak occurred in the 1990s. An ABC Science Unit. ABC Radio National and BBC World Service co-production. Producers: Jane Lee, Cheyne Anderson Senior Producer: Carl Smith Executive Producer: Joel Werner Sound Design: Tim Jenkins Picture: Wild horses, Credit: Phil Copp/Getty Images
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Discovery - The Business of Failure
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07/12/16 • 27 min

Dr Kevin Fong flies with a US air ambulance crew and discovers why it’s seen as one of the most dangerous occupations in America.

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Discovery - Patient zero: The December transplant
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03/22/21 • 41 min

Three transplant patients died within a week of each other in Melbourne in December 2006 and alarm bells started ringing. One of the patients was Karen. When she got a phone call from the hospital offering her a kidney transplant, it seemed like a lucky break. But things didn't go according to plan. Olivia Willis tells the story of how doctors discovered that one donor had transmitted a mystery virus to these patients. These tragic cases changed the way that transplantation was done in Australia. Produced by James Bullen, Cheyne Anderson and Joel Werner of ABC (Picture: TEM of Arenavirus, Credit: Callista Images/Getty Images)
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FAQ

How many episodes does Discovery have?

Discovery currently has 769 episodes available.

What topics does Discovery cover?

The podcast is about Podcasts and Science.

What is the most popular episode on Discovery?

The episode title 'Protein: Powerhouse or piffle?' is the most popular.

What is the average episode length on Discovery?

The average episode length on Discovery is 27 minutes.

How often are episodes of Discovery released?

Episodes of Discovery are typically released every 7 days.

When was the first episode of Discovery?

The first episode of Discovery was released on Sep 8, 2010.

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