#250

There are signs that aliens might be harnessing the power of stars in our galaxy to fuel their civilisations. Dyson spheres are structures that surround entire stars to absorb their energy. Although these are just hypothetical, researchers have detected hints of their existence. But aliens aren’t the only possible explanation.

Being able to freeze human brain tissue could be a game-changer for medical research. While freezing brains is easy, thawing them out without damaging the tissue is much harder. But now a method involving a cocktail of chemical ingredients seems to have solved the problem..

The largest ever ‘ecoacoustic’ survey is being conducted throughout the forests of Costa Rica. Sound recordings of various habitats, from degraded pastures to regenerating forests, are being gathered to assess the biodiversity and health of the country’s ecosystems. Hear some of the amazing soundscapes that have been captured for the survey.

Orchids may share food with their offspring. Lab experiments have shown for the first time that parent orchids may be using fungal pathways – the mycorrhizal network – to send vital sugars to seedlings that cluster around them.

Ancient Egyptians were reliant on the Nile river to transport materials used to build the world famous pyramids. But many of those pyramids are built on inhospitable, arid land, far from the Nile. So how did they get the materials there? Geoscientists may have uncovered an ancient clue.

Hosts Christie Taylor and Rowan Hooper discuss with guests Jacob Aron, Alexandra Thompson, James Dinneen and Chen Ly. To read more about these stories, visit newscientist.com.

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Galaxies come in only a few shapes, which are all very round looking. You’ve got spirals and you’ve got blobs. Not content with this boring assortment, Leah Crane and Chelsea Whyte want to shake things up a bit.

First up they want to give our own spiral galaxy, the Milky Way, more arms. One, two… eight? As many as possible. But they don’t stop at “octogalaxy”. They also ponder on what it would take to defy the laws of physics and create a giraffe-shaped galaxy.

Aided by Vivian U, an astronomer at UC Irvine, the team discusses whether smashing galaxies together would help in their quest, how shooting black holes into orbit via rail gun may create interesting patterns and whether the galaxy sculpture can be made using dark matter.

Dead Planets Society is a podcast that takes outlandish ideas about how to tinker with the cosmos – from punching a hole in a planet to unifying the asteroid belt to destroying the sun – and subjects them to the laws of physics to see how they fare.

Your hosts are Leah Crane and Chelsea Whyte.

If you have a cosmic object you’d like to figure out how to destroy, email the team at deadplanets@newscientist.com. It may just feature in a later episode.

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#249

Do whales have their own alphabet? We’ve long thought the clicking sounds that sperm whales make is their way of chatting to each other, but those clicks may be even more sophisticated than we realised. After analysing whale recordings, researchers suggest the different click patterns are complex enough to form an alphabet – the closest thing to human communication we’ve yet seen in animals.

We know very little about dark energy – and it turns out we may know even less than we thought. This mysterious force, which accelerates the expansion of the universe, may be changing in an unexpected way, calling our entire understanding of cosmology into question. This discovery by the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument in Arizona could make room for some exciting new physics.

There’s a bird flu outbreak in the US, spreading through herds of dairy cows in nine states. One dairy worker in Texas has even tested positive, though has also recovered. Underreporting and insufficient testing mean we know very little about how fast the virus is spreading. And as officials warn against drinking raw milk, how worried should we be?

Quantum batteries, while mostly still theoretical, could make charging your phone or electric car unimaginably fast. Researchers are looking at the quickest way to charge these batteries, harnessing the advantages of quantumness – like charging in two different places at once.

Plus: Which breeds of cats live the longest; good climate news as renewable energy crowds out gas and coal; why reaching out to long-lost-friends is so hard.

Hosts Christie Taylor and Timothy Revell discuss with guests Clare Wilson, Molly Glick, Grace Wade and Leah Crane. To read more about these stories, visit newscientist.com.

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