This podcast from the Planet Earth Online collection and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) looks at why understanding rip currents at Perranporth in north Cornwall could help save lives; and how exactly does carbon capture and storage (CCS) work and how can scientists be sure that CO2 will be stored...

This podcast from the Planet Earth Online collection and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) looks at how the Romans recycled glass, dinosaur colour, and what Europe's gravity mission tells us about ocean currents. The height of the world's oceans can vary by as much as 200 metres. 

These huge...

In this podcast from the Planet Earth Online collection and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), reporters find out how satellites have revolutionised our understanding of climate change.

They provide a completely different perspective on how planet Earth works, which was impossible before the...

This podcast looks at how a specially-designed twin turboprop research plane is helping scientists in a huge range of subjects from archaeology to ecology, and why a violent space storm could spell trouble for communications systems across the world. 

If you want to know how polar ice cover is changing, how...

This podcast from the Natural Environment Research Council's (NERC) Planet Earth Online collection looks at why scientists are planning on drilling three kilometres beneath the Antarctic ice sheet in one of the most ambitious exploration projects ever undertaken; and how worms that feed on dead whale bones at the...

In this podcast from the Planet Earth Online collection and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), Sue Nelson hears about the birth of an ocean in the Afar depression in the Horn of Africa. The continental crust is being ripped apart at a phenomenal rate – one metre every year over the last five years. In...

This podcast from the Planet Earth Online collection and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) looks at how hikers and walkers could be unwittingly changing the landscape by spreading alien species; what it's like to work as a marine biologist in the Arctic in temperatures of minus 40°C; and exactly how...

This podcast from the Natural Environment Research Council's (NERC) Planet Earth collection looks at why scientists are working with the National Trust to restore the chalk grasslands around Stonehenge; how scientists are using satellites to study microscopic plants; and the etiquette of dining and bullying in...

This podcast from the Planet Earth Online collection and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) looks at how scientists plan to measure the Earth's magnetic field from space, why one researcher is in the frozen town of Churchill in northern Canada, and how the Chernobyl disaster still affects Northern...

A podcast from the Planet Earth Online collection and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC). Have you ever noticed that when you cross a busy road, as well as clocking the traffic, you subconsciously follow what your neighbours do?

Scientists have recently put a figure on this and worked out that...

This podcast from the Planet Earth Online collection and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) looks at how tracking insects can help scientists forecast summer storms and floods, and the role one of Europe's key satellite missions played in the recent floods in Queensland, Australia.

The huge...

A podcast from the Planet Earth Online collection and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC). The Food Standards Agency advises everyone to eat at least two portions of fish a week, one of which should be oily, because it is good for us.

Unfortunately our appetite for fish and other seafood has...

This podcast from the Planet Earth Online collection and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) looks at how the eruption of the Eyjafjallajökull volcano in Iceland gave scientists an unparalleled opportunity for research, and why sediment from rivers like the Thames can act like time machines to bygone...

This podcast from the Planet Earth Online collection and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) looks at why weathermen are using a converted World War II bunker to monitor clouds; how thug species such as bramble, nettle and bracken can be just as damaging to woodlands as alien plants; and why scientists...