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...

Published by the Wellcome Trust, the 'Big Picture' explores issues around biology and medicine. The human brain may be the most complex structure in the universe.

The brain is so powerful that it is attempting to...

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...

This podcast from the Natural Environment Research Council's (NERC) Planet Earth Online collection looks at how scientists are using fish scales to figure out why the UK salmon population is falling; and how carbon dioxide emissions from power stations could be used to make household bricks.

Salmon numbers...