In this podcast from the Planet Earth Online collection and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), reporters find out what sexual conflict means for female guppies, how female promiscuity may be a good thing and why female mongooses all give birth at the same time.

In an extreme example of sexual...

This podcast from the Planet Earth Online collection and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) was recorded at the Diamond Light Source in Oxfordshire, England and discusses how two researchers are using hi-tech physics to study different aspects of the environment.

The Diamond synchrotron is like...

A podcast from the Planet Earth Online collection and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC). British Geological Survey scientists have completed the first full geological survey of Lake Windermere in the English Lake District since the Royal Navy surveyed it in the 1930s.

Among other things, the...

A podcast from the Planet Earth Online collection and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC). In this recording, Richard Hollingham talks to expert seismologist Brian Baptie from the British Geological Survey, who uses musical software to find out if earthquakes are getting more frequent.

Another...

In this podcast from the Planet Earth Online collection and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), Richard Hollingham hears how the underwater world isn't the soundless place often imagined. From chirping, gurgling and snapping sounds from busy coral reefs to clicking sperm whales, scientists are finding...

A podcast from the Planet Earth Online collection and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC). Does your shopping basket contain chocolate, biscuits and shampoo? If it does, you may be unwittingly contributing to the destruction of the some of the world's pristine rainforests.

Manufacturers now use...

A podcast from the Natural Environment Research Council's (NERC) Planet Earth Online collection. Red squirrels used to be the most common squirrel in Britain. But since the grey squirrel was introduced from the USA as an illegal immigrant in the late 1800s, their numbers have nose-dived.

This is partly...

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...

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 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 Natural Environment Research Council's (NERC) Planet Earth Online collection looks at invasive species of plants and animals. Many of them are well-known. Grey squirrels, harlequin ladybirds, buddleia, Japanese knotweed - the list goes on. Some of these aliens, or invasive species to give them...

This podcast from the Planet Earth Online collection and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) looks at how the famous White Cliffs of Dover could be made of fish poo (at least partially), why one researcher is so interested in dead whales, and why the Japan earthquake was so powerful and devastating....

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...

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...