Question of the Week - From the Naked Scientists

If there were a large object, say a meteorite falling straight down where you are standing, what kind of warning would you notice? Would there be an accompanying sound? Or would you not know until it's too late? Plus we ask, can you catch cancer?.....

We know that nothing persists for ever so surely plastics in the sea have to break down at some point. How long does it take? And where does the plastic end up?

As the joke goes.....if you cross a kangaroo with a sheep you get a wooly jumper. Is it now possible with modern techniques to cross different animals to make one completely new species? Plus we ask will the plastics in the oceans ever degrade?

Which film dominates with their most realistic use of lasers?

We find out if fermentation yeast survive in Space, we ponder if it is possible to brew up a beer at zero gravity, plus we ask which is the most realistic fictional laser weapon?.....

A 57 year old male wonders - do I have any original parts? How much of the baby that was born in 1954 is still part of me? Plus we ask can you brew beer in space.....

We're told to save electricity by switching off devices on standby. But if a home is heated solely by electricity, would there still be any savings by turning off all those devices? And a 57 male asks if any of his original parts remain.....

This week I'll be getting inside your head.....with a question from Jarraryd Dunn. Plus we'll be asking is there any point in switching off your lights, TVs, and phone chargers during the winter?...

With New Year's Resolutions in full swing here's a sweet thermal caramel quandary for us to sink our teeth into.....

Can wearing sunglasses fool your senses into thinking there is less sun and increase your risk of getting sunburn? We take on this quandry and also wonder why cooking caramel causes temperature to increases in stages....

Why would your feet seem further away when lying down? We put our visual depth perception to the test to find out how being horizontal could change the way you see the world. Plus, we ask if wearing sunglasses increases your risk of getting sunburned?

Fish reproduce by squirting out eggs and fertilising them, so where's the joy in that? Is there any form of pleasure that fish can experience through reproducing? We explore this fishy conundrum in Question of the Week. Plus, we ask why one's feet can sometimes look farther away than they ought to.....

Why is it that the sound of nails being dragged down a blackboard makes every muscle tense and every nerve jangle? We tackle this teeth-grittingly uncomfortable problem in QotW. Plus, we ask whether fish experience extra benefits in laying eggs.

For those who are long or short-sighted, have you ever experienced an inability to focus on objects in the mirror - even though you should be close enough to the mirror to see them clearly? Find out why in this QotW. Plus, we ask what's happening when spine-tingling sounds give you the shivers.

Given that a foetus is essentially a swimming thing on the end of a piece of string, how is it that the two don't become tangled more often? Find out in this jelly-like QotW. Plus, we ask what would happen if two black holes met.