Nan's story

BBC: Finding your way in space-2

Wow, that's a mind-blowing thought! But even though we can argue which direction is up, it's still true that we can use a compass to navigae on Earth. However, this simply isn't true in space. Here's astrophysicist Ethan Siegal again to tell BBC World Service's CrowdScience why:The problem with navigating in space is that the magnetic field flips irregularly every few hundred, or few thousand li..

BBC: Finding your way in space

How good are you at finding your way from A to B, Rob? Can you read a map?Come on, Sam, this is the 21st century! Everyone uses GPS and mobile phone apps to find their way around these days. True, burt before mobile phones where invented arriving at your destination wasn't so easy. At sea, sailors used the stars and Sun to nivigate- to work out which direction they wanted to travel. And navigati..

In Barcelona, a VR simulation is being used in prisons to make men convicted of domestic violence aware of what it feels like to be in the position of their victims. The project, called 'virtual embodiment', is led by neuroscientis, Mevi Sanchez-, of Barcelona's Institute for Biomedical Research. In a virtual world we can be someone different and have a first-person embodied perspective from the..

We love to chat about new technology. One of our favourite topics is VR or virtual reality, and the ways it's haping life in the future. VR allows you to put on a headset and escape into a completely different world. In this programme, we'll be hearing about some of the ways VR is tackling serious problems like domestic violence, and helping people overcome phobias- the strong and irrational fea..

Global problems involve complex issues which cannot be solved in 280 letters, the maximum length of a tweet allowed by Twitter. According to Professor Kendal, we need logical arguments containing a premise- something which you think is true and you use as the basis for developing your idea, and a conclusion- your decision or plan of action based on carefully considering all the relevant facts. F..

'Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears!' Do you know where these famous words are from, Sam?I think that's a speech by Marc Antony in William Shakespeare's play, Julius Caesar.Wow, I'm impressed! Caesar has been assassinated and Marc Antony tries to persuade the crowd to find his killers. Using words to persuade people, giving them a good reason to do what you say, or to accept your arg..

Have ou heard this joke, Neil? Question: what's a rat's favorite game?I don't know, Sam, what is a rat's favorite game?Hide and squeak!Ha-ha-ha! Very funny!Well, I'm glad you're laughing because, as we'll be finding out in this programme, laughter is good for you! In fact, laughter is often called 'the best medicine'.And it seems that's really true, medically speaking. laughing releases anti- st..

The 20th of July 1969 was a big day in history. Do you know why, Sam?Wasn't that when Neil Armstron first set foot on the Moon?Right. But it's often forgotten that some of the most dramatic photographs taken on the Apollo space mission weren't of the Moon at all- they were of Earth, it wasn't until we went to the Moon that we really saw the size of Earth's oceans and named ourselves, the Blue Pl..

Has this ever happened to you: you eat a doughnut and get a sugar rush, a strong feeling of excitement and energy, only to collapse an hour later, with a headache?Food affects us more than we realize, and that's because what we eat alters our brain chemistry, changing our mood and emotions. Our brain is working 24 hours a day, even while we sleep, so it needs more fuel than other body parts. So ..

In this programme, we'll be discussing our closest neighbour in the solar system- the planet Mars. Often called the 'Red Planet', Mars has been in the news a lot recently with three separate missions being sent to explore the planet's surface in 2021.Our fascination with the Red Planet has given brith to some interesting art over the years. This includes music, such as David Bowie's 1973 hit, Li..