Show Notes
Salt can be found in almost every kitchen in the world. But how did this seemingly simple ingredient become the world's favourite flavour enhancer?
This week, Crowdscience sets out to uncover why these tiny crystals have such a powerful effect on us. We explore the magic behind this tiny mineral that has shaped our tongues, our culture, and our cravings.
Our investigation begins with CrowdScience listener George, who heard from a friend that if he added a few grains of salt to his morning coffee, he could make it taste less bitter. Following some light investigation at his local coffee chain, he began wondering why salt make things taste more delicious.
To try and find an answer, presenter Anand Jagatia heads to a salt mine in Austria with Daniel Bradner, an archaeologist from the Natural History Museum of Vienna. The mine is 200 kilometres from the sea, so where does all the salt come from?
In London, UK, we meet Adriana Cavita, a chef who helps us explore how salt transforms what we eat: sharpening aromas, softening harsh flavours, and boosting sweetness.
We explore the receptors inside our mouth with taste expert Courtney Wilson from the University of Colorado School of Medicine in the US, to find out how we detect whether there’s too much or too little salt in our food.
And we meet Joel Geerling, Associate Professor of Neurology at the University of Iowa, US, who’s been looking inside the brain to try and work out why we crave salt. He’s discovered an incredible system that’s highly engineered to give us an appetite for salt. Could it be the answer to George’s question? Presenter: Anand Jagatia Producer: Robbie Wojciechowski Editor: Ben Motley (Photo: Measuring Teaspoon of Sea Salt with Vibrant Colors - stock photo JannHuizenga via Getty Images)
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CrowdScience listener Lauren from Belgium has near-complete hearing loss in one ear, because all the sensory hair cells in her inner ear have died. This got her thinking about how complicated the human ear is and whether there are other animals with simpler ears, in particular insects. Do they even have ears? Presenter Caroline Steel hears Lauren’s call and sets off on a hunt for insect ears. She discovers that crickets have them just below their knees. In Fernando Montealegre-Zapata’s laboratory at the University of Lincoln in the UK, she serenades a cricket to test just how much of her voice it can hear. But crickets aren’t the only ones with ears. Invertebrate neurobiologist Natasha Mhatre, from Western University in Canada, explains that you can find ears almost anywhere on an insect body – from between the legs of a praying mantis to the mouthparts of a moth. So are there even simpler ears out there? Sensory biologist Joerg Albert from University College London in the UK tells Caroline how male mosquitoes use antennae to listen out for females. But they aren’t exactly simple. In fact, a mosquito probably has more sensory neurons around their antennae than you are using to hear right now. And what about the insects that can’t hear? Scientist Jayne Yack from Carleton University in Canada unveils the hidden world of vibroscapes. Caterpillars on a leaf, for example, can sense the vibrations created by peers, predators, and even airborne sounds. Which makes Caroline wonder: when does vibration sensing actually become hearing? Presenter: Caroline Steel Producer: Florian Bohr Editor: Ben Motley (Photo: Insect singing and playing the guitar in flamenco concert - stock photo Credit: Fernando Trabanco Fotografía via Getty Images)
Some animals lay eggs, and their young hatch out of them. Other animals give birth to live young. But which strategy is best? That’s the question that’s been bothering CrowdScience listener Sameer in Canada. Is giving birth to live young a good reproductive strategy? It takes a lot of time and effort, and it doesn’t result in that many offspring. Egg-laying, on the other hand, allows you to produce lots of young at one time to maximise the chance of survival, seems easier than giving birth, and you can lay eggs more often. So why have humans and most other mammals evolved to give birth to live young? To find the answer, presenter Anand Jagatia travels way back into the past with Paul Barrat from London’s Natural History Museum in the UK to look at the evolutionary history and advantages of egg-laying. What have gravity and moisture got to do with the success of an egg? Palaeontologist Kimi Chapelle from Stony Brook University in the US shows Anand the oldest eggs ever found, and we discover why even older eggs are missing from the fossil record. We discover how the evolution from egg-laying to birth-giving is happening right in front of our eyes, with Camilla Whittington from the University of Sydney, Australia. And we might even have an answer to the age-old question about eggs - which came first? You can see the oldest eggs ever found here: https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/news/2020/april/most-detailed-look-inside-worlds-oldest-dinosaur-eggs.html (Photo: A chick hatching from egg on egg tray. Credit: David Malan/Getty Images) Presenter: Anand Jagatia Producer: Margaret Sessa-Hawkins Editor: Ben Motley
Have you ever found yourself doing something – perhaps getting a glass of water, eating a snack, or even sitting on the toilet – without remembering making the decision to do it? CrowdScience listener Mohammed certainly has. It’s left him wondering: does he really have free will, or is he a puppet of his biological processes? To try and find the answer, we start in the brain. Presenter Caroline Steel meets neuroscientist Uri Maoz, from Chapman University in the US, to explore the controversial research into what happens when we make decisions. Does neuroscience say that we are free to make our own choices, or does our brain make decisions outside of our consciousness? Then there’s our guts - they’re home to trillions of microbes; independent living creatures that we couldn’t live without. But could these tiny organisms influence more than our digestion? Harriët Schellekens, from University College Cork in Ireland, shares her cutting-edge research into the surprising ways our microbes shape us. And perhaps some of us are more "in charge" than others. Caroline visits Sarah Garfinkel at University College London in the UK, to have her interoception tested - her ability to sense what’s happening inside her body. How closely is she tuned into what's going on inside her gut, and why might that matter? Meanwhile, at King’s College London, health psychologist Lauren Heathcote is exploring how this internal sense could be used in therapy. Caroline meets cancer patient Nadia Haynes to discover how learning to listen to her body has actually changed her sense of control. Presenter: Caroline Steel Producer: Katie Tomsett Editor Ben Motley (Photo: Close-up Of Businessman's Hands - stock photo Credit: AndreyPopov via Getty Images)
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CrowdScience listener Gurmeet in India wants to know if plants can sense that we're around. She started wondering about this at a wellness centre where she was encouraged to hug a tree. She enjoyed the experience, but what about the tree? Did it enjoy being touched? And is there actually evidence that hugging a tree is good for us? Anand Jagatia talks to scientists about what happens to a plant when it's touched. Molecular biologist Olivier van Aken, from Lund University in Sweden, explains what happens inside a plant's cells – from mimosa whose leaves close up when touched to a Venus flytrap that sees a good opportunity for dinner. Plant biologist Alexander Jones, from the Sainsbury Laboratory at the University of Cambridge, UK, tells Anand how plants process information without a brain: when there's a threat from a hungry insect, it's their hormones that leap into action to defend it. Anand visits Wisley Garden in the UK and meets Ashby Lavelle Sachs, the Royal Horticultural Society's Wellbeing Fellow, who explains why being in nature is so good for our physical and psychological health. And he talks to South Korean researcher Sinae Park, from Konkuk University in Seoul, about the impact of touching plants with different types of foliage – in an experiment, she found that it's the soft and smooth plants that made participants feel most relaxed. It turns out that plants find the whole experience of being touched pretty stressful. So next time you hug a tree, you might be getting a whole lot more pleasure out of it than the tree does. Presenter Anand Jagatia Producer Jo Glanville Editor Ben Motley (Photo- I love you nature! Nature and people - stock photo Credit: Kieferpix via Getty Images)