In this Christmas episode (our last for 2025!) the team looks at some Christmas adjacent science. Chris brings us up to date with the latest on our interstellar visitor 3I Atlas (spoiler, it's not aliens), Claire turns up the heat on the real reason Christmas cookies taste so good (hint: it's science) and Stu bags up some realities of the neuroscience of Holiday sales and how to avoid spending too much. 

This week Linden interviews Tammy Lee, PhD student at UWA in Perth who was crowned the winner of FameLab International in Switzerland in November. This means Australia is officially home to the world's best science communicator! Tammy talks through her research, as well as the process of taking part in one of the world's oldest science communication competitions. Watch the FameLab International final on the FameLab YouTube channel, see the Australian final at the channel of the Foundation for the WA Museum, and follow Tammy on Instagram, @testtubetammy.  

This week on Lost in Science, in the lead-up to Christmas — and before our official festive special — we’re diving into the archives to revisit two of our all-time favourite holiday stories. Cat crunches the numbers on Santa’s impossibly busy Christmas Eve, using maths and physics to reveal just how many children he visits (and how he might just pull it off). Then Stu takes us on a botanical adventure through the science of Christmas trees, exploring what makes them smell, sparkle and survive the season.

Linden and Chris talk about the funding cuts to Australian science, and Claire chats with A/Prof Jochen Kaempf from Flinders University about the algal bloom that continues off the South Australian coast. 

This week, Stu lets us into the secret world of moss, how they're different to other plants, and how they're so hardy they can even survive on the outside of spacecraft; and Claire gets her teeth into a new, large longitudinal study that showed water fluoridation did not harm cognition or IQ. Maeng, Chang-hyun et al., Extreme environmental tolerance and space survivability of the moss, Physcomitrium patens. iScience, Volume 0, Issue 0, 113827 (2025). DOI: 10.1016/j.isci.2025.113827 John Robert Warren et al., Childhood fluoride exposure and cognition across the life course. Sci. Adv. 11, eadz0757 (2025). DOI:10.1126/sciadv.adz0757

Chris and Linden talk through the Prime Minister's Science prize, awarded in early November, and Linden chats with Dr. Grace Sethanant, and earthquake expert, about her work on Australia's weird earthquakes. 

This week on Lost in Science Stu checks in on the cutting edge of CRISPR — the revolutionary gene-editing technology promising to change how we treat diseases. Is it living up to the hype? And as we head into the holiday season, Chris is getting practical with physics, applying maths and motion to the age-old problem of how to pack your bag efficiently.

Revisiting some past stories from episodes of Lost in Science Fiction, we look at the science contained in (and the science inspired by) Star Wars, 2001: a Space Odyssey, and Ad Astra 

This week the team explore the science behind some science fiction classics. How strong would a tornado have to be to suck up the shark from Jaws? Would murderous robots in the future really be human-like? And what is the best science fiction movie, according to quantum physicists? 

This week, Linden reveals a new study into predicting the tipping points when mathematicians have a sudden “ah-ha!” moment when working on a blackboard; and Claire stuns us all with research that found a single ant was able to lay eggs for two different species.S. Tabatabaeian, A. O’bi, D. Landy, & T. Marghetis, An information-theoretic foreshadowing of mathematicians’ sudden insights, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 122 (35) e2502791122, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2502791122 (2025).Juvé, Y., Lutrat, C., Ha, A. et al. One mother for two species via obligate cross-species cloning in ants. Nature 646, 372–377 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-09425-w 

This week we pay tribute to the science winners at this year's Nobel prizes, though possibly not as much fun as the Ignobels from last week, they will definitely get people thinking (and solving problems) if not laughing as much about the research. 

This week on Lost in Science, we dive into the delightfully weird world of the Ig Nobel Prizes — awards that celebrate research which first makes you laugh, then makes you think. From testing whether babies prefer garlicky milk, to exploring the science of perfect pasta, and discovering if a few drinks can improve your foreign language skills, we’re unwrapping the year’s most curious and clever discoveries.

In this week's episode we welcome two more students from the University of Melbourne's Science Communication program. Carola explores her own family history through the story of Mendel's peas, while Lucy spills the tea on how the world's scientists rejected the idea of the Anthropocene as a geological era. 

A recent study suggests elephants have nicknames for each other. Find out more with Jessica on this week's episode. Photo by Nam Anh on Unsplash In this week's episode we welcome two students from the University of Melbourne's Science Communication program. Jessica and Niqi discuss the amazing communication styles of elephants, and try to quash bad news stories about ravens from around the world. 

Stu talks to Ted Vanderfeen, a Palawa man from Peerapper lands in Northern Tasmania who has shifted his sights to space exploration. He tells us about his work in the US at the NASA jet propulsion laboratory through the Australian National Indigenous Space Academy and his current work on mechatronics with CSIRO. 

This week, Chris speaks to climate scientist Michael E. Mann and vaccinologist Peter Hotez about how their common challenges with denialism and anti-science influences led to writing their new book, Science Under Siege: How to fight the five most powerful forces that threaten our world.

This week Linden talks to Clancy "The Bee Man" about native pollinators and how to look after them, while Stu finds out about how we can "Scan for life signs" in the 21st century without having to actually see any living things directly. 

This week on Lost in Science, Claire speaks with researcher Saskia Gerhardy about her fascinating new work revealing that the critically endangered plains-wanderer has a much wider habitat than previously thought – including the discovery of a new population in South Australia.And from the archives, Chris revisits a conversation with animal reproductive biologist Jarrod McKenna, exploring the bold and controversial research that aims to bring the Tasmanian tiger back from extinction and into the wilds of Tasmania.

This week on the show we continue our Quantum for Dummies series, celebrating the International Year of Quantum. Claire takes the “dummy” seat once again, putting Chris, our resident quantum physicist, to the test with questions about the mysterious principle of uncertainty. Plus, we head into the archives to revisit Stu's interview with Dr Ellie Paine who researchers the role kelp could play in capturing and storing carbon from the atmosphere—and the challenges that stand in the way.

In this National Science Week episode, Linden unmasks some famous performers who also have a science background; and Chris shares some new research into how static electricity works, which is still unsolved after thousands of years. Sobarzo, J.C., Pertl, F., Balazs, D.M. et al. Spontaneous ordering of identical materials into a triboelectric series. Nature 638, 664–669 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-08530-6