The ‘Naked Scientists’ do not warrant the alarming image that they inspire. It’s actually an interactive science radio show produced at the University of Cambridge and broadcast by the BBC, which has recently achieved the notable feat of 2 million podcast downloads in the last 12 months, making it one of the world’s most downloaded science programmes.
The ‘Naked Scientists’ do not warrant the alarming image that they inspire. It’s actually an interactive science radio show produced at the University of Cambridge and broadcast by the BBC, which has recently achieved the notable feat of 2 million podcast downloads in the last 12 months, making it one of the world’s most downloaded science programmes.
The ‘Naked Scientists’ do not warrant the alarming image that they inspire. It’s actually an interactive science radio show produced at the University of Cambridge and broadcast by the BBC, which has recently achieved the notable feat of 2 million podcast downloads in the last 12 months, making it one of the world’s most downloaded science programmes.
The show, which receives 50,000 downloads per week, has also been nominated by its listeners for "best science show" in the 2006 international 'Podcast Awards'. Voting to determine the winner from the world's top five shows is currently on-going.
Each hour-long edition of the programme sees the presenters encouraging the audience to experiment in their kitchens alongside the radio show and then call in with their results. So far the series has seen listeners build home-made submarines, recreate the sound of Big Ben inside their heads, and simulate an explosion in a custard factory. The programme also provides highlights from the preceding week's top science news stories and interviews with guest scientists who answer questions posed by the listening public.
Dr Chris Smith, a medical doctor and lecturer from the University of Cambridge, started the programme in 1999. Initially known as 'ScienceWorld', in just 7 years it has grown from a weekly local radio show to become a national and international presence with inputs to network radio across Australia (ABC Radio National) and the UK (BBC Radio Five Live). On the Internet, its companion website www.thenakedscientists.com receives over one and a half million hits per week.
"No other university, worldwide, has a programme of the stature and international following of Naked Scientists. We're very pleased with what's been achieved," says Dr Smith, after it was announced this week that the BBC live radio audience has doubled in just 6 months.
The name 'Naked Scientists' arises from Dr Smith's aim to strip science down to its bare essentials and promote it to the general public. According to Dr. Smith, the basic goal of the Naked Scientists is to "help people enjoy science as much as we do and, at the same time, to have fun".
The success of the Naked Scientists' own podcasting has led to a collaborative effort with the international science journal Nature. The result was the Nature Podcast, the world's first example of an international science journal producing an audio programme to supplement their print content. Each week the authors of some of the more interesting papers are interviewed by Dr Smith to produce a weekly thirty minute programme.
The Nature Podcast achieves an average of 40,000 downloads per week, and Nature recently signed up the Naked Scientists to provide another 6 month's oservice.
As a result of the popularity of the website, the Naked Scientists have struggled to find a host server capable of handling the large amount of traffic. Fortunately, a Manchester-based leading UK host, UKFast, have stepped in with a dedicated server to support their mega bandwidth demand.
Voting for the best science show in the 'Podcast awards' ends 11th August.
The Naked Scientist website is http://www.thenakedscientists.com/
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence. If you use this content on your site please link back to this page.
