How do you launch a spacecraft from Earth, and what keeps it up there once the engines stop? Join Naomi Price for Rocket Science: Defying Gravity, a journey from the launchpad to deep space. Discover how rockets produce thrust, why they shed stages, and why reaching orbit is as much about travelling sideways as climbing upwards. From roaring chemical engines to the gentle push of ion propulsion, explore the science that makes spaceflight possible.

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#CompactScience #RocketScience #DefyingGravity #Spaceflight #SpaceExploration #Physics #Rockets #OrbitalMechanics

A quiet sea can hide an extraordinary amount of movement. Beneath its surface, currents carry warmth across the planet, cold water sinks into the depths, and a vast exchange of heat and moisture helps shape the skies above. In this episode of Compact Science, Naomi explores how those movements influence fog, rainfall and storms, why changes in the tropical Pacific can affect weather thousands of miles away, and what a warming ocean could mean for the future.

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#CompactScience #CompactHistories #OceanCurrents #WeatherSystems #OceanScience #Oceanography #EarthScience #ClimateScience #ElNino #LaNina #SciencePodcast #Geography

The ground beneath our feet feels dependable, yet it belongs to a planet that never stops moving. Enormous plates slowly separate, collide and slide past one another, opening oceans and raising mountains. Most of that movement passes unnoticed, until a fault suddenly slips and years of stored strain are released in seconds. In this episode, Naomi explores the forces shaping Earth, the discoveries that revealed them, and how understanding earthquakes helps us live more safely on moving ground.

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#Earthquakes #PlateTectonics #CompactScience #CompactHistories #EarthScience #Geology #Seismology #SciencePodcast #ContinentalDrift #SeismicWaves #NaturalHazards #ScienceExplained

How did life become so varied? In this episode of Compact Science, Naomi Price follows the evidence from early fossil discoveries and Darwin's voyage to Alfred Russel Wallace's independent insight, the rise of genetics and modern DNA research. Along the way, she explains how inherited differences can affect which organisms leave offspring, and why natural selection is only one part of the evolutionary story.

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#CompactScience #Evolution #NaturalSelection #Darwin #Wallace #Genetics #ScienceHistory

Vaccines have saved millions of lives, but how can a small dose of biological material prepare the body to fight a dangerous infection? In this episode of Compact Science, Naomi Price follows the story from early smallpox inoculation and Edward Jenner's cowpox experiments to Pasteur's laboratory vaccines, the eradication of smallpox and the development of mRNA technology. Along the way, we discover how antigens, antibodies, B cells, T cells and immune memory turn vaccination into a carefully controlled rehearsal for the immune system.

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#CompactScience #Vaccines #Immunology #MedicalScience #PublicHealth #SciencePodcast

Black holes were once regarded as mathematical curiosities, but today we can detect their collisions, track stars orbiting them and even photograph their shadows. What remains hidden is what happens beyond the event horizon. In this episode of Compact Science, Naomi Price explores the history of black-hole science, the collapse of massive stars, the discovery of Cygnus X-1, gravitational waves, spaghettification, singularities, Hawking radiation and the information paradox. What would an astronaut experience after crossing the point of no return, and why might the answer require an entirely new theory of physics?

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#CompactScience #BlackHoles #Space #Astronomy #Astrophysics #SciencePodcast #EventHorizon #StephenHawking

CRISPR has transformed humanity's ability to study and alter DNA, but its story began with a mysterious pattern discovered inside bacteria.

In this episode of Compact Science, Naomi Price follows CRISPR from the first identification of repeated genetic sequences to the discovery of a microbial immune system. We explore how scientists turned that natural defence into a programmable gene-editing tool, examine the development of base and prime editing, and discover how CRISPR produced its first approved medical treatments.

We also look at the latest attempts to edit genes inside the human body, the creation of personalised treatments and the difficult ethical questions raised by a technology that could permanently change human DNA.

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#CompactScience #CRISPR #GeneEditing #Genetics #DNA #Biotechnology #MedicalScience #SciencePodcast

Water covers most of our planet, but only a tiny proportion is readily available freshwater. In this episode of Compact Science, Naomi Price explores hydrology and Earth's interconnected water cycles, following water as it evaporates from the oceans, forms clouds, falls as precipitation and travels through rivers, soil, aquifers, glaciers and living organisms. We also examine how climate change, urban development, agriculture and water extraction are altering the movement and availability of one of Earth's most essential resources.

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#Hydrology #WaterCycle #EarthScience #ClimateScience #Groundwater #Freshwater #CompactScience