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This video is not particularly sciencey - but is bonus material for my lovely iPhone app subscribers.

The vid from 1995 aptly portrays why I followed science and I never went into acting. We made this video about the crime fighters Brad and VD when in Year 11. Those involved have ended up being quite creative - director Nick as a digital producer, and actor Scott as a designer. A good look back on the days of analogue tape. We were clearly influenced by Get Smart.

Liberals, atheists, intelligence, cocaine deaths and the temperature? What do these things have in common?

The answer? Correlation of the Week of course.

This podcast concerns our two most recent Correlations of the Week:

Liberals and Atheists Are More Intelligent;

Cocaine overdoses and the Weather.

Wadeye is a remote town in Australia's North ern Territory. It has a population of roughly 2500 people, 2200 of whom are Indigenous Australians, and as such is one of Australia's largest indigenous communities. The town is over 200 km southwest of Darwin, and during the wet season the only way in and out of the town is by air, as the roads are completely cut off.

The town has a number of social issues, with gang violence making international headlines in 2006. On average there are 16 people per house and the median age at death is an astoundingly low 46 years. This compares to the medium age at death of a non-indigenous person in the Northern Territory of over 70 years, and over 80 in other states (data here).

Wadeye's remoteness, social issues and cultural differences present a considerable challenge to the provision of quality health care. There is only one general practitioner in town with serious cases referred to Darwin. Victoria Bond (who you may have heard as a regular contributor to the Diffusion Science Radio Show) has taken a posting in Wadeye as part of her medical degree. I chatted to Victoria about the unique medical issues that have arisen in Wadeye, and what it's like as an American student in such a remote place.

This is the second part of our series on the science of W olverine - specifically, how can we create Wolverine in the lab? Join Dr Boob and myself as we journey through Wolverine's characteristics and how they may be recreated in a human. Read more on Wolverine in par t 1 of this series.

Specifically in this episode, we tackle the topics of:

1. What would happen to your bones if you completely covered them with metal? Bones are living parts of your body and make red blood cells, platelets and bone marrow - among other things - that are vital for life.
2. Would a lack of platelets reduce Wolverine's ability to heal?
3. Wolverine is likely to be on a cocktail of drugs, including anabolic steroids to beef him up, immunosuppressants so his body doesn't reject the metal coating on his bones, and various drugs to supply red blood cells, bone marrow and platelets.
4. Could we really harness the healing powers of the sea cucumber for Wolverine, and would they work quickly enough?
5. Are carrots enough to improve his sight?
6. What metal could we use to coat his bones? It needs to be able to be injected as a liquid and then harden at body temperature. Most steels have melting points over 1000 degrees Celcius, and this would cause terrible trauma to his body. Dr Boob's suggestion was CerroLOW117, which is 44.7% Bismuth, 22.6% Lead, 8.3% Tin, 5.3% Cadmium and 19.1% Indium. CerroLOW117 has a melting point of 47 degrees Celcius, however lead and cadmium both accumulate in the body and have adverse health effects. It is highly likely CerroLOW117 would not be strong enough to help Wolverine anyway.
7. And what is a phlebotomist?

For more on superheroes, check out our recurring science of superheroes series. And for more from Dr Boob, check out Chris 's other contributions.

W olverine is probably the best known of the X-Men. Commonly known as Logan, Wolverine is a mutant who has animal-keen senses, super bodily strength, retracting claws, and the ability to almost instantly heal himself from injury. And thanks to some evil scientists, he has the near indestructible (and fictional) metal alloy adamantium fused to his bones, meaning that his claws and skeleton are almost unbreakable. In the second episode of our regular series on the science of superheroes, biochemist Dr Chris Pettigrew (aka Dr Boob) and I discuss where in nature Wolverine's powers can be found, and how we might scientifically create Wolverine in the lab. This is the first of a 2-part show on Wolverine - see below for a brief description of some of the science discussed. Our first superheroes episode was on the science of Wolverine's fellow X-man, and sometime love interest, Mystique.

The name Wolverine comes from the Wolverine animal, which lives in isolated northern areas such as the arctic and alpine regions of Alaska. It is a stocky and strong animal that is very strong for its size and has been known to kill prey as large as moose. The wolverine is not actually a bear or a dog, but rather a mustelid, or in common parlance, a weasel. While many of Wolverine's powers (such as strength and hearing) could come from its namesake mustelid, if we were to attempt to create Wolverine in the lab, we must first turn to the ocean:

Healing ability: Sea Cucumbers are the champions of organ regrowth. All animals possess some kind of tissue repair mechanism, however the sea cucumber belongs to a group of animals that can regrow lost limbs - salamandas and some starfish also have this ability. The repair process involves cells called morula cells, which move to the point of injury. Although all animals have wound repair processes, not all can regenerate lost body parts. With the sea cucumber, the same processes that repair its injuries also repair limbs and internal organs, and this opens up the possibility that we could one day discover how to repair our own wounds and perhaps how to regenerate body parts. But as Dr Boob says, we are quite some way off from instant healing ability: "The odd bullet to the head won't be able to be dealt with."

Retractable Claws: There is a remarkable analogue found in nature for Wolverine's retractable claws. University of Harvard biologists have determined that some African frogs have the ability to puncture their own skin with sharp bones in their toes. These bones then act as claws to attack predators. The defence mechanism was discovered by David C. Blackburn, James Hanken, and Farish A. Jenkins, Jr. Blackburn said, "It's surprising enough to find a frog with claws. The fact that those claws work by cutting through the skin of the frogs' feet is even more astonishing. These are the only vertebrate claws known to pierce their way to functionality." Blackburn discovered the frog and its defences when he was conducting fieldwork in Cameroon and one frog he was studying scratched him. He found 11 frog species in the genera Astylosternus, Trichobatracus and Scotobleps who had this peculiar ability. Read more at Project Frog.

Smell, sight, hearing Whilst there are obvious candidates in nature that have heightened sight, smell and hearing abilities, r ecent studies suggest that human and dog olfactory receptor genes evolved from a common mammalian ancestor, and as such Dr Boob thinks that mimicking the smelling ability of dogs could be quite "easy." Dogs have an olfactory sense approximately a hundred thousand to a million times more acute than a human's. Scenthounds can smell one- to ten-million times more acutely than a human, and Bloodhounds, ten- to one-hundred-million times more.

The song A Russian Peter was used in the background of this podcast, with permission from Ioda Promonet. Buy the full London Philharmonic Orchestra Peter and the Wolf CD, or download individual songs as mp3s, from Amazon.

The Beer Drinking Scientists are back! It's been two and a half years since our last episode, but Darren Osborne, editor of ABC Science Online, and I have got back together over a beer in Sydney to chat about the pressing scientific issues of the day - in this case, alien life. We chat about the latest scientific research and discoveries in areas such as astrobiology, SETI and exoplanets, and also to others in pub to hear their opinions.

In this Mr Science Show episode, you can hear the vox pop from the BDS episode - including from one person who swears she has seen not only one UFO, but a UFO release a baby-craft, and another who thinks that Jesus might be an alien...

As you have the Mr Science iphone app, you get this BDS ep as bonus audio. We'd love to hear ideas for future BDS episodes, so feel free to leave comments, or let us know on twitter - @bdscientists . We'll release new shows about every 2 months.

The Beer Drinking Scientists are back! Itâs been two and a half years since our last episode, but Darren Osborne and Marc West have got back together over a beer in Sydney to chat about the pressing scientific issues of the day - in this case, alien life.

As you have downloaded the Mr Science iphone app, this is bonus audio for you.

In this episode, we chat about the latest scientific research and discoveries in areas such as astrobiology, SETI and exoplanets. We also chat to others in pub, including one person who swears she has seen not just one UFO, but a UFO release a baby-craft, and another who thinks that Jesus might be an alienâ

To bring some sanity to the proceedings, Marc chatted to Dr Carol Oliver from the Australian Centre for Astrobiology before the show and clips from this interview are played throughout. For the full podcast interview with Carol, see Astrobiology and the search for extraterrestrial life.

Merry Christmas from The Beer Drinking Scientists - may your festive season be full of science and beer, both in moderation of course!

• How does SETI actually look for extraterrestrial life?

electromagnetic The Water Hole hydrogen line hydroxyl spectral line hydrogen water

• The Fermi Paradox - The Fermi paradox asks the question, if there are other civilisations in the universe, why haven't we seen any evidence of their presence?

• Where is the best candidate for life in our Solar System? Is it Mars (more likely for microbial life) or perhaps a moon of Jupiter, like Europa? Was there life on Mars at any stage of its history?

• The concept of panspermia - that life on Earth may have originated elsewhere in the universe before coming to Earth, perhaps on an asteroid;

• The Kepler mission - this mission uses a space telescope to look for Earth-like planets and was launched in March 2009;

• The Drake equation - can we predict whether there are other civilisations out there using maths?

October 15 is Blog Action Day 2009 and this year's topic is Climate Change. The idea is to raise awareness of the topic, so I thought I'd get in on the act - it is still October 15 in some parts of the world...

Climate Change is arguably our most pressing human concern. If you are interested in what it is, whoâs responsible and why we should care, then an easy way to enter the debate is to have a listen to our 2007 Beer Drinking Scientists episode on the topic.

The importance of climate change to humans and to Earth can not be underestimated. Climate Change also featured in our top 10 science stories of 2006, 2007 and 2008. If you have any thoughts on the topic, feel free to share them or participate in Blog Action Day.