It’s December, and time for our traditional End of Year show where we look back at some of the stories that we particularly liked. And this year we want to know what stories had an impact on you! Let us know in the comments if there was any news that we talked about (or didn’t talk about!) that you want us to cover. Or click the Record A Voice Message button on the side of the screen to leave a recording, we might even use it in the show!
Here are all the stories we covered this year…
Space
More Evidence that Planet 9 is Really Out There
Space Station Celebrates ‘A New Era’ In Exploration With Arrival Of SpaceX Capsule
Mars One, the Plan to Make a Reality Show on Mars, is Bankrupt
What’s the benefit of sample return?
Hayabusa2 has touched down on Ryugu!
Mars ‘mole’ hits blockage in its burrow
There may be 50 billion free-floating planets in our galaxy
Titan’s thick atmosphere may come from cooked organic compounds
Could The Milky Way Be More Massive Than Andromeda?
Holy spitting space rocks: Asteroid Bennu is active!
Exploding stars didn’t cause human bipedalism
Astronomers See Evidence of Supermassive Black Holes Forming Directly in the Early Universe
Astronomers trace a mysterious radio burst to its source… 3.6 billion light years away!
X-rays spot spinning black holes across cosmic sea
A Glowing Clue in the Search for Alien Life
Boyajian’s Star: Could its bizarre behavior be due to an evaporating exomoon?
Titan: first global map uncovers secrets of a potentially habitable moon of Saturn
NASA’s Curiosity Rover Finds Unexplained Oxygen on Mars
Astronomers Detect Water Vapor Around Jupiter’s Moon Europa
When We Finally Find Aliens, They Might Smell Terrible
We’ve Found a Serious New Health Risk to Human Spaceflight
Our Solar System Might Have a Black Hole From the Dawn of the Universe
Biology
After the floods come the mosquitoes – but the disease risk is more difficult to predict
Plummeting insect numbers ‘threaten collapse of nature’
The World Shifts When a Black Widow Squats
Plants Can Hear Animals Using Their Flowers
Plants trained like dogs in research seeking to break new ground
Daughters of stressed meerkat moms more likely to help out
Koalas can learn to live the city life if we give them the trees and safe spaces they need
Where there’s a quill: CSI uses DNA to catch echidna smugglers
The Mysterious Case of the Two Frigid Fish
Bonobo Mothers Are Very Concerned About Their Sons’ Sex Lives
Plants are working hard to keep pace with increasing carbon dioxide
Dogs’ eyes evolve to appeal to humans
The Tiny Fish That Break a Fundamental Rule of Vertebrate Life
Spiders are threatened by climate change – and even the biggest arachnophobes should be worried
Mapping the mouse brain, a neuron at a time
Precious escargot: the mission to return tiny snails to Pacific islands
Eat your heart out: native water rats have worked out how to safely eat cane toads
If the shoo fits: cows painted with zebra stripes keep flies in line
Rats feel less stressed when driving little cars
Scientists in the Amazon Have Recorded the World’s Loudest Bird. It Hits a Painful 125 Decibels
Medicine / Psychology
Gut bacteria may have impact on mental health, study says
The Special Sleep That Kicks In During a Sickness
Australian scientists have universal flu vaccine in their sights following breakthrough
The Twins That Are Neither Identical nor Fraternal
A cure for HIV? Feasible but not yet realized
This Woman Can Smell Parkinson’s. It Might Help Lead To Earlier Treatment
Four new DNA letters double life’s alphabet
The surgeon had a dilemma only a Nazi medical text could resolve
Whole-body PET scanner produces 3D images in seconds
This is why it’s a good idea to chat to the person next to you in line
Common Cold Virus Completely Eliminates Tumor In Patient With Bladder Cancer
Psychologists Have Identified The Creatures We Find Most Scary And Revolting
The songs our brains love most follow a science-backed recipe
Some people ‘genetically wired’ to avoid veg
Humans placed in suspended animation for the first time
Very Old Things
A Medieval Grape Is Still Used to Make Wine
Oldest human skull outside Africa identified as 210,000 years old
Tyrannosaurus rex had ‘air-con’ in its head
First signs found of humans conserving food
Bones of ape living 12m years ago point to genesis of upright walking
When Snakes Had Use for a Pair of Legs
Artificial Intelligence
Google’s AI boosts accuracy of lung cancer diagnosis, study shows
Ancient ritual bundle contained multiple psychotropic plants
How an AI trained to read scientific papers could predict future discoveries
Myths / Bad Science Reporting
A Popular Benefit of Houseplants Is a Myth
Debunked: The absurd story about smartphones causing kids to sprout horns
A British Teenager is Blind, But Not Because of Junk Food or “Fussy Eating”
Why the Myth of Period Syncing Won’t Go Away
Everything Else
Polar express: magnetic north pole speeds towards Russia
How ‘F’ Sounds Might Break a Fundamental Rule of Linguistics