A salt mine becomes a clear, strange lesson in geology, deep time, and curiosity.
CrowdScience turns a science question into a slow, absorbing walk through Hallstatt, Austria, where one of the world's oldest working salt mines is still at work.

Listener questions, science with muddy boots.
CrowdScience follows ordinary questions into surprisingly tactile science. A car fob held to a chin, fish shoaling together, salt inside a mountain, and a boat above the Great Barrier Reef all become routes into bigger explanations.
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CrowdScience is a question-led science show with a strong sense of place. Its best episodes do not just explain a topic; they go somewhere. A question about salt becomes a journey into a mountain in Hallstatt, Austria, where ancient sea deposits sit inside rock. A question about super-volcanoes leads to Taal Volcano in the Philippines, with lake water, crater walls, and the practical business of watching dangerous geology. A question about whether a car fob works better against a human head turns into a neighbourhood experiment with a dog nearby. The show likes these tangible beginnings. Then it widens the frame. Fish in a home aquarium raise questions about recognition, smell, shoaling, imprinting, and self-awareness. Tasmanian devils open a discussion about predators and changing ecosystems. The Great Barrier Reef is treated as both a natural wonder and a conservation problem, with protection made visible through work happening on the water. AI is handled close to home, through voices, job anxiety, and a listener worried about the next few decades of work. Manifesting is approached with curiosity, but the show keeps science in view. The pace is measured. Short moments of surprise sit beside longer explanations. Listener questions are not used as decoration; they are the engine of the reporting. Experts and field scenes help turn abstract mechanisms into things that can be heard, pictured, and tested. CrowdScience works well for people who like biology, Earth science, technology, psychology, and animal behaviour, but prefer them in story form rather than lecture form. It is accessible without becoming thin. It is also comfortable saying that an answer is partial, complicated, or still being studied. The result is science radio that feels curious, grounded, and quietly expansive.
Made for: For curious general listeners who like science explained through real scenes, practical tests, and patient expert conversation. It especially suits people drawn to animals, Earth systems, technology, life, and everyday mysteries.
What sets it apart: CrowdScience anchors broad scientific ideas in listener questions and reported locations, from salt mines to volcanoes to coral reefs. The show’s strength is making evidence feel physical before turning it into a clear answer.
We take your questions about life, Earth and the universe to researchers hunting for answers at the frontiers of knowledge.
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
CrowdScience makes scientific method tangible by following listener questions into experiments, field sites, and carefully bounded explanations.
CrowdScience turns listener questions into reporting assignments, with Anand Jagatia testing abstract ideas against field visits, demonstrations, and scientists' methods.
A salt mine is where your question about why salt tastes good can take you.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A salt mine becomes a clear, strange lesson in geology, deep time, and curiosity.
CrowdScience turns a science question into a slow, absorbing walk through Hallstatt, Austria, where one of the world's oldest working salt mines is still at work.
A grounded look at what scientists can and cannot tell before a giant eruption.
CrowdScience treats the question as a practical one: what can scientists actually say before a volcanic system erupts? Anand Jagatia goes to Taal Volcano in the Philippines, and the crater lake, boat crossing, and volcanic island setting give the discussion some much needed…
A fish-tank question opens into shoaling, smell, and a brief detour toward self-awareness.
This episode opens with a listener's tropical fish tank and turns that small curiosity into a careful look at how fish recognize one another. It moves through shoaling, smell, and shared habitat, then lands on the idea that fish may be reading cues humans would easily miss.
A puzzle-room test of smartness that becomes a clear look at crystallized knowledge, fluid reasoning, and the limits of IQ tests.
CrowdScience turns a giant puzzle room into a surprisingly neat way to think about intelligence. The presenters and producers put themselves through an immersive IQ experience made up of physical and mental challenges, while an expert keeps the distinction clear between…
A measured science story about banana lore, sea turtles, and magnetic navigation.
A banana superstition gives the episode a strange opening, but the real story is how sea turtles and spiny lobsters find their bearings. It starts on the RV Lavinia, where the work is catching sea turtles, then moves into magneto-sensing and the lobster trials with an underwater…
A child-led string of odd questions makes everyday science feel wider and stranger.
CrowdScience follows a child-led string of odd questions and turns it into a broad, easy-to-follow look at how the body and the wider world work, starting with the simple puzzle of why eyebrow hair does not keep growing like the hair on your head.


Lulu Miller and Latif Nasser build single reported stories around one scientific question.

Flora Lichtman interviews scientists, from gut-health researchers to Queen's Brian May.

Steven Novella and a rotating panel dissect weekly science news and debunk pseudoscience claims.

Long interviews with neuroscientists and philosophers on consciousness, decision-making, and whether AI is anything like a brain.

Bob McDonald anchors weekly multi-segment interviews on new research, from cricket courtship to moon missions.
CrowdScience goes into the world's oldest working salt mine in Hallstatt, Austria.
CrowdScience travels to Tal Volcano in the Philippines to answer a listener's question about when the next supervolcano will erupt.
A visit to Bonnerong Wildlife Sanctuary in Australia to observe feeding time for a Tasmanian devil, one of the country's last top predators.
CrowdScience explores whether AI could take over all human jobs, prompted by a listener from Taiwan.
CrowdScience investigates whether holding a car fob to your chin extends its range, with listener Doug testing the hack.
A scientist who manifested her dream home discusses the concept of manifesting with a BBC host, prompted by a listener's question about the power of manifestation and journaling.
CrowdScience host Caroline Steele explores the importance of the Great Barrier Reef and how to protect it, prompted by a listener's question.
BBC CrowdScience investigates how fish recognize their own species and individuals, exploring shoaling behavior, the role of smell in fish social life, archerfish facial recognition abilities, and the controversial cleaner wrasse mirror test.
The CrowdScience team hosts a year-end quiz episode where listeners' roles are reversed and the presenters compete to answer science questions.
A rainbow expert demonstrates how to create a rainbow in a dark studio to explore a listener's question about whether all rainbows are the same size.
A BBC Crowd Science episode exploring the physical and emotional reasons why humans cry, including evolutionary benefits and gender differences.
CrowdScience gets cleverness out of the abstract and into a Crystal Maze-style puzzle room.
CrowdScience takes its question to sea.
CrowdScience lets children take over the questions and opens with a playful tickling moment before moving into eyebrow hair, hair-growth cycles, and why body hair does not keep growing like head hair.