CrowdScience

CrowdScience listener Kassy in India wants to know if there’s any science to support the practice of ‘manifesting’ – the idea that you can make your wishes come true just by writing down your goals and sending your dreams out to the universe. Is it just a wacky belief or can it be backed up by research?
Caroline Steel looks at the evidence to see if manifesting works. She talks to researcher Lucas Dixon in Australia, who has found that people who believe in manifesting are more likely to take risky financial decisions or end up bankrupt.
She meets neuroscientist Sabina Brennan in Ireland who argues that psychology has already proven that our thoughts and beliefs shape our reality, through cognitive behavioural therapy for example. So there is evidence to show that some of the techniques in manifesting can work.
Caroline also talks to psychologist Gabriele Oettingen in the US, whose research has demonstrated that just thinking about our wishes actually decreases our energy and makes it less likely that we’ll achieve our goals. She’s come up with her own method for increasing the likelihood of success.
And Caroline tries out a manifesting technique for herself. Can it help her realise her dreams?
Presenter: Caroline Steel

Producer: Jo Glanville
Editor: Ben Motley
(Photo: Enthusiastic brunette girl celebrating- stock photo Credit: Mix and Match Studio / 500px via Getty Images)

CrowdScience listener Ndanusa in Ghana, is gazing up at the stars, and wondering. Big philosophical questions, like… what keeps our universe in balance?
From our perspective here on earth, the universe seems like a vast, harmonious system, perpetuating eternally without change. But Ndanusa knows a thing or two about the stars, and he knows that they use up hydrogen as they burn, and release helium. And he’s wondering, is there something out there which does the opposite? Something that uses up helium, and produces hydrogen, to keep the universe in perfect, chemical equilibrium?
His question makes sense! Here on earth for example, animals use up oxygen and produce carbon dioxide, and plants do the opposite. A perfect cycle of production and consumption which (at least in theory), keeps our planet in perfect balance. Could the same kind of system be in place in the wider expanse of the universe?
His intriguing question leads presenter Alex Lathbridge on a journey into the blackness of deep space, the ancient origins of our universe, and the complex physics of the stars. He pops into the Ghana Radio Astronomy Observatory, just outside Accra, where astrophysicist Dr Proven Adzri helps him peer into the earliest few seconds of our universe, and find out what set the stars burning. And at Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Dr Linus Labik talks him through what’s going on at the atomic level. And in the deep blackness of the night, up above the tree canopy of Kakum National Park, he takes a peek at the stars for himself. Local guides Chris and Kwabena explain how much meaning there is behind the stars in the night sky.
Presenter: Alex Lathbridge
Producer: Emily Knight
Editor: Ben Motley
(Photo: Large orange and purple exploding orb - stock photo Credit: Soubrette via Getty Images)

Australia’s Great Barrier Reef is one of the richest and most complex natural ecosystems on earth, and it’s home to over 600 species of coral – marine animals that are most closely related to jellyfish.
But the coral is under threat, with climate change, ocean acidification and marine heatwaves endangering the reef and the many iconic animals that depend on it. CrowdScience listener Felix, aged 9, wants to know what we’re doing to protect it, and presenter Caroline Steel is on the case.
In this special edition of CrowdScience, we follow scientists from Australia’s Institute of Marine Science as they attempt to restore the reef with baby corals that they’ve nurtured in experimental tanks at their Sea Simulator facility on the country’s northeast coast.
This experiment kicked off in December, as the researchers recreated the annual mass coral spawning event in controlled conditions, manipulating temperature, pH, light, and nutrients to breed coral baby that they can then use to reseed damaged sections of reef.
After loading up a lorry full of corals and waving it goodbye, Caroline heads north for a rendezvous at dawn, as the corals are loaded onto a boat in Cairns. She travels across the coral sea with marine biologists from AIMS, and is on hand as the corals are introduced to their new home in the ocean.
This is just the beginning - a proof of principle. In future years, the scientists are hoping to reseed heat-tolerant corals, and to scale up and automate this work. But even then, is the scale of the problem too big? Can we restore a reef area the size of Japan, or is it too late?
Presenter: Caroline Steel
Producer: Marnie Chesterton
Editor: Ben Motley
(Photo: Orange-lined triggerfish by coral in beautiful blue water - stock photo. Credit: treetstreet/Getty Images)

On a recent kayaking trip, CrowdScience listener Lanier sliced through his right thumb, putting it out of action for a while. This made life difficult, as he couldn’t button his shirt, tie his shoelaces or type efficiently on his smartphone. Missing the use of his thumb made him wonder: since opposable thumbs are so advantageous to those of us who have them, why didn’t they evolve in more species?
Host Marnie Chesterton unpicks the evolution of our own unique thumbs with the help of paleoanthropologist Tracy Kivell, learning how our grip compares to that of other animals. We discover why mammals like horses and dogs have no use for thumbs, and why we humans don’t have opposable big toes.
Meanwhile, at Taronga Zoo in Sydney, Australia, senior keepers Tarryn Williams Clow and Bec Russell-Cook introduce us to two different marsupials. Humphrey the koala has not one but two thumbs on each hand. Why did koalas develop this anatomical quirk when their closest living relative, the wombat, has spade-like digits? Dr Mark Eldridge from the Australian Museum shares his hypothesis.
And what if we, too, had another thumb? Marnie tries on a robotic Third Thumb, built by designer Dani Clode. Dani has collaborated with neuroscientists from the Plasticity Lab at the University of Cambridge. She tells us what the Third Thumb has revealed about the human brain and how we control our digits.
Presented by Marnie Chesterton
Produced by Cathy Edwards and Margaret Sessa Hawkins for the BBC World Service
(Photo: Kung-Fu Koala - stock photo Credit: Alex BOISSY / Getty Images)

Noise cancelling headphones filter out sound waves that we don’t want to hear. Listener Ahmed in Libya loves wearing his and, as he was listening to them, he had a thought: ‘Could we cancel out light waves in a similar way to how noise cancelling headphones do it?’
He sent his question to CrowdScience and now presenter Alex Lathbridge is getting deep into the physics, to find out if light cancelling devices could replace curtains and shutters.
Alex starts at the Ray Dolby Centre in Cambridge in the UK, built to honour Ray Dolby’s invention of noise cancelling technology. In this amazing building he meets Jeremy Baumberg, Professor of Nanophotonics at Cambridge University. With the help of a tuning fork and a laser beams, Jeremy shows Alex that manipulating light is no easy feat.
Undeterred, Alex tracks down Stefan Rotter, Professor of Theoretical Physics at Vienna Technical University in Austria. Stefan and his colleagues around the world have been pushing forward the development of a device called the ‘anti-laser’. Alex and Stefan explore whether this could be the light-cancelling device of Ahmed’s imagination.
And once we've created a light-cancelling device, what do we do with it? Mary Lou Jepsen is an inventor and the founder of health tech firm Openwater. She tells Alex about how she’s using light wave manipulation to open up new possibilities for medical imaging, and even treatment.
This programme includes clips from:

Surrounded by Sound: Ray Dolby and the Art of Noise Reduction https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002bswq

CrowdScience: Can we trap light in a box? https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3cswvwy
Presenter: Alex Lathbridge
Producer: Tom Bonnett
Editor: Ben Motley
(Photo: Eyesight and vision concept - stock photo Credit: J Studios / Getty Images)