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Download the Nature Podcast 17 December 2025
In this episode:
00:46 The gifts that sparked a love of science
Nature put a call out for readers to tell us about memorable presents that first got them interested in science, or mementos of their life in research. These include telescopes, yeast-themed wedding rings, and… cows’ eyes.
Nature: The gift that shaped my career in science
08:12 “I am the Very Model of a Miniature Tyrannosaur”
In the first of our annual festive songs celebrating the science of the past year, we tell the story of a diminutive dinosaur that turned out to be its own species.
Nature Podcast: Meet the ‘Wee-rex’. Tiny tyrannosaur is its own species
Nature Video: Hotly debated dinosaur is not a tiny T. rex after all
I am the Very Model of a Miniature Tyrannosaur was performed by Luke Thomas, with backing vocals by Kellie Lucken, Michael Broom, Mario Satchwell, Rachelle Schaum, Adam Pickles, Katy Roper, James Harvey and Catriona Clarke. That song was written by Dan Fox, with editing by Nick Petrić Howe and Shamini Bundell, and the music was performed by Phil Jackson with sound mixing by Jonathan Armitage.
11:43 A very scientific quiz
An all-star cast competes for the glory or being the winner of the Nature Podcast’s 2025 festive quiz.
Nature: Meet the ‘Wee-rex’. Tiny tyrannosaur is its own species
Nature: This company claimed to ‘de-extinct’ dire wolves. Then the fighting started
Nature Podcast: 3D-printed fake wasps help explain bad animal mimicry
Nature Video: ‘Aqua tweezers’ manipulate particles with water waves
Nature Podcast: Sapphire anvils squeeze metals atomically thin
Nature Video: Vesuvius volcano turned this brain to glass
Nature Podcast: Ancient viral DNA helps human embryos develop
Nature Video: Magnetic fibres give this robot a soft grip
Nature: These contact lenses give people infrared vision — even with their eyes shut
Nature Video: Is this really the world’s largest mirror? Researchers put it to the test
Nature Podcast: World’s tiniest pacemaker could revolutionize heart surgery
Nature Podcast: Earth’s deepest ecosystem discovered six miles below the sea
Nature Podcast: Nature goes inside the world’s largest ‘mosquito factory’ — here’s the buzz
Nature Podcast: Apocalypse then: how cataclysms shaped human societies
Nature Podcast: Honey, I ate the kids: how hunger and hormones make mice aggressive
25:21 “Hard the Hydrogel is Stuck”
Our second festive song is an ode to a rubber duck that was stuck to a rock, thanks to a newly designed, super-adhesive hydrogel.
Nature Podcast: Underwater glue shows its sticking power in rubber duck test
Nature Video: Why did researchers stick a duck to a rock? To show off their super glue
Hard the Hydrogel is Stuck was performed by Catriona Clarke, with Luke Thomas, Kellie Lucken, Michael Broom, Mario Satchwell, Rachelle Schaum, Adam Pickles and Katy Roper. That song was written by Nick Petrić Howe, with editing by Shamini Bundell, and the music was performed by James Harvey with sound mixing by Jonathan Armitage.
28:42 Nature’s 10
Each year, Nature’s 10 highlights some of the people who have helped shape science over the past 12 months. We hear about a few of the people who made the 2025 list, including: a civil servant who stood up for evidence-based public-health policy; the science sleuth who revealed a retraction crisis at Indian universities; and the baby whose life was saved by the first personalized CRISPR therapy.
Nature: Nature’s 10
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