Normally my podcast recommendations fit into the comedy genre, well I say normally, 100% of them have been comedy podcasts so far. Comedy is in my opinion, the category that best suits podcasting and I call on the charts to prove this argument. Hamish And Andy, WTF With Marc Maron, Welcome To Nightvale and even a podcast from the BBC called “COMEDY Of The Week” constantly push each other around for the top position. That’s not to dismiss the other genres out there, music, news, education, drama, all genres have their place (Except for sport, who cares about sport? Pfft sport, ha, this is a nerd website, go home). Although second in my rung of interesting topics for podcasts is science and who better to talk on the topic of science than Dr. Karl Kruszelnicki? One of the hardest working men in both entertainment and science, it’s fair to say that Dr. Karl is an Australian national treasure. Don’t believe me, well let me educate you in the world of the Dr. Karl podcasts.
Now generally, I prefer to talk about lesser known podcasts and Dr. Karl On Triple J is far from that, constantly cracking the top 20 in the charts. So let’s make this short and sweet so that we can delve deeper into the multitude of other shows Dr. Karl is involved with. Every Thursday from 11am – 12pm (EST) on Triple J, Dr. Karl and his colleague, Dr. Zan Rowe will answer to the best of their abilities any question thrown at them. The best thing about this show is you can get involved with it yourself, that’s if you remember 11am on a Thursday and you don’t have to go to work. It doesn’t necessarily have to be on the phone either, you can tweet a question or even answer a question if you want. Just listening to this show will give you a PHD and from then on you can join Zan as a fictitiously qualified doctor.
As you tell from the title, this show is not necessarily Dr. Karl’s show. The BBC radio station, Radio 5 Live has a lot of science content to provide and luckily for us releases some of it in podcast form. Every Thursday from 3am(GMT), Doctor Karl and his Scottish colleague, Dr. Rhod Sharp will answer to the best of their abilities any question thrown at them. The difference between this show and the Triple J version (aside from the accents); more scientific questions. Now that’s not a slight on the Australian callers, rather if you are willing to wait until 3am to ask a doctor a question, you are probably more dedicated to the field of science. Aside from Dr. Karl, the show’s experts are the two naked scientists (after listening to hundreds of shows, I am still none the wiser as to why they are both naked), Kat Arney and Chris Smith. These two will often go off on their own explorations into the scientific community and keep you up to date with the latest science news. Along the way the show has had various science guests from Dr. Jason Box to Fevzi Turkalp and even Tim Minchin. Fortunately this is one of the few BBC podcasts that isn’t limited to four episodes on the feed at a time and episodes date back to 2012.
Over the years Sleek Geeks has morphed from a traveling road show, to a radio show, then a television, back to radio, taken on the lecture format and now to podcasts. I know it’s a lot to keep up with and I’m not sure I’ve even got that in the right order but all you need to know for the sake of this article is that it is now a podcast. Dr. Karl hosts the show with comedian and mathematician, Adam Spencer, one of the only men in Australian able to pronounce Karl’s surname. The two use their combined abilities of humour and intelligence to edutain their audience in various different scientific subjects. In between stories there is time for some Twitter questions and a few different interviews. Guests have included Bill Bailey, James Randi and even NASA’s very own Major Tom, Commander Chris Hadfield.
In many ways Dr. Karl’s Blogcast is like the little sibling of Sleek Geeks. Cut out the interviews and swap out Adam Spencer for Dr. Shave and you have Dr. Karl’s Blogcast. This show runs for only about ten minutes or so but that is just enough time to tell a few science stories and answer a few Twitter questions. It only had a short run but this charming little shows is definitely worth a listen.
If you thought Dr. Karl’s Blogcast was short, this show will blow your mind. Great Moments In Science is a bite sized chunk of knowledge perfect for curious minds on the go. Each week Dr. Karl will jump into a new interesting science story from history, helpfully answering the questions; “What does it mean?” and “Why is it so?”. Some of two hundred and eighty-four topics include; negative calories in celery, milk’s muscle boosting properties, jaguars’ favourite perfume and that god damned gold/blue/red/pink/invisible dress.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYq4NnBgMO8
