Welcome to Science Quest! 🚀 This week, we are celebrating a massive victory for endangered birds, tracking extreme global weather storms, and hunting down a bizarre, microscopic species of "killer fungus"!

• 🪶 The Rarest Hatchlings: Blackpool Zoo is celebrating a huge conservation win! Three critically endangered blue-crowned laughingthrush chicks have just successfully hatched. Find out how keepers are saving this beautiful, rare species from disappearing forever.

• 🌪️ El Niño Strikes: Extreme weather is battering different parts of the planet! We break down the science of El Niño—a powerful climate pattern that heats up ocean waters and flips the world's weather upside down, causing massive floods in some countries and intense droughts in others.

• 🍄 The Killer Fungus: Dr. George Greiff joins Dan to share an incredible discovery: a brand-new species of "killer fungus"! But don't panic—this monster fungus is actually a hero, creating "fairy rings of death" to destroy an aggressive, invasive moss that is ruining native habitats.

• 👁️ The Two-Tone Eye Mystery: Lucy in Canada asks a fascinating question: why does she have one blue eye and one green eye? We explore the genetics of heterochromia (having different colored eyes) and see how melanin levels switch things up!

• 🗣️ The First Word: Mercedes Durham from Cardiff University tackles Romi's big historical question: what was the very first language spoken on Earth? Prepare to travel thousands of years back in time to the birth of human speech.

• 🌵 Dangerous Dan: Watch your step for Hydnora africana! This strange, underground African plant has no leaves, no roots, and looks like a terrifying alien monster. It stays buried until it bursts through the dirt like a fleshy, gaping mouth, releasing a smelly odor to trap dung beetles!

• 🧠 Brain Box: National Trust wildlife expert Aaron Brett Miller steps into the Brain Box to share what it's really like to manage and protect our wild spaces and the incredible animals that call them home.

And shrink down and go on an undercover mission into the green kingdom with explorer Marina Ventura! This week, Marina is investigating the amazing, high-tech ways plants defend themselves from hungry predators. From shooting out microscopic chemical darts to calling in friendly insect armies for backup, discover how the plants in your backyard are secretly fighting back!

Subscribe to Science Quest to save endangered birds, dodge extreme weather, and uncover the earth's wildest natural secrets! 🎙️✨

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This Week’s Big Questions!

You’ve been sending in your brilliantly curious questions, and this week…

💎 What is the hardest thing on Earth?
🦇🩸 Why do vampire bats drink blood?
🌀❄️ How does a fan keep you cool?
🎈🗣️ Why does helium make your voice higher?
👃👀 Why doesn’t our nose block what we see?

And jump through a worm hole to Deep Space High, your local inter-galactic school in space. This time the class check out Hinode Solar B a satellite the observes the Sun from Earth’s orbit!

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Welcome to Science Quest! 🚀 This week, we are kicking off a massive celebration for Insect Week, hunting down new dinosaur relatives, and tearing open the fabric of space and time to ask if we are living in a multiverse.

• 🐢 The Flat-Pack Hatchling: Keepers are celebrating the arrival of a newly hatched, critically endangered baby pancake tortoise! Discover why this rare reptile’s flat, flexible shell makes it the ultimate rock-climbing escape artist.

• 🦖 A New Predator Rises: Paleontologists have just uncovered a brand-new, razor-clawed cousin of the fierce Velociraptor family! Find out where this ancient hunter lived and how it used its terrifying speed to track down prey.

• 🐜 The Insect Overlords: Fran Sconce from the Royal Entomological Society joins Dan to preview Insect Week! We are shining a spotlight on the absolutely vital, hidden jobs that bugs do every single day to keep our entire planet running.

• 🌋 The Magma Blast: Evan wants to know: why do volcanoes erupt? We dig deep down into the Earth’s crust to look at how trapped tectonic gases and boiling hot liquid rock build up the pressure for a massive explosion.

• 🌌 The Multiverse Mystery: Carlos Frenk from Durham University tackles Jude's mind-bending question: is there another universe out there? Get ready to explore the wild physics behind parallel worlds!

• 🦅 Dangerous Dan: Watch out for the Seriema Bird! Don't let its long legs fool you—this modern-day dinosaur is a vicious snake-hunter that kills its prey by picking it up and ruthlessly smashing it against rocks.

• 🧠 Brain Box: Professor Susannah Maidment, Merit Researcher in Fossil Reptiles at the Natural History Museum, steps into the Brain Box to show us exactly what the prehistoric world looked like when dinosaurs ruled the Earth!

And jump straight through a wormhole to Deep Space High—your local inter-galactic school in space! Join Principal Pulsar and his class as they discover how exploring the cosmos actually changes your everyday life on Earth. From the scratch-resistant lenses in your glasses to the cameras in your smartphone, find out about all the awesome, everyday gadgets that wouldn’t even exist if it wasn’t for rocket scientists and space travel!

Subscribe to Science Quest to hunt down new raptors, survive erupting volcanoes, and master the mind-bending secrets of the multiverse! 🎙️✨

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See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.