Feeling dirty? We’ve got just the story for you in this week’s edition of The World’s Technology Podcast. Scientists at the University of Bristol have created…wait for it…magnetic soap. Just to be clear, this is not a designer product for the reality TV star who has everything. Instead, this soap has a higher calling. The scientists who are working on it hope that it can one day be used to clean up major disasters such as oil spills. Tech that matters, indeed. Listen in as Professor Julian Eastoe describes how the soap manages to both repel and attract at the same time.

And what could possibly serve as a better follow-up to magnetic soap than an invisibility cloak. Perhaps the magic of Harry Potter isn’t such a fantasy after all? Dr. Andrea Alu of UT-Austin talks about a new breakthrough in “plasmonic cloaking in free-space.” Dead sexy.

WTP 355 also has a double-dip on the new online privacy laws that the European Commission is proposing. As this podcast asked about 90 episodes ago, do you have the right to be forgotten online? And is it possible to legislate and enforce that right?

We end with the beauty, forever sinking it seems, that is Venice, the Italian city built in a lagoon. There’s already one incredibly expensive project, called Moses, designed to protect the city from tidal surges. But now, some scientists from Padua University have another, much cheaper idea. Hint: It involves raising the city by pumping liquid into the sandy layer beneath the city.

A reminder that you can ignore us equally on Twitter, Facebook, and now Google +.

Japanese medical personnel check a woman evacuated from her home near the Fukushima 1 nuclear plant for radiation exposure in Japan. (Photo: Asahi Shimbun/epa/Corbis)

This Week: We meet a Japanese paleontologist who had long warned his country that a massive tsunami was overdue. The pharmaceutical industry and much of the scientific community selectively publishes only positive results of medical research. Now, the British Medical Journal and many scientists are criticizing this practice and encouraging scientists to publish all results. A decade ago, Gabon produced big and positive headlines by setting aside more than ten percent of the country in a network of new national parks. The idea was to conserve the country’s rainforests and wildlife and profit from it through eco-tourism. But those efforts weren’t as successful as expected.

Scientist Warned of Japan’s Tsunami: Long before the tsunami hit Japan last year, paleontologist Koji Minoura had been warning of the danger. Minoura found evidence that a huge tsunami hit Sendai in the year 869, and he cautioned that a similar disaster was overdue.
Read more here.

Watch Nuclear Aftershocks Preview on PBS. See more from FRONTLINE.

Click here to watch the Frontline documentary ‘Nuclear Aftershocks.’

Should All Medical Research be Published? The British Medical Journal (BMJ) recently printed an editorial attacking the pharmaceutical and science community for the long-existing habit of only selectively publishing the results of clinical trials. BMJ editor-in-chief Fiona Godlee and neuroscientist Colin Blakemore discuss whether a false picture is being put forward by medical science.

Gabon’s Eco-tourism Efforts Stumble: A decade ago Gabon established more than a dozen new national parks. The country aimed to bring in revenue through eco-tourism. But the story of one big tourism investor shows the difficulty of actually getting tourism dollars flowing.

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In the spring of 2010, a major volcanic eruption in Iceland spread ash over huge parts of European air space. For several days, most European airports were closed. Millions of passengers were stranded, and the airlines were losing around $200 million a day. And there were knock-on effects as well; Kenyan flower growers, for example, couldn’t get their goods to markets in Europe. But now some scientists are working on a new ash-detection system that would be mounted on airplanes. In this episode of The World’s Technology Podcast, you’ll hear about the technology and the challenges it faces. You can see more photos, and a video as well.

We also have stories on the US government’s take-down of file-sharing website Megaupload, and about the effects that this week’s online protests against SOPA and PIPA might have had.

Then we have two stories out of India, one about a new online game called Angry Brides (modeled on Angry Birds), and the other about the explosion of mobile apps in the country.

And finally, the wreck of the cruise ship Costa Concordia got us to wondering about the current state of navigational technology on board ships like this.

A reminder that you can ignore us equally on Twitter, Facebook, and now Google +.

Here at The World’s Technology Podcast, we’ve never shied away from, shall we say, the more offbeat stories. And certainly this week’s episode contains one that’s sure to raise a few eyebrows. The Missionary Church of Kopimism, which has just been granted legal status in Sweden as a religious organization, enshrines the values of copying and sharing information. (Hence the symbol here, with the commands for “copy” and “paste”  within the yin/yang). As the Church states: “In our beliefs, communication is sacred.” Serious business or dangerous cult? Well, you can decide for yourself. We’ve got an interview with the Church’s 19 year old founder, Isak Gerson.

Also on this week’s podcast, we hear a plea from a young man in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where many of the minerals that make the guts of our electronic equipment are mined, and where that mining often leads to armed conflict. Delly Mawazo Sesete’s plea is simple: he wants Apple to make a conflict mineral-free phone by 2013.

The previous two stories might make you want to take a break from tech. Well, you’re in luck because we’ve got an interview with Daniel Sieberg, author of the book The Digital Diet: The 4-Step Plan to Break Your Tech Addiction and Regain Balance in Your Life. We here at the Tech Podcast recommend checking that out only *after* you’ve finished listening to the show. Thanks.

Two interviews round out this show. The first is with photographer Graham Harrison. He talks about the important role that Kodak, which is on the verge of bankruptcy, has played in photography during the company’s 131 year history. I also highly, highly recommend reading this story of how one man at Kodak developed the first digital camera back in the mid-1970s. It’s a great read.

The second interview is with Tom Thwaites, author of a new book called The Toaster Project: Or a Heroic Attempt to Build a Simple Electric Appliance from Scratch. DIY fans will truly get a kick out of this story.

A reminder that you can ignore us equally on Twitter, Facebook, and now Google +.

This Week: Happy New Year! We have a great show to start the new year with. You’ll hear from the renowned physicist Stephen Hawking. Hawking turns 70 this Sunday and to mark the occasion, he answers questions from BBC listeners about the future of humankind. Also, Hawking’s biographer and one of his former students tell us more about him as a person. Lake Kivu in Rwanda is full of dissolved methane that could explode if it escapes from the lake. The Rwandan government is trying to reduce that threat by using the gas as a source of energy.

Hawking on the Future of Humankind: To mark his 70th birthday, physicist Stephen Hawking answered a selection of questions from the listeners of BBC Radio 4′s Today Program. The topics of the questions ranged from the origins of the universe to the prospects for extra terrestrial life and the impact on Einstein’s theory of relativity should neutrinos be confirmed to travel faster than light. It seems clear that Hawking believes we we will have to colonize space if we are to avoid catastrophe. Finding intelligent life elsewhere in the universe, he says, would be the greatest scientific discovery ever, but he is not optimistic about the likely outcome.
Read Hawking’s answers on the BBC’s website.

More on Hawking: Dr Harvey Reall, a reader in theoretical physics at Cambridge and a former student of Hawking, recalls his many conversations with Stephen Hawking as involving a fair amount of “banter”. Humour, he says, is something that is very important to the scientist. Hawking’s biographer Kitty Ferguson says that family has meant a tremendous amount to him. Physics “is not all his life”, she adds – there is much more to him than just the science. On the issue of science though, she says that Stephen Hawking takes ordinary people on a “huge adventure”, giving people a sense of wonder when they follow him.

Rwanda Lake Poses Danger, Energy Promise:A project in Rwanda plans to tap methane gas from Lake Kivu and burn it to generate electricity.
See pictures and read more here.

We start 2012 with a fantastic B-side podcast. The BBC’s Peter Curran takes us on a tour of a giant silver donut in the English countryside. Sounds yummy, right? Well, just wait until you hear about the tech and the science inside the Diamond Light Source, the UK’s national synchrotron. As you’ll hear, these scientists take their infra-red  and x-rays very seriously. So seriously that they have their own podcast!

And we should note: with the new year comes a new way to savor the joys of the tech podcast. We have created a mobile app that can be used with most smartphones and tablet devices, including Android, iPhone, iPad, BlackBerry and Windows Phone. Just follow this link with your mobile browser, and then either download or “add to home screen” as preferred. Not only can you automagically access the latest podcast, but you can also read the show notes, and follow WTP on Twitter and Facebook. One stop shopping, as they say, for Tech That Matters.

A reminder that you can ignore us equally on Twitter, Facebook, and now Google +.

Photo: NEPTUNE Canada

This Week: Scientists and the general public are listening to the deep ocean, to whales, dolphins, under water volcanoes and people drilling for oil. But that has some worried. As many as 2 million songbirds a year are killed in the Mediterranean country, most to be eaten as a delicacy in local restaurants. A Saudi Arabian company has leased tens of thousands of acres in western Ethiopia to grow rice for export. The Ethiopian government says it will help provide food security for its citizens, but some who live in the region, say they’re not seeing any benefits.

Listening to the Deep Ocean:Scientists are establishing a worldwide network of deep-sea listening posts connected to the Internet. It allows researchers and the public to hear whales, ships and other underwater sounds. But the U.S. Navy is uneasy because these sounds might reveal the location of its submarines.
Read this story here.
My blog on efforts to understand noise pollution in the oceans.
Noisy oceans may hurt squids.

Saudi Company Invests in Ethiopian Agriculture:A Saudi Arabian company has leased tens of thousands of acres in western Ethiopia to grow rice for export. The Ethiopian government says it will help provide food security for its citizens, but some who live in the region, say they’re not seeing any benefits.


(Photos: Dallas McNamara)

Illegal Bird Trapping in Cyprus: As many as 2 million songbirds a year are killed in the Mediterranean country, most to be eaten as a delicacy in local restaurants.

Photo credit: Diann Prosser, USGS

This Week: Scientists studying how bird flu is transmitted between species, have created a new strain that can pass easily between ferrets. But U.S. authorities are asking the researchers not to publish all their findings because they fear the data will be used by terrorists. An epidemic of chronic kidney disease is sweeping across Central America. Researchers don’t know the cause, but they think it may be related to working conditions in sugarcane fields. And a new study suggests that Beethoven’s deafness profoundly influenced his compositions. Also, a quick update on the Durban climate conference, since we covered the story in Podcast no. 140. Scroll down on this page to read the latest coverage on the new international climate treaty signed in Durban.

Kidney Disease Epidemic in Central America: Across Central America, large numbers of men are dying from kidney disease. The cause is unknown, but a growing body of evidence suggests that hard manual labor — especially in the region’s sugarcane fields — is partly to blame.
Read more here: http://www.theworld.org/2011/12/kidney-disease-epidemic/
PRI’s The World looked into this story with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), a project of The Center for Public Integrity.
Learn how the United States promoted sugarcane production in Central America and resisted global attention to the CKD epidemic in this ICIJ story by reporters Sasha Chavkin and Ronnie Greene.

Bird Flu Research Raises Terrorism Fears: US authorities have asked the authors of two controversial bird flu studies to redact key details after a government advisory panel suggested the data could be used by terrorists. The papers show how a bird flu variant can pass easily between ferrets. Dutch researcher Ron Fouchier talks about the challenges of the study and what he thinks about the U.S. authorities’ request.
Read more here in this story by the BBC.
When Should Science be Censored? An article by the BBC’s Medical Correspondent, Fergus Walsh.

Beethoven’s Deafness Influenced his Music:A new study by Dutch researchers show that the German musicians deafness profoundly influenced his compositions. The researchers show that as his deafness progressed, he favored notes that were in the lower or middle-range. Eventually, when he became tonally deaf, he returned to using high notes.
Read more in this story on the BBC website.
Click here to read the study. The link also includes a video with the Isolo String Quartet demonstrating how Beethoven’s music changed over time.

The Durban Deal:> In The World Science Podcast no. 140, we brought you an update on the Durban climate conference. When I published that podcast, experts weren’t feeling hopeful about the negotiations at the conference ending in an international climate treaty. But those negotiations continued past the end date of the conference, and on December 11th, countries signed a treaty that legally binds them to cut emissions. The treaty has been named the Durban Deal and it won’t come into place until 2020. What are experts saying about the treaty? Here’s a list of links to help you make sense of the treaty and understand whether it’s likely to help slow down climate change.
“Durban deal clinched by two strong women, a united EU and a compromise.” On The Independent.
The Guardian on the the deal.
Reuters’ Analysis: “Durban deal may do little to cool heating planet.”
More on the deal on Mother Jones.
The Economist’s take.