Presented by Alok Jha and produced by Andy Duckworth 

Science Weekly podcast: The birds and the bees (X-rated version)

Nature's most intimate sexual secrets; Peter Atkins on the limits of science; plus, why chemistry often gets overlooked
  
  


WARNING: this podcast contains frank information and graphic details about animal sex. Again.

Peter Atkins, professor of chemistry at Oxford University, goes right to the limits of science. We then take it a bit further as we look at some of the themes in his new book On Being which is out soon.

Peter is giving a lecture on the limits of science at the Royal Institution on 22 March.

We go behind the scenes at a new exhibition which is the X-rated version of the birds and the bees. They're all at it like rabbits.

Sexual Nature is at London's Natural History Museum. We've put together a beautiful audio slideshow to give you a flavour of the exhibition.

In our show-and-tell section, we discuss a study that has drawn up a geographical map of the incidence of allergies; a universal flu vaccine; plus the International Year of Chemistry - and why the discipline often gets overlooked.

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Meet the Guardian's crack team of science bloggers:

The Lay Scientist by Martin Robbins
Life and Physics by Jon Butterworth
Punctuated Equilibrium by GrrlScientist
Political Science by Evan Harris

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