Podcast: Fighting fungi, the music of the moons, and self-healing crystals

In this edition: We join the fight against deadly fungal pathogens, listen to music inspired by moons, and discover how some crystals heal themselves.

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News: Fixing bones in conflict zones and award-winning sustainable business education – We hear how engineers have created fixators for broken bones being trialled in Sri Lanka, Gaza and Ukraine, and how the Business School has won an award for its Sustainability Leadership programme.

Fighting fungal pathogens – Fungal infections can be deadly, and a new WHO priority list has been drawn up to fight them. We hear from Professor Matthew Fisher, who is working on two of these worrying pathogens.

Music of the Moons – We listen in as astronaut Helen Sharman and conductor Amanda Lee Falkenberg lead ‘LUNAR’ – an outreach event about the science behind our neighbouring planets’ moons and the music Falkenberg has created to illustrate them.

The self-healing power crystals – We learn how crystals of surprising materials including paracetamol and ethanol can ‘heal’ themselves, regrowing their original structure, and how this could help researchers manipulate their growth.

This section is an extract from the Never Lick the Spoon podcast by the Institute for Molecular Science and Engineering.

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The podcast is presented by Gareth Mitchell, a lecturer on Imperial's MSc Science Communication course and the presenter of Digital Planet on the BBC World Service, with contributions from our roving reporters in the Communications and Public Affairs Division.