Naked Scientists Special Editions

Treating osteoarthritis with antidepressants

Loading player...
Osteoarthritis is a painful condition caused by wear and tear to the slippery cartilage that normally coats and lubricates the bone surfaces in our joints. This doesn't repair itself very well, so, when it wears out, joint replacement is usually the only option. But recently, scientists out of Penn State University in the US have shown that the antidepressant drug paroxetine has an interesting side-effect: it encourages the cells that make and build cartilage to grow. So, perhaps, in the future we'll be able to pop a pill, rather than have a hip replacement. Fadia Kamal told Katie Haylor what... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists
23 Feb 2021 English United Kingdom Science

Other recent episodes

Could groundbreaking vaccine help eliminate malaria?

Malaria kills around 600,000 people every year. Nearly three-quarters of those deaths are children under five. For decades, scientists pursued one goal: a vaccine that could prevent the disease. One scientist dedicated his career to this challenge. Sir Adrian Hill of the University of Oxford set out to develop a…
15 Sep 19 min

What does it take to power an autonomous vehicle?

In this special episode, created in partnership with the Royal Institute of Navigation, we hear from Alex Stewart. Alex is a founding engineer at Oxa, a leading autonomous vehicle (AV) technology company in Oxfordshire, England, and he has spent the past twenty years developing advanced autonomous systems. He recently told…
7 Sep 9 min

Gorilla sperm, and subversive gambling machines

This time, macho male gorillas trade stature for sperm count, how gambling machines use sound and light to take the sting out of losing, whether babies are born hard-wired to dance, the way bird eggs are adapted to altitude, and the effect of a fever on the stickiness of malaria-infected…
26 Jul 33 min

Sickle cell defeated malaria and opened up pastures new

Malaria has been killing humans for at least fifteen thousand years, and our DNA still carries the scars. Ninety percent of the world's malaria cases are in Africa. But this isn't just a modern health crisis. It's written into our evolutionary history. New research from the University of Cambridge reveals…
13 Jul 8 min

Malaria in Africa

Africa remains at the centre of the global malaria crisis. The continent accounts for around 95 percent of all malaria cases, placing immense strain on health systems and costing hundreds of thousands of lives each year. In 2023, there were an estimated 249 million cases globally, with the vast majority…
20 May 10 min
All episodes