This week we discuss the science of nothingness with our guest Oxford physicist Professor Frank Close. Prepare to have your mind blown by such questions as: what is the universe expanding into? What was there before the big bang? And why didn't the big bang happen sooner? Professor Close's new book The Void tackles these brain-teasers and more.
Our second guest Mark Pilkington is a denizen of science's hinterlands and strange fringes. Mark used to write the 'Far Out' columns for the Guardian's Life section - all of which now sit very happily in our archive - and he has just compiled the best of these incredible tales into a handy Christmas-stocking-sized volume.
There's plenty more, of course. Ian Sample reports from the Kennedy Space Center on the non-launch of the European space lab on the shuttle Atlantis. We discuss why the government's chief scientist Sir David King has got himself in a pickle. And we bring you news of intelligent chimps, and report why dogs can handle abstract thought.
