2025-08-22
19 分钟This episode is sponsored by Wellcome's podcast, When Science Finds a Way.
Hello and welcome to The World, the Universe and Us, the weekly news podcast from New Scientist.
I'm Penny Sarche.
And I'm Chelsea White.
Today on the show, we're revisiting one of the most controversial experiments in physics,
the notorious cold fusion of the 1980s,
and learning the secrets of how premium chocolate gets its delicious aromatic flavor.
But we're starting with an entirely new approach
for boosting the immune system that may have the potential to tackle all viral illnesses.
So we're at that back to school time of year.
And for many families, this brings an annual sense of dread.
We're talking about months of misery as waves of illnesses pass through your family.
There's colds, obviously, flu, COVID, but also RSV,
hand-foot-mouth disease, slap-cheek syndrome, norovirus.
There's so many.
Yeah, I can't tell you how many times recently I've heard someone say,
well, something's going around.
And part of the problem is that viruses are notoriously hard to vaccinate against
because they're constantly evolving new variants.
But researchers in the U.S. are developing a whole new approach,