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Welcome to Part 1 of CrowdScience鈥檚 year-end extravaganza! It鈥檚 an extra-festive episode this week. For those who celebrate it, Christmas is the perfect time to pause and look back at the year just gone. Here on CrowdScience we鈥檝e had a great 2023: we answered dozens of listener questions, ranging from climbing plants and ostriches to panic attacks and the weight of the internet.

This week presenter Anand Jagatia magically appears with a Santa鈥檚 sack full of special features. We鈥檙e catching up with some of our favourite guests from the past year and answering some of the extra questions that we never got the chance to cover.

First up we hear from presenter Tim Clare who we first heard in the episode 鈥淲hy do some people have panic attacks?鈥� He takes Anand through his new book 鈥� it's about board games: why we play them, how they鈥檝e existed throughout history and what he鈥檚 learned about himself in the process of writing it.

Then it鈥檚 time for a bonus question. The CrowdScience team often get questions about noise pollution. One listener got in touch to ask whether the transition to electric vehicles will reduce this noise. Acoustic scientist Kurt Fristrup and epidemiologist Erica Walker give their perspectives on this question, and how sound and noise can sometimes be very different things. CrowdScience listener Marie - who originally starred in an episode about why she doesn鈥檛 have any sense of time - returns. Since the programme she has been speaking to psychologists about her problem and tells Anand what more she鈥檚 learnt.

We received another bonus question after a show in 2023 about AI: why can鈥檛 artificial intelligence be designed to explain it鈥檚 decisions? Producer Phil returns to data scientist Briana Brownell from the original episode to ask her why AI decision making is so very complex.

Finally, as it鈥檚 the season for holiday music, we鈥檙e asking what makes the genre so distinctive? Composer Jane Watkins - who originally created the sound of a panic attack for a CrowdScience episode - brings in her musical keyboard to demonstrate what makes a Christmas song so specifically 鈥榓 Christmas song鈥�.

It鈥檚 all topped-off with the premiere of a happy and heart-warming song performed by the CrowdScience Christmas Choir 鈥� a little gift for our loyal listeners.

Presenter: Anand Jagatia
Producer: Phil Sansom
Editor: Richard Collings
Production Co-ordinator: Jonathan Harris
Studio Managers: Tim Heffer and Cath McGhee

Featuring:

Tim Clare, author/poet/podcaster
Dr. Kurt Fristrup, acoustic scientist, Colorado State University
Prof. Erica Walker, RGSS Assistant Professor of Epidemiology, Brown University School of Public Health
Marie Bergholtz
Briana Brownell, data scientist
Jane Watkins, composer