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Welcome to Part 1 of CrowdScience\u2019s year-end extravaganza! It\u2019s 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\u2019ve 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\u2019s sack full of special features. We\u2019re 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 \u201cWhy do some people have panic attacks?\u201d He takes Anand through his new book \u2013 it's about board games: why we play them, how they\u2019ve existed throughout history and what he\u2019s learned about himself in the process of writing it.

Then it\u2019s 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\u2019t have any sense of time - returns. Since the programme she has been speaking to psychologists about her problem and tells Anand what more she\u2019s learnt.

We received another bonus question after a show in 2023 about AI: why can\u2019t artificial intelligence be designed to explain it\u2019s 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\u2019s the season for holiday music, we\u2019re 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 \u2018a Christmas song\u2019.

It\u2019s all topped-off with the premiere of a happy and heart-warming song performed by the CrowdScience Christmas Choir \u2013 a little gift for our loyal listeners.

Presenter: Anand Jagatia \nProducer: Phil Sansom \nEditor: Richard Collings \nProduction Co-ordinator: Jonathan Harris \nStudio Managers: Tim Heffer and Cath McGhee

Featuring:

Tim Clare, author/poet/podcaster \nDr. Kurt Fristrup, acoustic scientist, Colorado State University \nProf. Erica Walker, RGSS Assistant Professor of Epidemiology, Brown University School of Public Health \nMarie Bergholtz \nBriana Brownell, data scientist \nJane Watkins, composer