Old smartphones powered by solar panels are being used to catch illegal loggers in rainforests across the world.

Each year, more than 150 million mobiles are discarded in the US alone - so we’re looking at clever ways to reuse them. But should we really rethink our consumer habits and keep our phones for longer?

Produced and presented by Julie Ball.

Photo: Rainforest Connection

Looking for the happiest places in the world. We follow in the tracks of someone who gave up his job to cycle round the world to investigate happiness. From Costa Rica to Canada to Bhutan - what are the best ways of bringing about a happier planet?

Could your family photos end up being stored on a piece of glass? Might you find yourself saving a file to DNA storage? Or downloading a video from a data centre in space?

Current methods of storing information are susceptible to decay and have limited capacity but novel approaches could provide plentiful storage so that our selfies outlast our species.

Reporter/ Producer William Kremer for the BBC World Service.

Picture credit: Southampton University

Period poverty affects girls and women across the world who can’t afford to buy sanitary pads or tampons each month. So what are the alternatives?

In a refugee camp in Jordan, we follow one woman as she tries to get a sanitary pad micro-factory off the ground. While in Malawi, they’re handing out menstrual cups to teenagers.

This podcast was first published on 7 May 2019

Presenter: Vibeke Venema

(Photo Caption: A menstrual cup / Photo Credit: Getty Images)

"Get rid of the girl who smells" - this is the reaction thousands of traumatised new mothers face every year because of a condition called fistula.

But in Madagascar some women, who have successfully been treated, become patient ambassadors finding others with the same condition.

They personally accompany them to clinics to get life-changing surgery and support.

This podcast was first published on 2 April 2019.

Reporter/ Producer: Amelia Martyn-Hemphill

Monitoring devices implanted in a person’s chest are helping doctors predict if something is about to go wrong with a patient’s heart. Sometimes they can tell a month in advance. It’s allowing cardiologists to adjust treatment and prevent problems before they occur.

Produced and presented by Nick Holland.

The Prison Voicemail app connects inmates and their families, helping them stay in touch throughout a sentence.

Protecting the rainforest could make people millions of dollars under a pioneering new scheme.

Bankers and conservationists have teamed up to regrow a large area of Indonesia’s jungle where endangered orangutans and tigers live.

Reporter: Jo Mathys

Image: An orangutan (Getty Images)

Nurses and midwives in Ethiopia are being trained to perform emergency operations, saving thousands of lives.

People Fixing the World follows one of them, Seida Guadu, as she operates to try to save the lives of a mother and her unborn child.

This podcast was first published on 25 June 2019.

Reporter: Ruth Evans

Two life-saving apps have been adapted to fix problems caused by the Covid-19 pandemic - hear how ideas we’ve visited before have developed and grown.

One of them has been helping ambulance drivers find their way to field hospitals; the other has been finding volunteers to run errands for people who are vulnerable.

Presenter: Daniel Gordon