This week on the show that brings you the science behind the news, we’re looking at news that China’s population has fallen for the second year running. Worrying news for China’s economy, but would a declining population be a good thing for the planet? The Unexpected Elements team on three continents meet the musical frogs who are having to climb a mountain to keep their populations stable, and dig deep to explore the earth’s declining microbiome and the hope scientists have for the future. As the Africa Cup of Nations continues, we’ll be wondering how you might date a footballer. Not in a romantic sense… we hear about some suspiciously mature youth players and how science can help when the age on a passport isn’t reliable. Marnie will be wondering why Japanese men are shouting their love from a hilltop, and unpicking the recipe for a truly satisfying hug. All that plus a postbag bursting with multilingual puns, and the reason Portuguese speakers have trouble with English doors. Presented by Marnie Chesterton
Produced by Ben Motley, with Alex Mansfield, Dan Welsh, Katy Tomsett and Jack Lee

Populations of people, frogs and microbes

The news you know, the science you don’t. Unexpected Elements looks beyond everyday narratives to discover a goldmine of scientific stories and connections from around the globe. From Afronauts, to why we argue, to a deep dive on animal lifespans: see the world in a new way.

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The sight of horses running wild in a city leads panellist Tristan Ahtone in Helsinki to rethink how we rate horses' welfare, Chhavi Sachdev in Mumbai tells the story of the country that is cloning the Lionel Messi of horses for sport and presenter Marnie Chesterton finds out why roboticist Eakta Jain is studying horses to engineer better relationships between humans and autonomous vehicles.  All that, plus the slippery record for the world's biggest snake, how the alphabet came to be and asteroid forcing scientists to reiterate 'it will not hit Earth'.

Horsey driverless cars and competitive cloning

Join the Unexpected team as they journey beyond the borders of reality to ask why we believe in the illogical.   After a fraudulent psychic dupes 1.3 million Americans, panellist Camilla Mota turns to history for insight into how scientists debunk such con artists. The Unexpected library harbours secrets of paranormal experimentation and dead air live on the BBC, and panellist Phillys Mwatee reveals why our beliefs win out over hard evidence written in ink. Nevertheless, in a world rife with conspiracy and vaccine hesitancy, Melissa Kapulu from the KEMRI-Wellcome Trust Research Programme in Kilifi, Kenya, shares the fascinating scientific obstacles faced in the quest to eradicate malaria from Africa once and for all.  Also hear how a Nigerian pastor and super-star has been making Melissa's job much harder, and life on fake mars. 
 
Presenter: Alex Lathbridge, Phillys Mwatee and Camilla Mota 
Producer: Harrison Lewis, Alex Mansfield and Noa Dowling

A scientific séance

These days, over a trillion semiconductor microchips are made and shipped each year. The industry is worth eye-watering amounts, and since the 2020-2023 global shortage, nearly all governments are trying to get a slice of the industrial wafer. But what was it like just 40 years ago trying to get yourself a home computer when your communist leaders didn’t approve, and there were nowhere enough devices to go round anyway? Andrada Fiscutean spoke to some of the bootleggers. These days, not only are computing devices in just about everyone’s hands, they are mostly interconnected to vast arrays of machines collectively forming “the cloud”, which provides so much of our economic and scientific infrastructure. It is no longer about stand alone computing.  But just maybe the deep future of computing lies in using individual atoms and photons as information-bearing digits. This is the basis of “quantum computing” which could use the properties and mechanics of the quantum scale to perform hugely complicated calculations in fractions of a second.  Prof David Lucas of Oxford University physics department and colleagues are building some key demonstrators of the techniques we need to master. And just recently, they built an impressive manifestation of “Blind Quantum Computing”, which just might enable something like the quantum cloud of the future. Also, we have a look at an app for modern motorists that adjusts a piece of music to react to the movement of the car. Developed by Mercedes-AMG and the rapper Will.i.am, Christine Yohannes has been thinking about drivers becoming the musical maestros of their own journeys.  Presented by Alex Lathbridge, with Andrada Fiscutean and Christine Yohannes.
Produced by Alex Mansfield, with Harrison Lewis and Tom Bonnett.

Computer memories and quantum futures

Beyonce's new album tops the charts with a reappraisal of who can do country music and the Unexpected Elements team has a hoedown. Panellist Christine Yohannes unearths new research that changes our understanding of the origins of cowboys. Chhavi Sachdev has a thing or two to teach Beyonce as she reveals why the banjo has it's characteristic twang and we meet a man with powerful chemistry - TikTok dance sensation Dr Andre Isaacs from the College of the Holy Cross in Massachusetts tells presenter Marnie Chesterton how dancing in his lab helps explain click chemistry.  We also hear how new species could be given names that refer to the locations they're found in, we discuss whether mining is causing the Earth to shrink and, of course, eclipses make an appearance. We shed some light on how an eclipse over 100 years ago helped prove Einstein's theory of relativity.

Beyoncé, banjos and dancing chemistry

In a year when billions of people have been to the ballot box, what do stickleback fish have to do with it? Alex Lathbridge, Tristan Ahtone and Candice Bailey discuss some unexpected elements of electoral studies. Can ancient geology really map election outcomes? What has machine learning done for polling? Psychologist Sandra Obradović drops in to share some of her expertise in the psychology of voting with the team. Plus, what does a solar eclipse have to do with dragons? Presenter: Alex Lathbridge, with Tristan Ahtone and Candice Bailey
Producer: Katie Tomsett, with Harrison Lewis, Alex Mansfield and Phil Sansom

Populations of people, frogs and microbes

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