Unexpected Elements

By BBC World Service

Technology

What's Unexpected Elements about?

The news you know, the science you don’t.

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LAST EPISODE

Migrate ideas

06.01.2023

Human migration is in the headlines again – India and Australia have announced a new migration deal, in the US a Covid-inspired policy that allowed migrants to be quickly expelled has come to an end, and in the UK new ...

Unexpected Elements episodes:

06.01.2023 Migrate ideas Human migration is in the headlines again – India and Australia have announced a new migration deal, in the US a Covid-inspired policy that allowed migrants to be quickly expelled has come to an end, and in the UK new ...
05.25.2023 Signals, seaweed and space On the anniversary of the first telegraph being sent, the team discover how the telegraph was used as a colonial tool in Ghana, and how an eccentric Brazilian emperor helped spark a communications revolution. They also reveal how tiny worms ...
05.18.2023 Co-operation and cohesion After the elections in Thailand and Turkey, we explore the forces that shape how you decide to vote. Clue: a lot of it comes down to us being social animals. We getting stuck into various sticky subjects – the glue ...
05.11.2023 Coronation exploration Unexpected Elements is all about finding surprising stories and nuggets of science in everyday news. Each week we start by taking a news story that’s floating around and use that as a launchpad for three other science stories that become ...
03.19.2023 Return of Cyclone Freddy 34 days after it first formed at the far end of the Indian Ocean, record-breaking Cyclone Freddy made a repeat landfall on Mozambique as well as passing over Malawi, causing extensive damage and loss of life. Climate scientists Liz Stephens ...
03.12.2023 Human genome editing: Promise and Peril We meet experts at the Human Genome Editing Summit in London, seeking to cure genetic disease and ensure that it is safe and available to all. Roland Pease hears from Victoria Gray, the first person to be cured of the ...
03.05.2023 Drought worsens in East Africa The long rains of East Africa are forecast to fail again, for the third year running, precipitating a food crisis affecting millions. Science In Action explores the science of the drought, hears about new methods improving forecasts, and what is ...
02.26.2023 Animals at the Wuhan Market DNA has revealed potential animal COVID carriers at the Wuhan market, but what does that tell us about the start of the pandemic? Roland talks to two of the experts behind the new analysis: Dr Florence Débarre and Professor Eddie ...
02.26.2023 Cyclone Freddy batters Madagascar Cyclone Freddy has made landfall on Madagascar, leaving destruction in its wake. At the time this edition of Science In Action is going to air, Freddy is on course to reach Mozambique and South Africa. Freddy, which has been gaining ...
02.19.2023 CRISPR & bioethics In the decade since the genome editing capabilities of CRISPR-Cas9 emerged, research into novel medicines has boomed – but alongside progress comes new ethical considerations. Controversy erupted in 2018, when Chinese scientist He Jiankui created the first babies with edited ...
02.11.2023 Turkey-Syria earthquake In the early hours of Monday, a powerful earthquake hit Kahramanmaras in Turkey. Nine hours later another struck. When this edition of Science in Action first aired, 19,000 people were reported to have died, but that number was expected to ...
02.05.2023 Science on ice Pull on an extra layer and stay toasty whilst Science in Action braces for a deep freeze. Whilst we know plenty about the ice on the Earth’s poles, Roland is on a chilling journey to see what can be found ...
01.29.2023 Bird flu (H5N1) outbreak in mink An outbreak of pathogenic bird flu, H5N1, in a Spanish mink farm could be a cause for concern. Some experts fear the virus may now spill over to other mammals without strict surveillance. Marion Koopmans, professor of virology at Erasmus ...
01.22.2023 Climate science activism Climate researcher, Rose Abramoff took to the stage at the American Geophysical Union (AGU) fall meetings, not as a guest speaker but in protest. Whilst her demonstration only lasted 15 seconds, she found her employment terminated from Oak Ridge National ...
01.15.2023 Atmospheric rivers Flood warnings in parts of California have seen some of the state’s best known celebrities flee their homes. The current weather conditions are in part the result of ‘Atmospheric rivers’ – literally fast flowing rivers of water vapor in the ...
01.08.2023 One year on from the Tonga eruption We’re taking a look back at the January 2022 eruption of Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai, which literally sent shockwaves around the world. One year on, and we’re still uncovering what made the volcano so powerful, as well as unpacking its long ...
01.01.2023 The James Webb Space Telescope - the first 6 months NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has produced amazing images in its first 5 months, but amazing science as well. Roland hears from one of the leading astronomers on the JWST programme, Dr Heidi Hammel, as well as other experts on ...
12.25.2022 Mosquito pesticide failing Mosquito pesticide failing - prevention of dengue fever and other diseases at risk. Dangerous bird flu evolving fast - researchers are learning why bird flu is persisting and spreading fast round the world, and assess the threat to humans. Drilling ...
12.18.2022 Fusion milestone Fusion milestone - the science behind the headlines. Laser fusion expert Kate Lancaster walks us through the technology that produced energy gain at the US's National Ignition Facility NIF Whirlwinds on Mars What the sounds of a dust devil passing ...
12.11.2022 Ancient warmth in Greenland Two-million-year-old molecular fossils reveal flourishing woodlands and widespread animals in Greenland's pre-Ice-Age past, and give hints to the Arctic’s future under global warming. We hear from a molecular palaeontologist and a climate modeller. DNA also reveals the enduring genetic influence ...
12.04.2022 COVID spreads in China Hong Kong health expert Professor Malik Peiris relates the lessons from the devastation there earlier this year. UK virologist Dr Tom Peacock reveals the unusual origins and evolution of omicron, and explains the risks of dangerous new variants. New studies ...
11.27.2022 A distant planet’s atmosphere A distant planet's atmosphere - NASA's JWST space telescope has unpicked the chemical contents and state of the atmosphere of planet WASP-39b 700 light years away. Astronomer Hannah Wakeford explains. Earth's atmospheric haze and global warming - meteorologist Laura Wilcox ...
11.20.2022 Online harassment of Covid scientists Since the Covid-19 pandemic began, scientists studying the virus have become targets of online harassment, and more recently, death threats. Roland speaks to Dr Angela Rasmussen, virologist at the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization at the University of Saskatchewan, about ...
11.13.2022 Neurons that restore walking in paralysed patients Researchers have identified which neurons, when electrically stimulated, can restore the ability to walk in paralysed patients. Professor Jocelyne Bloch, Associate Professor at the Université de Lausanne, tells Roland how the technology works. Astronomers have discovered the closest black hole ...
11.06.2022 What peat can tell us about our future The Congo Basin is home to the world’s largest peatland. Simon Lewis, Professor of Global Change Science at UCL and the University of Leeds, tells Roland how peatlands all around the world are showing early alarm bells of change. From ...
10.30.2022 Seismic events on Mars The latest observations from Nasa’s InSight Mars Lander and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) have revealed new information on Mars’ interior structure. Dr Anna Horleston, Senior Research Associate in Planetary Seismology at the University of Bristol, talks us through the mars-quakes ...
10.23.2022 The most powerful explosion ever recorded It’s been an unusual week for astronomers, with telescopes swivelled off course to observe GRB221009A, the brightest gamma ray burst ever recorded. Gamma ray bursts aren’t unusual, the by-product of some supernovae are recorded weekly. Whilst the afterglow of these ...
10.16.2022 Inserting human neurons into the brains of rats Sergiu Pasca, Professor of Psychiatry at Stanford University has left the petri dish in the drawer and grown human neurons inside the brains of juvenile rats. Successful connectivity and brain function may allow for more rigorous testing and understanding of ...
10.09.2022 Nobel Prize 2022: The science behind the winners For the scientific community, the Nobel Prize announcements are an important part of the yearly science calendar. The award is one of the most widely celebrated and gives us a moment to reflect on some of the leading scientific work ...
10.01.2022 The final moments of DART NASA’s latest mission, DART hit the headlines this week after the space agency’s satellite successfully collided with a far off asteroid. The mission acts as a demonstration of Earth’s first planetary defence system. Jon Amos, one of BBC’s Science correspondents, ...
09.24.2022 Should we mine the deep sea? The first license of its kind has been granted for deep-sea mining. It will be used to run early tests to see whether the seabed could be good place to harvest rare earth materials in the future. These earth minerals ...
09.18.2022 Science and the causes behind Pakistan’s floods A new report by the World Weather Attribution consortium demonstrates the impact of global warming on flooding in Pakistan. The consortium are helping to assess the link between humanitarian disasters and global change, faster than ever before. The work, conducted ...
09.11.2022 The genetics of human intelligence Early humans and Neanderthals had similar-sized brains but around 6 million years ago something happened that gave us the intellectual edge. The answer may lie in a tiny mutation in a single gene that meant more neurons could develop in ...
09.04.2022 The China Heatwave and the New Normal Hot on the tail of China’s heatwave comes the other side of the extreme coin – tragic flooding. Also, a coming global shortage of sulfur, while scientists produce useful oxygen on Mars in the MOXIE experiment. Prof Chunzai Wang is ...
08.28.2022 Surprises from a Martian Lake Bed The Jezero Crater on Mars was targeted by Nasa’s Perseverence rover because from orbit, there was strong evidence it had at some point contained a lake. When the Mars 2020 mission landed, it didn’t take long to spot rocks protruding ...
08.20.2022 Deadly drought East Africa has endured more than two years on continuous drought. The latest predictions suggest the drought is not likely to end any time soon. We look at why climate change and weather patterns in the Pacific and Indian oceans ...
08.14.2022 Icelandic volcano erupts again We talk to volcano scientist Ed Marshall in Iceland about working at the volcano which has burst into life spectacularly again after a year of quiet. Also in the programme, we'll be following migrating moths across Europe in light aircraft ...
08.07.2022 Synthetic mouse embryos with brains and hearts This week two research groups announced that they have made synthetic mouse embryos that developed brains and beating hearts in the test tube, starting only with embryonic stem cells. No sperm and eggs were involved. Previously, embryos created this way ...
07.30.2022 The first galaxies at the universe's dawn In the last week, teams of astronomers have rushed to report ever deeper views of the universe thanks to the James Webb Space Telescope. These are galaxies of stars more than 13.5 billion light years from us and we see ...
07.23.2022 Heat waves in the Northern Hemisphere The extreme heat wave in western Europe over the last couple of weeks is just one of many in the Northern Hemisphere in 2022. How is global warming changing the atmosphere to make heat waves more frequent and more intense? ...
07.16.2022 First images from the James Webb Space Telescope Roland Pease talks to two astronomers who began working on the James Webb Space Telescope more than two decades ago and have now seen the first spectacular results of their labours. Marcia Rieke of the University of Arizona and JWST's ...
07.11.2022 Long Covid ‘brain fog’ Following a bout of Covid-19, a significant number of people suffer with weeks or months of 'brain fog' - poor concentration, forgetfulness, and confusion. This is one of the manifestations of Long Covid. A team of scientists in the United ...
07.03.2022 Extreme heat death risk in Latin America Audio for this episode was updated on 8th July. A new analysis of deaths in cities across Latin America suggests rising global temperatures could lead to large numbers of deaths in the region and elsewhere in the world. Even a ...
06.26.2022 Monster microbe Researchers have discovered a species of bacteria which dwarfs all others by thousands of times. Normally you need a microscope to see single-celled bacteria, but Thiomargarita magnifica is the length and width of an eyelash. It's been found growing in ...
06.19.2022 Thirty years after the Earth Summit Thirty years ago, world leaders met at the United Nations Earth Summit in Rio and appeared to commit to action to tackle two of the world's greatest environmental threats. The Earth Summit launched the UN Climate Change Convention and the ...
06.11.2022 Body scan reveals HIV's hideouts Researchers have developed a medical imaging technique which reveals where in the body HIV lies hidden, even when people have their infection well controlled by antiviral drugs. The team at the University of California, San Francisco hope this will lead ...
06.04.2022 Should we worry about the latest Omicron subvariants? Should we worry about the most recent Omicron subvariants, BA 4 and BA5? They are the subtypes of the Covid-19 virus now dominant in southern Africa and spreading elsewhere. New research suggests that they are better at evading our antibody ...
05.29.2022 Heat death by volcano and other stories This week Science in Action comes from a vast gathering of earth scientists in Vienna, at the general assembly of the European Geosciences Union. Roland Pease hears the latest insights into the cataclysmic eruption of Hunga Tonga in the Pacific ...
05.21.2022 Death in the rainforest Tree mortality in tropical moist forests in Australia has been increasing since the mid 1980s. The death rate of trees appears to have doubled over that time period. According to an international team of researchers, the primary cause is drier ...
05.15.2022 Portrait of the monster black hole at our galaxy’s heart The heaviest thing in the Galaxy has now been imaged by the biggest telescope on Earth. This is Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the centre of our Galaxy – a gas and star-consuming object, a 4 million times ...

Older episodes

Unexpected Elements

What's Unexpected Elements about?

Download our free app to listen on your phone

Unexpected Elements episodes:

Migrate ideas

Signals, seaweed and space

Co-operation and cohesion

Coronation exploration

Return of Cyclone Freddy

Human genome editing: Promise and Peril

Drought worsens in East Africa

Animals at the Wuhan Market

Cyclone Freddy batters Madagascar

CRISPR & bioethics

Turkey-Syria earthquake

Science on ice

Bird flu (H5N1) outbreak in mink

Climate science activism

Atmospheric rivers

One year on from the Tonga eruption

The James Webb Space Telescope - the first 6 months

Mosquito pesticide failing

Fusion milestone

Ancient warmth in Greenland

COVID spreads in China

A distant planet’s atmosphere

Online harassment of Covid scientists

Neurons that restore walking in paralysed patients

What peat can tell us about our future

Seismic events on Mars

The most powerful explosion ever recorded

Inserting human neurons into the brains of rats

Nobel Prize 2022: The science behind the winners

The final moments of DART

Should we mine the deep sea?

Science and the causes behind Pakistan’s floods

The genetics of human intelligence

The China Heatwave and the New Normal

Surprises from a Martian Lake Bed

Deadly drought

Icelandic volcano erupts again

Synthetic mouse embryos with brains and hearts

The first galaxies at the universe's dawn

Heat waves in the Northern Hemisphere

First images from the James Webb Space Telescope

Long Covid ‘brain fog’

Extreme heat death risk in Latin America

Monster microbe

Thirty years after the Earth Summit

Body scan reveals HIV's hideouts

Should we worry about the latest Omicron subvariants?

Heat death by volcano and other stories

Death in the rainforest

Portrait of the monster black hole at our galaxy’s heart