A world going on underground
Unexpected Elements
BBC
4.4 • 567 Ratings
🗓️ 24 May 2024
⏱️ 50 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
How would you feel if you spent more and more of your life underground? Could that be how more and more of us live in the future? Presenter Marnie Chesterton and panellists Candice Bailey in Johannesburg, South Africa and Tristan Ahtone in Helsinki, Finland dig into subterranean science. Did you know around a million people live underground in China's capital Beijing? Have you heard of the race to dig the deepest hole in the Earth? In this episode we explore how humans have been digging deep for over 3,000 years explorer Christian Clot tell us why living underground with no contact to the world above was a nicer experience that you might expect.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | In 2019, we began investigating the disappearance of Dr. Ruzha Ignatva. |
| 0:08.0 | I believe we are a very special network. |
| 0:10.0 | A scammer who stole billions from investors around the world. |
| 0:15.0 | She's on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted list. |
| 0:18.0 | And now, we have some unmissable updates. She has money and when you have |
| 0:23.0 | money you have power. Join me, Jamie Bartlett, as the hunt for the missing crypto queen continues. |
| 0:29.5 | Listen first on BBC Sounds. So this week, someone finally explained why the sea level changes around the world |
| 0:42.2 | in a way that I finally understand. |
| 0:45.2 | For years, I've heard people talk about how gravity is different in different parts of the planet. |
| 0:51.0 | But yesterday, I was chatting to a scientist who asked me to imagine drilling down through the centre of the planet, but yesterday I was chatting to a scientist who asked me to imagine drilling |
| 0:56.2 | down through the centre of the earth and out the other side. There's a map called Antipodes that |
| 1:04.1 | allows me to plug in Cardiff in Wales and my avatar's head pops out the other side in the ocean |
| 1:10.7 | south of New Zealand. |
| 1:13.0 | Now, all the density of the stuff in between that ocean surface and Cardiff will pull you down |
| 1:20.1 | and the denser the stuff, the stronger the pull from gravity on the ocean. |
| 1:26.2 | Apologies if that's totally obvious to you, |
| 1:28.5 | but for me, the penny has finally dropped. |
| 1:31.6 | And the gravitational pull of that penny |
| 1:33.7 | depends on the stuff under our feet. |
| 1:37.1 | I'm Marnie Chesterton from the BBC World Service. |
| 1:40.0 | This is Unexpected Elements. |
| 1:48.4 | Thank you. this is unexpected elements. I am, as usual, joined by a global panel of journalists |
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