Chernobyl: 40 years later
Unexpected Elements
BBC
4.4 • 565 Ratings
🗓️ 24 April 2026
⏱️ 50 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On 26th April 1986, Reactor 4 at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine exploded, releasing vast amounts of radiation. Now, 40 years later, it remains the worst nuclear accident in history.
Using the Chernobyl anniversary as a starting point, this week the Unexpected Elements team find out about the weird life thriving at the site of the nuclear reactor. Next up, we discover how radioactive isotopes can help doctors diagnose cancer.
We then turn our attention to ‘gamma gardens’, which were developed by scientists in the 1950s and 1960s to investigate the impacts of radiation on plants. Professor Helen Anne Curry, from the Georgia Institute of Technology, joins us to reveal more.
All that, plus many more Unexpected Elements.
Presenter: Marnie Chesterton, with Andrada Fiscutean and Dr Emmanuel Samani Producers: Alice Lipscombe-Southwell, with Margaret Sessa Hawkins and Georgia Christie
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts. |
| 0:07.4 | I'm Dilley Carter, and I love organising. |
| 0:11.8 | In my brand new podcast, sort your life out, unpacked, celebrity guests join me to unbox three revealing items from their home. |
| 0:18.7 | Oh, wow. I wasn't expecting this. |
| 0:21.6 | Along the way, I'll be given you practical hacks to help you declutter your life as well. |
| 0:26.2 | This is the tough love I need. |
| 0:27.4 | Don't hold back. |
| 0:28.5 | I'm definitely tucking you with me back to my house. |
| 0:31.7 | Sort your life out, unpacked. |
| 0:33.5 | Watch on EyePlayer, listen on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:38.1 | So this weekend, I went for a hike through the beautiful countryside where I grew up, |
| 0:44.3 | which as a teenager I couldn't have cared less about and certainly wouldn't have walked through for no reason. |
| 0:50.7 | My reason as an adult is that it's bluebell season. |
| 0:55.2 | These beautiful plants carpet the woodland in this violet mist. |
| 0:59.9 | And on my way to admire the scene, I walked up hills and across fields to reach the woods. |
| 1:05.7 | There was an abundance of greenery. |
| 1:08.2 | But I couldn't help but notice how much of the landscape has been shaped by humans. |
| 1:13.8 | Chalk pits, giving way to ploughed fields where sheep grazed in medieval times. |
| 1:19.1 | I climbed to the top of a hill with a church on it and looked back from it, |
| 1:23.2 | and from a distance it seemed to reduce the human influence. |
| 1:28.3 | I feasted on the view of the rolling hills with enough woodlands to hide our human footprint, |
| 1:34.1 | the quarries, the buildings, the roads. |
... |
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