Coronation exploration
Unexpected Elements
BBC
4.4 • 567 Ratings
🗓️ 11 May 2023
⏱️ 51 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
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 increasingly unexpected.
This week, the team squints at the recent lavish ceremony and ritual of the British King’s coronation and asks: What does it all mean? Why is ritual so important to us humans, and why does it always seem to involve precious objects?
That’s where we start - but in this show, our global panel of science journalists can take us to all sorts of places. We’ll be touring the ocean floors with the scientist who wants to map all of them, soaring in the skies of India to discover why one of the country’s biggest birds might be in trouble, and we’re even going off planet to find out about an asteroid with enough gold in it to build a nice shiny house out of the stuff – for every human on Earth.
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. |
| 0:21.7 | She has money and when you have money, you have power. |
| 0:24.6 | Join me, Jamie Bartlett, as the hunt for the missing crypto queen continues. |
| 0:29.5 | Listen first on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:32.9 | BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts. |
| 0:42.4 | Thank you. BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts. So this week, a big, important event happened in my home city. |
| 0:47.3 | Only a couple of miles from my house, there was a parade of thousands of people wearing fancy, |
| 0:52.7 | colourful uniforms and horses wearing the same, and a golden coach. |
| 0:57.4 | I avoided it all and watched on the telly. |
| 1:00.4 | But afterwards, I ventured out into the London rain to do my favourite thing, people watching. |
| 1:06.3 | As I cycled around Buckingham Palace, dodging the disappointing quantities of rubbish left behind, |
| 1:12.1 | I was treated to a proper spectacle. People dressed in their finest or silliest outfits. |
| 1:18.5 | Think suits made out of flags and cardboard replica crowns. They all looked like they'd had a fine old time. |
| 1:25.5 | And talking of fine old times, I'm Marnie Chesterton from |
| 1:28.8 | the BBC World Service. This is Unexpected Elements. |
| 1:52.8 | Joining me from wintery South Africa is warm and sunny Candice Bailey, an editor with the conversation website. |
| 1:55.6 | Hello Candice. Did you catch any of the King's coronation? |
| 1:59.9 | Do my long morning. I did, but I quoted it all on TikTok. |
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