Enduring it all
Unexpected Elements
BBC
4.4 • 565 Ratings
🗓️ 16 May 2025
⏱️ 50 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This month will see thousands of people take to streets around the world to test their feats of endurance. It’s marathon season. And this week, we’re looking at the science behind what keeps you running. We’ll learn about the psychological preparation that goes into undertaking mammoth challenges, like marathons and expeditions, and meet a scientist from the UK Space Agency who’s endured the Antarctic winter, and is now training to be an astronaut. We’ll find out just how genetic our ability to cope with endurance exercise is. How air pollution could be affecting your running times. And find out how evolution has gifted our animal friends with some unique ways of getting ahead. As well as all that, there’s the science of what makes something ugly. And an exciting innovation that could see us using cow dung to fuel our cars. All that and more in this week’s Unexpected Elements. Presenter: Alex Lathbridge, Chhavi Sachdev and Candice Bailey Producers: Robbie Wojciechowski with Alice Lipscombe-Southwell, Imaan Moin, and Minnie Harrop
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. This week, I was tricked into being a guinea pig. |
| 0:40.8 | Now, a friend of mine was heading off to shoot a documentary in Indonesia |
| 0:44.0 | and wanted to see how his new cameras held up in a high-intensity environment |
| 0:48.7 | around unpredictable animals. |
| 0:51.2 | So when he suggested that we play tennis, |
| 0:53.0 | I didn't realise that I'd be sprinting |
| 0:54.9 | back and forth across a court in East London, trying my hardest to hit a small green ball |
| 1:00.6 | while every little sweat drop was captured in 4K. Now, what I've learned is that not only am I bad |
| 1:07.1 | at tennis, I have terrible hand-eye coordination and lack the stamina to run any kind of race. |
| 1:13.3 | I also look terrible |
| 1:15.0 | in 360 degrees. |
| 1:17.0 | Well, luckily for me, I have a face |
| 1:18.8 | for radio because I'm Alex |
| 1:20.8 | Lathbridge from the BBC World Service. |
| 1:23.2 | This is unexpected elements. |
| 1:37.5 | Music This is unexpected elements. Well, of course, I'm not alone with me at the starting line today, is the cool and |
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