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Unexpected Elements

Food security, locusts and Covid -19

Unexpected Elements

BBC

Science

4.4570 Ratings

🗓️ 14 June 2020

⏱️ 65 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Despite the Covid-19 pandemic efforts to counter massive swarms of locusts across East Africa have continued. In many places this has been very effective, killing up to 90% of locusts. However, the threat of repeated waves of locusts remains says Cyril Ferrand, who leads the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation's Resilience Team in East Africa.

Conversely West Africa is unaffected by locusts and with a block on imports local producers have seen demand grow for their produce, an unusual positive effect from the pandemic according to Sandrine Dury from the French agricultural research agency CIRAD.

We examine the potential for a second wave of coronavirus as many countries relax lockdown measures, businesses reopen and mass protests take to the streets. Epidemiologist Carl Bergstrom is interested in working out which of these movements is likely to have the most impact.

And from South Africa, how radio telescope engineers there have turned their hands to developing new ventilators appropriate for regional needs.

And we were bowled over by a question from one CrowdScience listener in Australia wants to know how likely it is that the atoms in his body have been used in someone else’s body? We all like to think we are unique; no one is quite like us. But is that really true?

Presenter Marnie Chesterton tackles Moshe’s question with help from every area of science. From geologists helping us work out how many atoms are on the Earth’s surface to biologists helping us work out how many atoms each body uses. Perhaps we are much less special than we think.

Transcript

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0:00.0

Oh, hello. You have chosen a BBC podcast, but before you listen to it, we thought you might

0:04.7

like our podcast too. You might. You might. It is called Sightracked with me, Nick Grimshaw.

0:09.2

And me, Annie Mack. And we talk about the week in music. All the news, all the cultural

0:14.0

happenings in the UK and beyond. And great guests. And it's on BBC Sounds. Yes, where you can

0:19.7

also enjoy lots of playlists, music mixes, and

0:22.6

live radio. Everything from my six music breakfast show to Radio 3 Unwind. But obviously start with

0:29.3

our podcast, sidetrack. Obviously. Obviously. So if you like music, listen on BBC Sounds.

0:34.0

After an explosion in space, now it's the climax of the rescue mission.

0:39.7

Can the astronauts be brought home safely?

0:42.8

What could we have missed?

0:45.0

This can't be happening.

0:46.8

You could hear a pin drop.

0:53.0

13 minutes to the moon from the BBC World Service, the final episode.

0:59.2

Available now.

1:01.1

Thank you for downloading the Science Hour from the BBC World Service.

1:04.6

I'm Roland Pease.

1:06.4

And you know, there's nothing like a deep question for crowd science to tackle later in the podcast.

1:11.9

I mean, just how unique is each one of us?

1:15.7

We all require the same basic elements in building blocks in order to live and metabolize what we do.

1:23.1

And the act of living means that we are all connected on this planet in some way or another

1:28.4

through the very atoms that make us up.

1:30.9

Atomic identity from the crowd science team in half an hour.

...

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