Scientist spotlight
Unexpected Elements
BBC
4.4 • 566 Ratings
🗓️ 10 January 2025
⏱️ 50 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Team Unexpected have been digging into their mind palaces to pull on the scientific research that has stuck with them most over the past year. We hear from Professor John Parnell, geologist at the University of Aberdeen, about the role of plankton in forming ancient mountains. How ocean bubbles play a role in climate regulation with bubble physicist Dr Helen Czerski from University College London. Would you know how to measure the size of a bubble? We also participate in some memory sports with Jonas von Essen who is a two-time world memory champion. He helps us construct a mind palace in order to memorise really long strings of digits. Plus we look into the backstory of the human buttocks with science journalist and reporter Heather Radke. She answers the question ‘why do we humans have such large behinds?’ And we hear from Professor Andre Isaacs at the College of the Holy Cross who has filled his chemistry lab with music and dance in order to change perceptions about who can be a scientist. That, plus many more Unexpected Elements. Presenter: Marnie Chesterton Producer: Jonathan Blackwell and Harrison Lewis with Imaan Moin and Alice Lipscombe-Southwell
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 |
| 0:29.2 | with our podcast sidetrack. Obviously. Obviously. So if you like music, listen on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:36.8 | Last week, I was in Sweden, a country where it usually snows in winter, which means that when |
| 0:43.7 | it does snow, all of their infrastructure still works. You know, they shovel snow off the bike |
| 0:49.6 | paths and roads, they grit the pavements, they heat the buses, well done the Swedes. But these are |
| 0:55.9 | the basics. They also throw in a couple of surprises. Outside Stockholm's main theatre is a statue |
| 1:04.1 | of Margarita Crook, one of the country's best-known actresses. And it's erected at a spot where she used to smoke and talk to her |
| 1:12.9 | fans before going on stage. This bronze likeness has an unusually shiny belly because that's |
| 1:21.1 | where people put their hands because this statue is heated. Inside the bronze is a coil that keeps her at 37 degrees |
| 1:31.7 | sea, the same temperature as the rest of us. Apparently, Margarita rejected the offer of a statue |
| 1:38.9 | because she thought they were cold and uninviting and that really wasn't her. So after her death, they decided to capture her warmth in a delightfully literal way. |
| 1:50.6 | I'm Marnie Chesterton from the BBC World Service. |
| 1:53.5 | This is Unexpected Elements. |
| 1:55.4 | Music This is the show that looks for the science behind the news headlines and takes it to unexpected places. |
| 2:15.6 | Today's show comes with extra unexpectedness |
| 2:18.4 | because we're lacking our usual global group of science broadcasters |
| 2:22.7 | who steer us in weird and wonderful directions. |
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