I had this secret. I robbed banks in my spare time.

Lives less ordinary from the BBC World Service.

This is not a good thing to do because police are after you.

Find out more at the end of this podcast.

DNA holds the code to all living things, including the timid cacopo parrot, so threatened,

its mysterious call is at risk of forever falling silent.

As of today, there are 197 adults left in the entire world. So they are very, very endangered.

There is hope, though, scientists are now using fast and portable DNA sequencing devices

to unlock the secrets to all sorts of species, including our own. It could lead us to fundamentally

rethink our approach to all life on the planet

and agriculture, conservation and medicine. It's already being used to successfully diagnose disease.

There is a cancer pandemic. Most of these infection-related cancers are actually in sub-Saharan Africa.

It is much more important in those settings to diagnose

cancer early. It's new territory with vast potential. It's a continent that's totally dark and

unexplored and it's going really exciting.

I'm David Reed.

Today on Business Daily, we take a look at how real-time DNA sequencing is revolutionising our understanding of all living things, us humans, of course, but also endangered species

like the mysterious cacopoe.

That haunting bass note is the cacopo's mating call.

Fewer than 200 of these giant flightless parrots cling on to existence on a couple of islands off

New Zealand.

It's very, very deep bass sound just below the level of our hearing.

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