The ribbiting science of frogs
Unexpected Elements
BBC
4.4 • 565 Ratings
🗓️ 17 April 2026
⏱️ 50 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In 2025, Russian-born scientist Kseniia Petrova picked up some spliced frog embryos from a laboratory in France and brought them back to the USA to aid her research into ageing and cancer. She was detained by the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), charged with smuggling and had her visa revoked.
Now though, a judge has ruled that the scientist’s visa was wrongly cancelled.
Inspired by this story, the Unexpected Elements team find out how embryos and sperm behave in space.
Next, we discover that embryos can regenerate limbs, and new research could help us unlock those skills as adults.
We also reveal the unexpected link between frogs and pregnancy tests, and find out about a devastating fungus that’s wreaking havoc on amphibians.
And don't miss probiotics for coral reefs, dessert stomachs and the weird physics of time.
All that, plus many more Unexpected Elements.
Presenter: Marnie Chesterton, with Katie Silver and Camilla Mota Producers: Alice Lipscombe-Southwell, with Ella Hubber and Georgia Christie
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts. |
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| 0:07.2 | You're about to listen to a BBC podcast. |
| 0:09.4 | Absolutely right. |
| 0:11.5 | So, you might like to know that the BBC makes loads of other podcasts. |
| 0:15.6 | Really? |
| 0:16.4 | Wow. |
| 0:17.2 | Many of them are very funny. |
| 0:19.1 | Which I think means... |
| 0:20.1 | A hatful of ha haas. |
| 0:21.7 | And energy! |
| 0:38.0 | Even if we do say so ourselves. I agree 100% to that. Find them all on BBC Sounds. Just tell us a joke. Come on. Tell us a joke. Tell us a joke. Come on. Tell us a joke. Come on. Tell us a joke. Just search comedy on BBC Sounds. I'm really looking forward to getting stuck in. Last week, I was on the radio telling the story of Australia's cane toads. |
| 0:43.8 | It's a tale of success against the odds of 100 animals picked up, |
| 0:48.5 | moved to a new continent that have multiplied into a population of 200 million over the past century. |
| 0:55.6 | At least that's the Toad's point of view. |
| 0:58.7 | From humans and native Australian wildlife's point of view, it's been a disaster. |
| 1:03.9 | An effort to control sugar cane pests has not only failed, |
| 1:08.3 | it's introduced a far greater pest, |
| 1:12.5 | toxic to other animals, |
| 1:16.0 | and capable of laying tens of thousands of eggs a year. |
| 1:21.3 | Meanwhile, in other parts of the world, frogs aren't faring so well, with 195 species on the critically endangered list. |
| 1:26.2 | It seems that these amphibia are indicators, |
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