The soaring price of condoms
Unexpected Elements
BBC
4.4 • 565 Ratings
🗓️ 1 May 2026
⏱️ 50 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The blockade on the strait of Hormuz has led to an unexpected consequence – condom prices are set to increase by up to 30 percent! This has us delving into all things contraception, starting with koala hormone implants, the lengthy process of providing birth control to elephants, and a microplastics mystery.
Then, we investigate the elusive male contraceptive – why is it taking so long to develop, and why has it been so hard to approve? Professor John Amory Md, from UW Medical Centre in Seattle, joins us to explain the past, present and future of this medical research.
Plus, how have Chinese researchers cracked the code on eel breeding, and does the moon’s gravity make us lighter at night?
Presenter: Marnie Chesterton, with Leonie Joubert and Sandy Ong Producer: Ella Hubber, with Alice Lipscombe Southwell, Robbie Wojciechowski and Georgia Christie
Transcript
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| 0:10.8 | These were immensely popular. |
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| 0:17.6 | Proof that being a historian is a very exciting job. |
| 0:19.7 | Covering everything. |
| 0:20.7 | From epic events. |
| 0:21.8 | It was the year 1666. Two personal stories. It was an anxiety that people felt even in the ancient world. |
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| 0:46.4 | If you asked people to name a famous lost city, |
| 0:48.8 | I suspect the list might include Machu Picchu in Peru or maybe Pompei in Italy. |
| 0:53.3 | But this week, I've been thinking of a more recent lost |
| 0:57.1 | civilization, Fordlandia. After the end of the First World War, the increased demand for rubber |
| 1:03.7 | led car manufacturer Henry Ford to a bold plan, build an outpost of his empire closer to the raw material needed for his car's |
| 1:13.4 | tyres. He bought 13,000 square kilometres of the Amazon and set about building his American |
| 1:20.4 | dream, rows of houses with picket fences, a dance hall, a golf course. But Fordlandia was built on the supposed success of the rubber |
| 1:30.4 | plantation. And because the rubber tree is native to Brazil, that's also the home to its numerous pests. |
| 1:38.5 | Caterpillars swarmed across two densely planted rubber trees and the fungus they carried doomed the plantation. |
| 1:46.6 | Today, most rubber comes from South Asia, where the South American leaf blight has, so far, been kept away. |
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