Traffic science
Unexpected Elements
BBC
4.4 • 565 Ratings
🗓️ 1 August 2025
⏱️ 50 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week, a viral video of a robo-traffic-cop in Shanghai has the team contemplating the science of traffic. How do traffic jams with no discernible cause actually form? Does the weather experience traffic jams? And why do our cords also seem to get tangled in their own little cord-traffic-jams no matter how hard we try to keep them separate?
Christine Yohannes from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and Tristan Ahtone in Helsinki, Finland, join Marnie Chesterton to discuss all this, plus many more Unexpected Elements.
Presenter: Marnie Chesterton, with Christine Yohannes and Tristan Ahtone Producers: Margaret Sessa-Hawkins, with Alice Lipscombe-Southwell and Lucy Davies
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | In 2019, we began investigating the disappearance of Dr. Ruzha Ignatva. |
| 0:08.0 | I believe we are a very special network. |
| 0:10.0 | A scammer who stole billions from investors around the world. |
| 0:15.0 | She's on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted list. |
| 0:18.0 | And now, we have some unmissable updates. She has money and when you have |
| 0:23.0 | money, you have power. Join me, Jamie Bartlett, as the hunt for the missing crypto queen continues. |
| 0:29.5 | Listen first on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:34.7 | I don't know if you've read much Jane Austen, but whichever excellent novel you pick up, |
| 0:40.4 | there's always someone recommending a visit to the city of Bath. And yes, Bath is incredibly beautiful, |
| 0:47.4 | but also, back then, a bit of a mission. No day trips for Austin's characters. More like a couple of weeks, which means a lot of |
| 0:56.9 | changes of clothes, booking accommodation, taking servants to sort all that out. Sadly, Jane Austen |
| 1:03.9 | died more than 200 years ago, which means she missed the highlight of 1825, which was, of course, the first steam-powered passenger train. |
| 1:14.5 | I whizzed past Bath early this morning and waved and briefly marvelled at the efficiency of the current generation of passenger trains |
| 1:23.5 | that can take me halfway across the UK in a couple of hours. |
| 1:28.9 | I'm Marnie Chesterton from the BBC World Service. |
| 1:32.2 | This is Unexpected Elements. |
| 1:50.8 | And as ever, I'm joined by a global panel of broadcasters. |
| 1:53.8 | In Addis Ababa in Ethiopia, Christine Johannes. |
| 1:54.2 | Hello. |
| 1:55.1 | Hello, Marnit. |
| 1:56.0 | And I'm Marnit, and I'm Staling, everyone. |
| 1:58.8 | And in Helsinki, Finland, Tristan Arton. |
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