Why are elephants so big?
CrowdScience
BBC
4.8 • 1K Ratings
🗓️ 6 November 2020
⏱️ 32 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
CrowdScience listeners come in all shapes, sizes and ages. This episode is dedicated to our younger listeners who, as we’ve learned before, are experts at asking those superficially obvious questions that for parents, are anything but easy to answer. To start off with, Sylvia, asks why elephants are so big? As we hear from our expert – mammals were at one time, much larger – so perhaps the question should be, why aren’t they bigger? We investigate what drives body size in the animal kingdom.
Presenter Marnie Chesterton, together with our ‘cub’ reporter Arlo, goes in search of the most brilliant scientific minds to respond to a slew of other queries. Shambhavi, from Singapore wonders why humans have five digits on each hand? And Benni from California asks why dogs don’t get sick when they drink from muddy puddles? Do dogs have some amazing ability to fight off viruses and bugs?
Beyond the confines of our planet, we’ve also got a question from Olivia, from Sydney, Australia, who regularly contemplates the universe: what is the biggest object in it she wonders? Marnie and her experts do their best to solve these mysteries.
Presented by Marnie Chesterton, produced by Dom Byrne for the BBC World Service. Image: Getty Images
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Take some time for yourself with soothing classical music from the mindful mix, the Science of |
| 0:07.0 | Happiness Podcast. |
| 0:08.0 | For the last 20 years I've dedicated my career to exploring the science of living a happier more meaningful life and I want |
| 0:14.4 | to share that science with you. |
| 0:16.1 | And just one thing, deep calm with Michael Mosley. |
| 0:19.4 | I want to help you tap in to your hidden relaxation response system and open the door to that |
| 0:25.4 | calmer place within. Listen on BBC Sounds. Well we were talking about space one day and I was just started wandering. |
| 0:39.0 | That's right the kids are taking over again. |
| 0:43.4 | You know, those questions that kids are expert at asking. |
| 0:46.7 | I just do a lot of thinking and then I think and then I ask things. |
| 0:53.0 | They seem simple and yet. |
| 0:55.4 | When parents or anyone else try to answer them, it all gets a bit tricky, which is where |
| 1:00.5 | crowd science from the BBC World Service comes in. |
| 1:03.3 | But why do we have my fingers? |
| 1:06.5 | We specialize in this stuff. |
| 1:08.6 | Your science questions, big or small. |
| 1:11.8 | And to help me answer them,'m joined by Cub reporter Arlo again. |
| 1:15.8 | Arlo, how are you? Yeah, I'm good, thanks. I'm quite tired. I just had a sleepover. |
| 1:21.1 | Oh, sleepovers are that's oxymoronic aren't they because you |
| 1:26.3 | don't actually get to sleep. Yeah it's like a wakeover yeah exactly that's what |
| 1:31.6 | they should call. Now you have helped us out in the past a |
| 1:35.5 | previous episode called Why Can't You Tickle yourself and the Intergenerational Dream |
... |
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