Unexpected Elements

After a Chinese fitness influencer was caught hitching a lift on a bicycle during the Berlin Marathon, the Unexpected Elements team find themselves contemplating a range of scientific shortcuts. First up, we hear about how Earthlings may have been hitching a lift on the back of asteroids all the way to the clouds of Venus. Next, can you tell if someone drinks beer from an X-ray of their knee? Of course not! But we find out why AI thinks you can.We’re then joined by Chad Orzel, Professor of Physics at Union College and author of How to Teach Quantum Physics to Your Dog, who helps us explore why quantum physics might be the answer to the ultimate shortcut – teleportation.Also, how our brains create stories when we listen to music, why most people can’t digest seaweed, and the scientists who buried 2,000 pairs of underpants.All that, plus many more Unexpected Elements. Presenter: Marnie Chesterton with Leonie Joubert and Tristan Ahtone Producers: Lucy Davies with Dan Welsh, Alice Lipscombe-Southwell and Robbie Wojciechowski

This week’s news of an AI agent managing to hack into an Australian government website has the Unexpected Elements team exploring the sneaky science of infiltration.Marnie Chesterton is joined by science journalists Paul Adepoju and Andrada Fiscutean to discover how South African drongo birds have developed an ingenious technique to protect their nest from cuckoo eggs, and to hear about the unusual approach being developed to help get eyedrops past the body’s immune system so they can reach the retina.We’re also joined by Dr Bart Geert, Professor of Atmospheric Science at the University of Wyoming in the US, to explore the science of how to manipulate clouds to try to help produce more rain in drought-ridden areas.We also find out about how the tracking data that comes from tagging wild dogs in Zambia could help to ensure better approaches to their conservation in the future. We hear about your cases of pareidolia, and learn why aging leads to men going bald but also growing longer hair on other parts of the body. All that and more in this week’s Unexpected Elements. Presenter: Marnie Chesterton Producer: Dan Welsh with Alice Lipscombe-Southwell, Imy Harper and Robbie Wojciechowski

With the United Nations encouraging wider use of the Equal Earth map, a projection designed to better represent the true size of Earth's landmasses, the Unexpected Elements team have been thinking about distortion and the surprising new ways we can see the world and beyond. We discover that every city's subway system has its own unique microbial fingerprint, so distinctive that researchers can identify a location from a simple swab. Then we meet the black-capped chickadee, a tiny bird whose remarkable memory-map helps it keep track of thousands of hidden food stores.Astrophysicist Miguel Zumalacárregui joins us to explain gravitational lensing, the phenomenon that bends and distorts light as it travels through the Universe. We hear how these cosmic distortions help astronomers study distant galaxies, dark matter and even black holes.We also learn why Europe's mountain summits are becoming greener while still losing rare plants, ask why many continents seem to point downwards, and explore the story behind the online maps in our pockets.All that, plus many more Unexpected Elements.Presenter: Marnie Chesterton, with Andrada Fiscutean and Paul Adepoju Producers: Alice Lipscombe Southwell, with Ella Hubber and Debbie Kilbride