Unexpected Elements Podcast
The news you know, the science you don’t. Unexpected Elements looks beyond everyday narratives to discover a goldmine of scientific stories and connections from around the globe. From Afronauts, to why we argue, to a deep dive on animal lifespans: see the world in a new way.
Episodes to download
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Online harassment of Covid scientists
Sat 19 Nov 2022
Virologists studying Covid-19 have been subject to online threats.
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Neurons that restore walking in paralysed patients
Sat 12 Nov 2022
Neurons that restore walking in patients with spinal cord injuries have been identified.
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What peat can tell us about our future
Sat 5 Nov 2022
Peat can offer us early alarm bells to climate change tipping points.
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Seismic events on Mars
Sun 30 Oct 2022
New data from Nasa reveals information on Mars’ origin and evolution.
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The most powerful explosion ever recorded
Sat 22 Oct 2022
A celestial explosion has produced the brightest beam of light ever observed
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Inserting human neurons into the brains of rats
Sat 15 Oct 2022
Fusing the brain of a human with a rat could offer insight into neurological disorders
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Nobel Prize 2022: The science behind the winners
Sat 8 Oct 2022
We meet the winners behind this week’s Nobel Prize announcements
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The final moments of DART
Sat 1 Oct 2022
Reflections on NASA’s latest mission as it hits an asteroid 11 million km from earth
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Should we mine the deep sea?
Sat 24 Sep 2022
A new license for deep sea mining could change the way we harvest rare earth minerals.
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Science and the causes behind Pakistan’s floods
Sat 17 Sep 2022
A new report demonstrates the impact of global warming on flooding in Pakistan.
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The genetics of human intelligence
Sat 10 Sep 2022
A single gene mutation may have propelled a major leap in human brain development
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The China Heatwave and the New Normal
Sat 3 Sep 2022
The record-breaking heatwave in China and its connection to extreme weather elsewhere
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Surprises from a Martian Lake Bed
Sat 27 Aug 2022
The latest analysis of Nasa’s perseverance discoveries confounds scientists’ expectations
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Icelandic volcano erupts again
Sat 13 Aug 2022
Science in the heat of Iceland's new volcanic eruption
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Synthetic mouse embryos with brains and hearts
Sat 6 Aug 2022
Researchers make synthetic mouse embryos with brains and beating hearts from stem cells
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The first galaxies at the universe's dawn
Sat 30 Jul 2022
James Webb Space Telescope expands our view of the universe ever deeper back in time
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Heat waves in the Northern Hemisphere
Sat 23 Jul 2022
Heat waves in the Northern Hemisphere - how and why more frequent and more extreme?
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First images from the James Webb Space Telescope
Sat 16 Jul 2022
A sensational new view of the universe from the James Webb Space Telescope.
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Extreme heat death risk in Latin America
Sat 2 Jul 2022
New study reveals risk of death as temperatures rise in Latin American cities
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Monster microbe
Sat 25 Jun 2022
Gigantic bacterium discovered in the Caribbean. It’s the size and shape of an eyelash.
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Thirty years after the Earth Summit
Sat 18 Jun 2022
Thirty years on, we ask what has the Earth Summit in Rio achieved?
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Should we worry about the latest Omicron subvariants?
Sat 4 Jun 2022
Two recent subtypes of the Omicron virus are much better at evading our immune defences.
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Heat death by volcano and other stories
Sat 28 May 2022
New insights into Tonga’s cataclysmic volcanic eruption revealed