Global News Podcast: The Happy Pod: Uncovering the wonders of the universe

Hello, this is the Global News podcast from the BBC World Service, with reports and analysis

from across the world, the latest news seven days a week. BBC World Service podcasts are

supported by advertising.

Selling your cartocarbana, is as easy as...

As easy as pie?

Sure. All you have to do is enter your license plate or bin.

As easy as a stroll in the park.

Okay, then just answer a few questions and you'll get a real offer in seconds.

As easy as singing?

Why not? Schedule a pick-up or drop-off and Carvana will pay you that amount right on the spot.

As easy as playing guitar.

Actually, I find that kind of difficult.

But selling your cartocarbana is as easy as...

Can be.

Visit Carvana.com or download the app to get an instant offer today.

Hi, I'm Susie and should you find yourself having an attack of the Mubble Fubbles, then you probably need the Happy Pod.

Well, it's just as well we're here then. This is the Happy Pod from the BBC World Service.

I'm Jackie Leonard and in this edition uploaded on Saturday the 30th of September.

It's just a very exciting thing when that capsule opens to see for the first time this material that no other human has seen before.

The thrill of new science as samples are recovered from the asteroid Bennu. There's jubilation in East Africa.

Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania.

With the announcement of the hosts of the 2027 Africa Cup of Nations, we'll hear about the people hoping their alternative to palm oil will lead to healthier food and less deforestation.

I mean, we started this just to, is it possible? We just thought, how hard could it be? There was a bit like that, but then we discovered how hard it was.

Also in this podcast, it just always makes children love this one.

And we'll be finding out why.

Now we might have just taken a small step closer to finding out how life on Earth began.

A capsule landed safely in the Utah desert in the US containing fragments of the asteroid Bennu and NASA workers described the rapid operation to retrieve it as awesome.

Scientists around the world are now coming together to find out what exactly this material can tell us about our solar system.

One of those scientists is Sarah Russell from the Natural History Museum here in London.

It's going to be sent around the world so there's over 200 scientists around the world on the science team that can hopefully come together and we'll all get a chance to look at it using our own instruments and our own expertise.

Our science correspondent, Jonathan Amos, was in Utah to see the recovery of the capsule and he told us about the excitement among the international scientific community.

Well, when the capsule landed in Utah, it was a very exciting day.

It was very quickly moved to a military base and they took the capsule apart and that revealed the inner canister and that was moved very quickly down to the Johnson Space Center in Houston and they actually opened the inner canister on Tuesday.

And I have to say it was a bit of a mess inside.

There was sample all over the place which kind of speaks to how much material they've got and they've now got the job in the next few weeks of picking up every last little rock inside that canister, every last little dust grain.

They won it all and it's going to take some time and that work will be led by Chris Snead who's the deputy curator on the OSIRIS-REx mission.

It's just a very exciting thing when that capsule opens to see for the first time this material that no other human has seen before.

It's something you think about, we've thought about it for the past seven years and it's just going to be very exciting but also there's going to be a lot of work to do so we're going to kick into business mode very quickly.

There is so much excitement surrounding this thing, isn't there Jonathan? And it's a huge deal for science.

I think there's something like 60,000 meterites that have been collected from the surface of the earth but all of those 60,000 meterites that we have in collections around the world are compromised by virtue of having landed on earth.

And what do I mean by that? Well as they've touched the surface of the earth, earth's water, earth's air is starting to get at those rocks and you don't want that, you want a pristine sample, something that has never touched earth before.

Why do you want that? Well we expect in these samples there to be clues about the chemistry that went into building the planets.

There might even be information in these samples which tells us about how life got started.

And if you speak to the likes of Jason Dworkin who's the chief of NASA's Astrochemistry Laboratory, they have very high hopes that they've got something really exciting in front of them.

Being in science means you gaze at the wonder of the universe and being surprised by what nature has to tell you is always a treat.

Being the first person to discover something and then have the opportunity to tell everyone all about it is what science is about.

The thing about all of this is you're impatient and this work takes a while but we will get a little insight on the 11th of October because NASA is promising to hold an international press conference where they will give us a quick look.

They'll tell us how much material they've got. It's probably around about 250 grams. It doesn't sound like a lot. It's about the weight of a large hamster I'm told, an adult hamster.

And then over the next two years all of those scientists that we were talking about, you know, the more than 200 worldwide will get down to the serious work and in a couple of years they'll come back together and say, yeah, this is what we've got.

Isn't it exciting?

That was Jonathan Amos, our science correspondent and our thanks to him for using adult hamster as a unit of measurement.

Now to massive footballing excitement in East Africa. For decades the Cup of Nations has been dominated by the footballing powerhouses in the north and west of the continent.

But the 2027 tournament has been awarded to a joint bid from Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. The decision has been greeted with jubilation across the region.

And to gauge the excitement it's created, the happy pods Nigel Adelie has been speaking to BBC Africa's senior sports reporter and proud Ugandan Nishad Ladda to get her thoughts after the head of African football, Patrice Modsepe, made the announcement.

So the country that Exxco has voted for to host the Afghan 2027 is Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania.

Well, this is huge. It's been nearly 50 years, nearly half a century since the region hosted an Africa Cup of Nations.

The region's been waiting for this moment. There are scenes of jubilation all across East Africa in Uganda, Tanzania and Kenya when the announcement was made.

It's going to really help the region, not just in terms of its football, but in terms of the economies of each of the countries. So this was a really huge announcement.

It would cost around two billion dollars to host. Do you believe that the money they will make as a result of hosting the tournament will cover that and also maybe support future generations?

Well, that's always the tricky thing, isn't it? Do the benefits outweigh the costs?

Look at the three countries. My country, Uganda, for example, where I was born, tourism is so huge there.

And if you're going to bring in an influx of tourists, an influx of fans from across the continent, because the Africa Cup of Nations is so huge now, the economy will be boosted so much.

Tourism will be huge. I'd like to think that the regeneration of the stadium, which will have to happen, making football more attractive for local fans will be something that will last generations.

There's massive passion for football in East Africa, but they can watch the Premier League, they can watch Serie A, La Liga, every single week.

Is this an opportunity to make new heroes, to make local heroes?

Absolutely, yeah. And if you look at a country like Tanzania, for example, their captain is Amwana Samatha.

Now, we might know him from his days at Aston Villa, for example, but he's an iconic figure.

And when you've got someone like that spearheading your team, the other players who may be playing the local leagues will look at him and try and emulate him.

And you want people who'll be headline makers. And, you know, this will be a shop window for a lot of these local players.

These youngsters coming through will be able to really show off their skills. Great, great shop window for them.

The interest is there. I can tell you, I've got family in Uganda who follow football really closely.

So there is always an interest in football.

The lovely thing about this announcement from CAF is that it's given football a big boost, but it's given the countries a big boost.

Just at the airport in Kenya, there's been singing and dancing as they've been waiting for the delegation to come back from Cairo.

That's the level of excitement ahead of this nation's cup.

So actually, the football excitement has always been there.

What this will do is give all three countries a morale boost.

There's so much that's negative in the world, and we're going through a cost of living crisis.

We've had COVID.

How fantastic to say we're going to host the Africa Cup of Nations.

Welcome to our countries. And that's the beautiful thing about this.

Nisha Atlada, and she was speaking to Nigel Adelie.

Now, we all remember a teacher who went above and beyond, who made a real effort, a real connection.

Hello, Miss Spiller.

And this one is something special.

She is Maria Dominguez, a teacher who hitchhikes to school in rural Uruguay.

And Felipe Jambies of BBC Mundo has been speaking to her about that commute.

More than 200 kilometers each day, going to the school and coming back one hour, 45, one hour, 50,

each day, going and then another almost two hours getting back home.

Why is it necessary for her to hitchhike?

Well, the thing is, she doesn't have a car.

If she had a car, it would be impossible for her because gas is very expensive.

There's no public transport.

And the only other thing she could do is going by motorbike.

But she says it is a very long trip.

The road is not in good condition.

And she feels that it's not safe for her to go all the way through motorbike.

But a lot of people would be slightly concerned about the dangers of hitchhiking.

Well, actually, Uruguay is a very quiet country, especially in the countryside.

And actually, drivers are always very concerned, but in a good way of taking them to the schools

or at least to some place near the school to actually teach.

She's making this incredibly arduous journey, but at the end of it, she's only got two pupils.

Yeah, that's true.

Two pupils, as you say, Juliana, who is four years old, and Benhamin, who is nine years old.

And the thing is that she has to give the lessons to both at the same time.

And, well, the thing is, in Uruguay, if there are students, a school will open and teachers will go.

So her pupils, obviously, are quite small.

Do they appreciate her? Do they understand what sort of effort that she's making for them?

Presumably their parents do.

Yeah, I'm not sure if they are aware of the effort she makes, but they do appreciate the kindness of Maria.

They have almost called her mom sometimes, you know?

So, yeah, it's a very, very close relationship.

Felipe Jambias of BPC Mundo.

Now, a few of the other stories that caught our attention this week.

There was a report suggesting that anti-aging drugs could make more organs viable for transplant.

When an organ from an older donor is transplanted into a younger person,

the older cells can release chemicals that cause problems,

but tests in mice succeeded in heading that off using senolytics, a new class of drugs,

that selectively clear away senescent cells.

It is just mice, but it is very promising.

Some wedding magic and a lucky bride and groom who got a stunning backdrop of the northern lights for their wedding photos.

Rebecca McDonald and Chris Orham from Inverness in Scotland were rushed outside to get pictures taken in front of the Aurora Borealis.

Wedding photographer Michael Carvey had wanted to capture such a shot for the last ten years,

but he said the stars had never aligned until Monday night.

Congratulations to everyone involved.

And of course, I will share that picture on far too many social media platforms with the hashtag TheHappyPod.

And staying with matters of love, it seems that male palm cockatoos make custom drumsticks to woo potential mates.

They have individual preferences for the type of drumstick they want,

and they whittle down branches with their beaks.

The use of a hard stick or seed pod to tap the tree produces louder,

more impressive sounds than those using the foot alone.

Still to come in this podcast.

You have that slightly sort of crazy, neurotic, desperate to work kind of mentality to really do the job properly.

The qualities needed on seagull patrol.

Suddenly my quilt is ripped off me, and then my room is full of white men, and that's all I'm done for.

These are fascists. They found where I live.

Life's Less Ordinary is the podcast from the BBC World Service, bringing you extraordinary personal stories from around the globe.

Betrayal has run through my life and run through my story.

I was just all alone in this vast broken system.

I never gave up my dream.

Search for Life's Less Ordinary wherever you get your BBC podcasts.

To describe hope, happiness and optimism, you need truly joyous words.

And if you listen to the global news pod regularly, and why wouldn't you,

you might have heard mention of the lexographer Susie Dent and her new children's book,

Roots of Happiness, a hundred words of hope and joy.

But happy words come in more flavours than just English,

and we were hoping that you could let us know some of yours.

So for an idea of what we mean, we got Susie back,

and she started with explaining why collecting uplifting words was such a good idea.

I wrote it because I spend so much time writing through the pages of the dictionary

and noticing there are so many more words for being ugly, for example, rather than beautiful,

or cold or hungry, the saddest side of life, I suppose.

And there are really beautiful, joyful words in the dictionary,

but they tend to be just sort of consigned to the corners,

and we don't tend to pick them up and use them.

So I thought, wouldn't it be wonderful, actually, to resurrect some of these

and reclaim the lost positives?

And of course, the beauty of English is it's embraced words from lots of different languages.

And you've actually picked out some contributions for your book

from places like Japan and Turkey and Portugal and Sweden.

Yes, I'm just looking at the page for Lagom, actually, which is Swedish,

and that's just gorgeous.

It essentially means not too much, not too little, but just right, which I think is gorgeous.

And I mean, lots and lots of words from other languages that we haven't yet managed to translate.

And as you say, many of them are in the dictionary.

One that didn't make it, actually, but which I absolutely love is the Japanese.

Again, it's another sort of aesthetic, really.

It's Sibui, which is all about unobtrusive beauty.

So it's a face that's wrinkled through smiles.

It's just such a lovely idea.

And then a lot of cultures also have words for being alone in a wood

and feeling the power of the trees and the beauty of solitude.

So German have Wald, Ein, Zankite, and in Japanese again, they have Sejaku.

And my pronunciation is terrible to all listeners in Japan.

But they are just not rendered in English.

So I think we have to go then to the original.

You've got a lot of words that don't just mean something, Joyce,

but which sound pleasingly fun are nice to say.

Exactly.

And some of them have silly stories behind them or beautiful stories.

So fizzle is always a fun one.

As you say, there are some recognisable ones in there.

Like lullaby is just such a beautiful word.

And one of my absolute favourites is dardledumdoo.

And a dardledumdoo is somebody who just lives in their head.

You can imagine them just sort of strolling down a lane in the summer,

just sort of humming dum-da-dum-da-dum to themselves.

And it's just so beautifully expressed, a dardledumdoo.

I can't let fizzle go without asking you to explain where that came from.

I wasn't sure whether to go there, Jackie.

OK.

So to fizzle, it just always makes children laugh this one

because actually whatever you call breaking wind, should we say politely,

it actually crops up in so many words that you might not expect in English.

And fizzle is one of them because the very first meaning of it was to break wind quietly.

But it always makes children smile.

Not just children, it must be said.

Oh, I'm done.

Looking at a lot of these words and some of them are quite old

and there are some new ones as well and we'll come on to those in a moment.

Did you make any up?

Because Scurry Fung has the faintest hint of a word expert making fun of her editor.

Oh, no.

Honestly, I have been actually talking about Scurry Fung for such a long time,

ever since I discovered it.

It's just so pithy.

So to Scurry Fung is to dash about the house madly,

frenetically tidying up because guests are about to arrive.

But no, sadly, I would love to have invented that one,

but I'm not clever enough for that.

You do go back several hundred years for some of the words in this book,

but you aren't snobbish about adopting new ones like Bestie and Emoji.

When our character limit is there and there's pressure to sort of express something quite succinctly

or indeed, because we're speaking with our fingers and tapping away our conversations on our screens,

we've all fallen foul in situations where actually just a little smiley face would have helped the recipient

not interpret it in the wrong way.

So Emoji definitely have their uses.

And I've put that one in.

I've also put amazeballs in, as in totes amazeballs, which I totally get is very silly.

But it's just an example of how we are so playful with language.

That was Susie Dent, whose book Roots of Happiness, 100 Words of Hope and Joy,

with very beautiful illustrations by Harriet Hobday, is out shortly.

And inspired by Susie, please share with us the beautiful and amusing words you have

for happy things in your language, region or dialect.

The usual email address, GlobalPodcast, at bbc.co.uk.

And we'll be very gruntled indeed.

Now, it isn't often that serious scientists celebrate coming up with what just might be the holy grail in their field.

But a team at Queen Margaret University in Scotland are getting pretty excited

about developing a healthier and more sustainable alternative to palm oil.

Palm oil production is a key driver of deforestation and habitat destruction

in places like Malaysia and Indonesia.

But it's very widely used in the food industry and beyond, as Katrina Liddle,

the head of the Scottish Centre for Food Development and Innovation, explained.

It's incredibly functional, so it works for all sorts of benefits.

It helps texture and cake.

It proves shelf life.

It's a bland fat that makes things taste great.

So it's rather a shame that it's incredibly bad for you and it's incredibly bad for the environment as well.

So where we've looked at our product, we've looked at replacing it completely in baked goods.

And does it do all of the things that we've come to rely on palm oil for?

In broad terms, palm, together with a lot of saturated fats, is solid at room temperature.

And what we've done is we've tried to mimic that by mixing some oil with some fibres and proteins.

Our product is more of a semi-solid.

It's a bit like mayonnaise, but it works very well in the applications.

We've looked at a lot of different applications with the cake, biscuits, bread,

and we've been able to make 100% replacement.

We put it through a special sensory panel and they couldn't ascertain a difference between the two products.

So we think that's pretty good so far.

I mean, it's obviously not going to replace every usage of palm oil, and this is just the first stage.

So the people on your panel who were tasting couldn't taste the difference,

but I understand this is actually healthier as well. Is that right?

So what we've tried to do is we've got a reduction of around 30% in calories of the fat

and over 80% reduction in saturated fat.

So when you're looking at a product range which is quite unhealthy in the first place,

like bakery, what we've tried to do is make that a lot healthier.

So are manufacturers already interested in your product?

Is it something that you can see coming onto the market at some point soon?

Well, we did our first broadcast on this and we were just inundated.

It's just been quite a staggering difference from across the industry,

not just the food industry, from manufacturers looking to do this and it's global

because it's such a global ingredient.

Myself and the other co-creator, Dr Julien Lejean Longchamp,

we are not looking to manufacture this ourselves.

We're looking for a company to come and do this for us.

So that's where we're looking at manufacturing facilities.

Hopefully relatively soon, we'll be able to offer this out.

At what point did you let yourselves get excited about this?

I mean, we started this just to, is it possible?

I mean, just thought, how hard can it be?

There was a bit like that, but then we discovered how hard it was.

And so we've been looking at this for four years.

We thought, well, this works quite well.

I mean, from our point of view, we're delighted that we've done it.

We are techie nerds, effectively.

We like to create things.

We're probably not a typical inventor that we get really excited about

each different invention, but we are pretty pleased with the results.

In the mainstream, we just want to get this used.

We want to get this into the fridge and show.

Above all, we want to try and make some impact in reducing the deforestation,

which is criminal, almost.

We've been told a bit too humble as well.

So I don't know what to make of that.

You should never be too humble, never be too humble.

Before I let you go, please let me refer to and congratulate you on

the photo on your press release.

I think you know the one I mean.

There is a man holding up a beaker like it's a precious artifact.

I'm assuming that's your partner.

And you, gazing with reference at the contents of a baking tin.

That's the one.

We've had lots of comments about that particular picture.

My favorite is this Dr. Gillian Shaw was really tall,

or is Katrina Liddle very small?

It was my favorite one.

We didn't know it was going to come out that way.

But this is what we were asked to do by the photographer.

Make sure you're looking at it with great interest.

And he kept telling me to smile.

I'm not used to having my fault again.

Katrina Liddle of the Scottish Centre for Food Development and Innovation.

The cry of seagulls is a familiar sound along coastlines around the world.

But so too is the problem of the birds swooping down

and scavenging for food.

In Sydney, the problem around the harbour foreshore became so serious

that the restaurants clumped together to try to find a solution.

They tried covering the serving platters with wire cloches.

They blasted out sonic deterrents and even installed a robotic hawk.

But nothing seemed to scare the seagulls away.

Enter James Webb, the founder of Mad Dogs and Englishman,

and his seagull patrol dogs.

We obviously had to find out more.

We trained the dogs to target the seagulls and they'll run around.

They'll jump up on the wall there, bark at the seagulls and scare them away.

So once the seagulls know the dogs are there, they just don't chance it

and they don't hang around for the day.

So we realised pretty quickly that you can't just have a dog there

and wander up and down like with a pet dog.

Over the years, we've refined it and now we have proper...

They're all working dogs and these working dogs,

the Border Collies and the Kelpies, they work really, really well.

So you have to have a working breed of dog.

For example, we tried using Labradors at the beginning

where they would chase these seagulls around the park.

We were walking them and you think, oh, they'd be great there.

But then you take them down there and they just want the food off the tables.

Or you might bring a spoodle down that's crazy for chasing birds

because it's not a working breed.

It'll run out of steam after an hour and just go and try and get pats off of everybody.

So you have to have that working mentality

and the slightly sort of crazy, neurotic, desperate to work kind of mentality

to really do the job properly.

Just looking at the practicalities, barking dogs

and thieving birds and the conflict between these things,

that doesn't actually sound terribly restful.

How do people feel about it?

The general public absolutely love it.

People are always listening and people will comment as you're walking up and down

and you get a round of applause every time the dog's done

an especially impressive run towards the seagulls

and scaring them away just to get some food.

So they're working really well and the dogs love all of that too.

All of the dogs are very popular and they've all got their own little characters

and people prefer different dogs and they'll...

when they come down, I'll be walking down there with a dog

and they'll go, oh, that's Sydney, that's Tilly, that's Gigi and so on.

They know all of the dog's names.

And you say that they aren't just working dogs.

They're having fun, they're enjoying this.

The dogs only work one day a week and it's four hours.

I never let the dogs work more than four hours.

So we don't overwork the dogs.

So the dogs always enjoy it and that's the key, I think.

So the dogs love it, yeah.

When you arrived in Australia, did you envisage this being your career path

and are you delighted with it?

Oh, yeah, I love it.

I couldn't predict it because no one else is doing this.

It sort of happened just by enjoying what I'm doing

and rather than going for the money, I'm doing something I enjoy

and I think the success has sort of come from that.

James Webb, talking to us from Sydney, Australia.

And that's it from us for now.

Remember, if you would like to be part of the Happy Pod,

send us sounds that make you smile

and indeed your regional words of hope and joy.

For more information,

visit our email address, globalpodcastatbbc.co.uk.

This edition was mixed by Joe McCartney.

The producer was Anna Murphy.

Our editor is Karen Martin.

I'm Jackie Leonard and we'll leave you with a clip

from the British actor Sir Michael Gambon who died this week.

Here he is as Albus Dumbledore.

But you know, happiness can be found

even in the darkest of times.

It only remembers to turn on the light.

Machine-generated transcript that may contain inaccuracies.