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Unexpected Elements

Factual: Science & Nature

Factual: Science & Nature: Science & Technology

The news you know, the science you don’t.

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.

The Science Hour

Unexpected Elements: Chemical weapons, 30,000 year old virus, Maternal health Ethiopia

MV Cape Ray

08/03/2014

Chemical weapons, 30,000 year old virus, Maternal health Ethiopia

BBC World Service - Unexpected Elements, Chemical weapons, 30,000 year old virus, Maternal health Ethiopia

The difficulties of destroying Syria’s chemical weapons

Destroying Syria’s chemical weapons, A 30,000 year-old virus comes back to life, Community-based approaches to Ethiopian maternal health

Chemical weapons
Disposing of Syria’s chemical weapons is a difficult task, both politically and technically. The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), responsible for the decommissioning, has kitted out a special ship, the MV Cape Ray to hydrolyse "priority" toxic substances. Hamish de Bretton Gordon, a chemical weapons expert from SecureBio, explains why destroying chemical precursors on dry land is not an option and whether the job will be done on time.

Tracking turtles
Satellite tags have finally given researchers insight into the "lost years" of loggerhead turtles. After many failed attempts, researchers have worked out how to attach the tiny tags to the months-old animals during the uncertain period when they leave US coastal waters and head out into the Atlantic Ocean.
The data suggests the loggerheads can spend some time living in amongst floating mats of Sargassum seaweed, in the Sargasso Sea

Composing in Colour
The composer, Neil Harbisson, has a rare medical condition which has left him unable to distinguish colour.  Instead his world is black and white.  But technology has come to his aid.  Through a device called an eyeborg, surgically attached to his skull, he is able to translate colours into sound.  Neil Harbisson hears colours, and recently, collaborating on the Vodafone First project, he put on a first ever colour-composed concert in Barcelona.  Harbisson joins Click to describe his unique talent.

(Photo: A special ship, the MV Cape Ray. Credit: Jim Watson/AFP/ Getty Images)

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Unexpected Elements

Chemical weapons, 30,000 year old virus, Maternal health Ethiopia

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