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BBC World Service East and Southern Africa

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.

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Unexpected Elements: Fashion to dye for

Discussion & Talk

26/10/2023 GMT

Fashion to dye for

BBC World Service - Unexpected Elements, Fashion to dye for

As Lagos Fashion Week begins, we follow the trends into science

As Lagos fashion week struts its stuff, we follow the trends through peanut shell wool, 1920 car marketing, tractor repairs to whales’ greatest hits.

Lagos Fashion Week makes some unexpected connections to vegan wool, 1920s car marketing, and Right to Repair legislation. If we consider our obsession with the clothes we wear to be some result of sexual selection, do any other animals evolve their self-expression with such frequency? 

Dr Ellen Garland of St Andrew’s University tells how male humpback whales change their song with surprisingly infectious rapidity, and talks us through some recent hits.
Also, some catalytic promise for wastewater management, and how choosing a language in which to think changes your decision making. 

Plus, this week’s messages from you, and can poetry help science?

Presenter: Caroline Steel, with Chhavi Sachdev and Godfred Boafo
Producer: Alex Mansfield, with Tom Bonnet and Margaret Sessa-Hawkins

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