Winning Losers
Does the winner really always take it all?
- 49 mins
- 17 May 2024
BBC Sounds - Unexpected Elements - Available Episodes
Unexpected Elements
The news you know, the science you don’t.
Episodes (225 Available)
- Unexpected birthday party
It's party time and we look to science for advice on clothes, cake and singing
- 49 mins
- 10 May 2024
- Horsey driverless cars and competitive cloning
Rampaging horses lead us to horse cloning and what horseriding can teach driverless cars
- 49 mins
- 03 May 2024
- A scientific séance
Conjuring, not spirits, but critical thinking to expose fradulent psychics
- 50 mins
- 26 Apr 2024
- Computer memories and quantum futures
From silicon chips behind the Iron Curtain to quantum computing in the cloud.
- 49 mins
- 19 Apr 2024
- Beyoncé, banjos and dancing chemistry
Beyonce's reappraisal of who can do country music spurs an Unexpected Elements hoedown
- 49 mins
- 12 Apr 2024
- Unexpected elections
What do stickleback fish have to do with millions of people’s voting intentions?
- 50 mins
- 05 Apr 2024
- G.O.A.T
The greatest baseball player of all time and the greatest science to boot!
- 50 mins
- 28 Mar 2024
- Ancient water, modern solutions
With water shortages and melting ice caps making the news we look at unexpected solutions
- 50 mins
- 21 Mar 2024
- Fandom: The next generation
K-Pop fans send us on a journey into fandom through Star Trek, football and physics
- 50 mins
- 14 Mar 2024
- Unexpected Oscars
As award season reaches its climax, Unexpected Elements holds its own glitzy ceremony.
- 50 mins
- 07 Mar 2024
- Leaping in Sync
As the leap year helps keep us in sync, we explore nature’s ways of staying in rhythm
- 50 mins
- 29 Feb 2024
- Going the distance
A tribute to marathon runner Kelvin Kiptum and the science behind his record performances
- 50 mins
- 22 Feb 2024
- Not so random acts of kindness
Are African spiders behind the ultimate act of kindness in nature?
- 50 mins
- 15 Feb 2024
- Deep in thought
News of a microchip implanted in a human brain sends our imagination running wild
- 50 mins
- 08 Feb 2024
- How plankton made mountains
The world’s largest cruise ship has set sail – but what stowaways are hiding onboard?
- 50 mins
- 01 Feb 2024
- Populations of people, frogs and microbes
With China’s population declining, would decreasing populations be better for the planet?
- 50 mins
- 25 Jan 2024
- Rulers and the rules of ageing
Under the stress and strains of leadership, how might power affect youthfulness?
- 50 mins
- 18 Jan 2024
- Super corals and science diplomacy
Could tensions around the Red Sea affect research into heat-resistant super corals?
- 50 mins
- 11 Jan 2024
- Timing is everything
Can you visualize time? We don’t all see it the same way
- 50 mins
- 04 Jan 2024