Marnie Chesterton

Joskus ruutu voi olla niin paljon enemmän kuin suurta ja vitamiinista. Kun muuttuin nykyiseen kotona Lontoon, uusi alue oli hieman vähempänä kuin vanhempi. Se on vähemmän kiinni, vähemmän vihreä ja vaikeampi saada hyvän kappaleen.

But what it has in cartloads is fruit. And not just the boring supermarket ones. Exotic ones that are a taste of home for many South Asian diaspora locals who crave a decent mango. The highly perfumed and much prized Quezars and Alfonsos are normally in season right now.

And the boxes are handed over to me with a conspiratorial smile that says, yeah, I know and you know that these beauties are the good stuff.

If I'm ever feeling jaded, I just have to remember that it took me half a lifetime to chance upon these fruits. And that gives me hope that maybe there are lots of similar wonders just around the next corner when I choose to explore. I'm Marni Chesterton from the BBC World Service. This is Unexpected Elements.

And around the corner in a global sense, I'm joined by this week's panel of science broadcasters. In Singapore, we have Sandy Ong. Hello. Hi Marni. Ni hao. And also from Nairobi, Kenya, joining us is Michael Kaloki. Hello Michael.

How about the money? I've talked about mangoes before on this show because although some varieties are available all year round, now is mango season and it is as much a part of my calendar as Christmas and spring. Much as I'm happy to derail any show into the subject of food,

This is a science show and not just a science show. We are an international show and tell of unexpected science stories complete with audio archive, a special guest dropping in and it's all inspired by one event in the news. And yes, my mango chat is foreshadowing to this week's news story.

Yes, I've already noticed its absence in the London markets, but this is the news that India's prized Alfonso mango crop is at its lowest level in decades. So exports are down thanks to the conflict in the Middle East, which has disrupted global air routes. But the main thing is industry crop reports that state that adverse weather conditions in parts of India have led to low production of the prized fruit.

So in some areas the crop loss is as staggering as 85 to 95 percent. And the likely reason behind this is the El Niño weather phenomenon, which has caused hotter than usual weather in April and May, leading the fruits to spoil. And we're going to be talking more about El Niño later on in the show. But before we get into the stories, turns out we also have a mango farmer on the panel, Michael? Yeah.

Kiitos for the insight Michael. It's worrying that these changes, we can see them happening in real time. So yes, mango devastation, which obviously means personal devastation Sandy for me. Where are you going to take us from here?

Alfonso voisi olla mangosin sääntöjä, mutta minä haluaisin ottaa asiat yhdessä ja puhua toisesta asian perheestä, joka on kutsuttu ruotsin sääntöön, durinista. Sandy, viime vuonna kun olin Singapuolta, oli hienoa, että heillä oli sääntöjä, jotka sanoivat ettei syödä durinia, eivätkö he?

Tämä on oikeastaan. Subwayissa, hotellissa, yliopistossa. He ovat kaikenlaisia paikkoja, ja se on siksi, että heillä on todella pysyvää kuulua. Joten for those of you who aren't familiar with durian, it's this green-colored fruit that's about the size of a coconut or slightly larger. But hands down, the most distinctive feature of the durian is its smell. Some would say stench.

I know some people have compared it to rotten onions, raw sewage, turpentine, even gas leaks. But all that aside, it turns out that the durians, specifically the waste bits that aren't eaten, they might one day help us charge our electronic devices.

Oh, that's fascinating. A couple of years ago, a team of researchers from the University of Sydney in Australia published a paper in the Journal of Energy Storage. And in this paper, they described how they came up with a novel method for extracting biowaste from durian to create supercapacitors.

Ja muistakaa, mitkä ovat superkapasiteetit? Superkapasiteetit ovat asioita, jotka saavat energiaa. Eli ne ovat melko erilaisia bateriaaleja siinä mielessä. Mutta miten ne saavat ja laajentavat energiaa on todennäköisesti erilainen. Joten ajattele bateriaaleja marathoniin. Ne voivat saada paljon energiaa pitkän ajan aikaa, jolloin superkapasiteetit ovat enemmän kuin sprinttejä. Ne saavat hieman energiaa todella nopeasti.

Ja siksi superkapasiteetit ovat hyviä käyttöön asioita, kuten kameraflashit, defibrillatorit, niitä asioita, joita ihmiset käyttävät yllättämällä ihmisten kärsimääräistä. Ja backup-asioita, jotka auttavat sinua vastaamaan eläkehityksistä. Eli superkapasiteetissa rakennetaan vapaus yhdessä kaksi metallipaletta ja niitä kutsutaan elektroidiksi.

To help these plates store as much charge as possible, scientists use porous materials to make them. And these are so good because the more pores you have, the more surface area you have, which help to maximize charge storage. Now recently in the last five to ten years, scientists have started experimenting with something called aerogels.

Aerogellit ovat suurta karboni-luvun materiaalia, joten ne ovat 99,8 prosenttia aeroa, mikä tekee niitä lyhyemmin suurta materiaalia maailmassa. Mutta minä käsittelen kaikki tämän, että suurin vaikutus näistä materiaaleista on se, että ne ovat melko kalliita, joten nyt on paljon kiinnostusta käyttää laajaa tai zero kosteutta organiikkaa.

Ah, low zero cost organic waste. I'm assuming this is where the durian and the jackfruit come in. Exactly. So it turns out that these fruits, especially their inedible spongy inner cores, are really good candidates for aerogel supercapacitors. And that's because they have a really porous structure.

Plus they're super lightweight as well. And what they did was they used these fruit-derived aerogels to build electrodes. And when they did that, they found that they stored energy much better than existing supercapacitors. And they did all of that for a fraction of the cost. Oh, this sounds like a win-win-win. Are they being used now?