Marnie Chesterton

But for now, in Mumbai, India, thank you Chavi Sachdev. Mahatunan. I'm so happy to be here. And in Helsinki, Finland, thank you Tristan Ahton. Thanks for having me. Obaha. So, party bags for all. I'm Marni Chasterton. The producer was Alice Lipscombe-Southwell with Ella Hubber and Robby Wojciechowski. Do join us next week for more Unexpected Elements.

Jos ajattelin, että se oli täysin uusi asia, olisin varmasti johtanut neurologista. Minulla on aina ollut vaikeuksia, ja minulla on ollut erilaisia tavoitteita muistamaan ihmisiä ja heidän ääniä. Mutta viimeiset vuoset ovat olleet yhä huonoja.

It happened to me at the coffee machine at the office a few weeks ago. A guy greets me and starts chatting about something. From context I knew I'd seen him before. He was in the office and it's a small company. He referred to a conversation we had earlier. I looked at him and I thought, sorry mate, I really can't remember your face at all. Did you say to him that you can't remember or did you try to style it out? No, no, I tried to...

vähentäisi asiaa ja nopeasti ymmärtäisi, mistä hän puuttuu ja kuka hän oli, mutta minulla tuli, että kuka sinä olet?

So yes, I empathize. I have a similar experience. Is there anything you particularly want us to find out? I'd like to know if this is unique or not. And I'd like to know if somebody has studied enough to tell me what's next. Is this going to get worse? Can I train to overcome this? And if so, how? It's getting to be very annoying. It's a handicap that makes work harder than it should be, I feel.

Tässä oli tämä jakso CrowdSciencein BBC World Serviceistä. Kysymys oli minulle, Jeroen, Ruotsissa. Esitys oli esitetty Caroline Steelella ja tehty Joe Glanvillella. Jos sinulla on kysymys jokaiselle koulutusopimukselle, ja haluat tehtäväsi tutustua, miksi ei e-maili crowdscience at bbc.co.uk? Hei!

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. Tulosyy, kovat kuukautiskivut.

Muistatko, kun vaihdettiin markasta euro ja kaikki kelasi kuuden kertotaulua? Muistan, siitä on kyllä aikaa. Muistatko, koska tämä terassi on viimeksi käsitelty? Kuinka vanha sä luulet mun olevan? Olisiko kesären van aika? Käsittele terassi säännöllisesti Tikkurilan Valtti plus terassiöljyllä. Ja se kestää kauniina vuosikymmenestä toiseen.

If you asked people to name a famous lost city, I suspect the list might include Machu Picchu in Peru or maybe Pompeii in Italy. But this week I've been thinking of a more recent lost civilisation, Fordlandia. After the end of the First World War, the increased demand for rubber led car manufacturer Henry Ford to a bold plan –

Build an outpost of his empire closer to the raw material needed for his car's tires. He bought 13,000 square kilometers of the Amazon and set about building his American dream. Rows of houses with picket fences, a dance hall, a golf course.

But Fordlandia was built on the supposed success of the rubber plantation. And because the rubber tree is native to Brazil, that's also the home to its numerous pests. Caterpillars swarmed across two densely planted rubber trees, and the fungus they carried doomed the plantation.

Today most rubber comes from South Asia, where the South American leaf blight has so far been kept away. I'm Marni Chasterton from the BBC World Service. This is Unexpected Elements.

And I'm joined as ever by a global panel of science journalists. We have Sandy Ong in Singapore. Hello, hello. Hi, Marni. Ni hao. And journalist Lerni Joubert. You used to live in Cape Town, but Lerni, you're now our van life correspondent. Where are you this week? Marni, I am on the wild coast on the eastern side of South Africa, near a place called Port St. John's. Lovely.

So, what we do on Unexpected Elements each week is we take a story from the news and we use that as our jump-off point to discuss a world of interesting science. So, given that I started the show musing about rubber production, let's hear what kicked that off.

Yes, this is the story that the world's largest condom manufacturer, Carex, who make 5 billion condoms a year, plan to raise their prices by 20, 30, possibly more percent. All due to the fact that the supply chain of raw materials continues to be disrupted by the Iran war and the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.

Sandy, have you heard of the condom crisis? Yeah, actually, partly because Carex, the manufacturer, is based in Malaysia, which is literally on our doorstep. Marni, back to you. Tell me, how has a lack of oil led to this condom crisis? That is exactly what I was wondering. And a lot of condoms are made of natural latex, which is produced from this tree, the Hevia brasiliensis.

Oil comes in because the raw latex is treated with ammonia to preserve it. And the ammonia comes several steps down the line from the refinement of crude oil. It's not the only product that relies on oil and petrochemicals in the manufacturing process. But in unexpected fashion we're going to focus on the most surprising, which to us was condom prices. So, condom price hike and possible shortage, there is our starting point.

Lani, where do you want to take us from here? Well, Marni, it seems there's been a bit of a boom or bust situation down under in Koalaville. Koalas have been in the news quite a lot of late, mostly because their numbers are dropping. According to the IUCN listing, they are regarded as vulnerable. But in 2022, Australian law recognised them as endangered.

But there are some refuges where koalas are doing so well that conservationists have had to turn to prophylactics. When you say prophylactics, please tell me you're talking about condoms for koalas. That would add an interesting spin, but not quite. Really, they're just using the same good old-fashioned hormone treatment that liberated us back in the 1960s. Specifically, they're using an implant containing a synthetic hormone that mimics progesterone.

It's not that new in koala management though. Apparently some populations have been kept in check for at least 20 years in this sort of method from what I can find. I'm a little bit confused though, because if koala populations are vulnerable, it seems weird to be giving koala birth control to the ones that are thriving, no?