Marnie Chesterton

Have you ever looked at a map of the world and wondered why some borders seem to have been drawn with a ruler and pencil rather than any natural boundary formed by rivers, mountains or centuries of conflict between groups?

In Africa, there's no getting around the fact that this is due to colonialism.

Specifically, a conference in Berlin over Christmas 1884 when European countries carved up the continent.

In 1913, an attempt was made to draw a better border between Sudan and Uganda, in a mission involving a British official from each country.

Captain Kelly from Sudan was keen to meet each ethnic group and draw a boundary that reflected their distribution.

Captain Tufnel from the Ugandan side was keen to go on leave.

They didn't get on.

The motley crew trekked most of the route, but personal differences and physical hardship meant the project was abandoned before the team reached the end of the border, which you can still see looks suspiciously like it was completed with a ruler.

I'm Marnie Chasterton from the BBC World Service.

This is Unexpected Elements.

This show is a science-based chat, and joining me for that chat, I have a panel of science journalists from around the world.

Specifically, from Nairobi, Kenya, we have Phyllis Muate.

Welcome, welcome.

Hello, my name is Phyllis Muate.

And from rather further north, hello Tristan Arton in Helsinki, Finland.

Nice to be here with you all.

So this is the show that takes its starting point from an event in the news.

And then we use that as our jumping off point to explore a show's worth of occasionally tenuous related science stories.

And it all starts with that one event from the news.

So without further ado, let's hear it.