A scientific odyssey
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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In my 20s, I was the master of travelling light. Toothbrush, a change of underwear and a fresh T-shirt. I could save 90% of my bag for interesting types of microphone, just in case I wanted to record underwater, which is obviously a holiday basic. Now I find that packing fewer than four pairs of shoes means not covering the essentials. So I did it. I've scaled up and, as a birthday treat, bought myself a bigger suitcase. I'm no longer a hand-luggage-only person. They say that growing older increases your emotional baggage. And it turns out that it increases your physical baggage too, which isn't all bad when you have room for swim shoes and slippers. I'm Marnie Chesterton from the BBC World Service.
This is Unexpected Elements.
And if this show were a journey, it would definitely be a group holiday because I'm here for fun times with my global panel of science broadcasters. Let's meet them. Joining us from Accra, Ghana, it's biomedic and science and health journalist Emmanuel Samani. Hello. Hi, Samani. How's it going? And in Mumbai, India, we have science journalist Chavi Sachdev. Welcome. Hello. Salaam, everybody. This is the show that takes an event from the news headlines, sits with it for a bit and then starts thinking about all of the related science stories we should share. We all bring something and we corral a scientist to add their pearls of knowledge to. It's a potluck of science that all links back to our starting news story, which this week is a new beginning for a tale that has stood the test of time.
Take a listen to this.
Odysseus. The Odyssey, directed by Sir Christopher Nolan. It's a tale of the Greek hero Odysseus and his long attempt to get home after the Trojan Wars. He fights cyclops and visits the dead. It's got shipwrecks, it's got monsters, brave heroes, very seductive sex goddesses. There's revenge and, of course, there's love.
The Odyssey isn't just a story of daring do.
It is the most complicated postmodern epic you could ever imagine.
Yes, this is the news that this Friday, the 17th of July, is the worldwide release of Christopher Nolan's latest blockbuster, The Odyssey, which is based on the epic poem by Homer, the ancient Greek poet. The Odyssey follows the story of the hero Odysseus' ten-year quest to return home to Ithaca after the ten-year-long Trojan War. So, Unexpected Elements is today going to take you on our own scientific odyssey. And Samani, you're kicking us off. Where would you like to take us? Well, Mani, as you just said, the Odyssey starts just after the Trojan War. Now, what do you think of when you hear Trojan War? I think of the horse. It's a classic, the wooden horse that the Greeks hid inside to sneak into the city of Troy and surprise their enemies.
Absolutely, Marnie. Nowadays, the phrase Trojan horse is also used metaphorically to mean a deceptive strategy or trick where a target lets a threat into somewhere protected. So today, I have a story of a viral Trojan horse. So is this viral as in computer virus? Are we talking TikTok viral?
What is the episode’s framing and who are the hosts and panelists?
Are we talking literal, you know, microscopic makes us sick virus? In this case, we're talking about a microscopic virus. And I'm specifically talking about something called the Delta virus. So when we say Delta virus, it's about as basic as an infectious agent can get. So essentially, it's a tiny loop of RNA and a couple of proteins. It cannot build its own envelope. The altercodes every virus needs to enter a cell and travel between hosts. So on its own, a Delta virus is basically stranded. Now, to go anywhere, it has to hitchhike or get a ride from a helper virus, right? The one delta virus we've known about for decades is hepatitis D, and the only one that infects humans. As a matter of fact, it can only infect you if you're already carrying the hepatitis B virus, which acts as a helper virus because it uses hepatitis B's surface proteins as its quotes.
When the two are present together, they cause the most severe form of viral hepatitis,
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–4:40
2
What is the episode’s framing and who are the hosts and panelists?
4:40–24:35
3
How does the Delta (hepatitis D–like) virus act as a ‘Trojan horse’ to infect new tissues?
24:35–39:52
4
What experiments showed delta viruses hiding inside helper virus particles?
39:52–51:05
5
When and how did iguanas make an 8,000 km oceanic voyage to Fiji?
51:05–52:11