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Unexpected Elements Episodes

  1.

    The only one

    Olympians representing their countries alone got us thinking about being the only one

  2. Let them eat crab

    Everything you need for a French royal banquet, with an unexpected twist, of course.

  3. Can I eat it?

    The discovery of champagne in a shipwreck has us pondering preservation

  4. Breaking, climbing, and surfing

    Could we surf on Titan, or dance like a physicist? Olympic levels of science chat.

  5. Marriage madness

    Ceremonies, rings and sleep divorce

  6. Political Jet Lag

    Brace yourself for presidential fights and pointless flights

  7. Mushroom magic

    Hallucinatory, deadly or lifesaving? Your one-stop guide to everything fungi

  8. Lights out

    A power outage in Ecuador has us pondering the darkness of blackouts

  9. Seismic swift

    A Taylor Swift gig in Scotland made us look at human earthquakes and animal seismographs

  10. An unexpected burger

    After McDonalds’ recent court case loss the team cook up a scientific culinary delight

  11. Balloon manoeuvres

    Balloons in South Korea have us floating ideas about airships and helium.

  12. Eternal flames

    From Olympic torches to zombie fires, we stoke the flames which do not go out

  13. A world going on underground

    In bunkers, basements and boreholes, we explore life going on underground

  14. Winning Losers

    Does the winner really always take it all?

  15. Unexpected birthday party

    It's party time and we look to science for advice on clothes, cake and singing

  16. Horsey driverless cars and competitive cloning

    Rampaging horses lead us to horse cloning and what horseriding can teach driverless cars

  17. A scientific séance

    Conjuring, not spirits, but critical thinking to expose fradulent psychics

  18. Computer memories and quantum futures

    From silicon chips behind the Iron Curtain to quantum computing in the cloud.

  19. Beyoncé, banjos and dancing chemistry

    Beyonce's reappraisal of who can do country music spurs an Unexpected Elements hoedown

  20. Unexpected elections

    What do stickleback fish have to do with millions of people’s voting intentions?

  21. G.O.A.T

    The greatest baseball player of all time and the greatest science to boot!

  22. Ancient water, modern solutions

    With water shortages and melting ice caps making the news we look at unexpected solutions

  23. Fandom: The next generation

    K-Pop fans send us on a journey into fandom through Star Trek, football and physics

  24. Unexpected Oscars

    As award season reaches its climax, Unexpected Elements holds its own glitzy ceremony.

  25. Leaping in Sync

    As the leap year helps keep us in sync, we explore nature’s ways of staying in rhythm

  26. Going the distance

    A tribute to marathon runner Kelvin Kiptum and the science behind his record performances

  27. Not so random acts of kindness

    Are African spiders behind the ultimate act of kindness in nature?

  28. Deep in thought

    News of a microchip implanted in a human brain sends our imagination running wild

  29. How plankton made mountains

    The world’s largest cruise ship has set sail – but what stowaways are hiding onboard?

  30. Populations of people, frogs and microbes

    With China’s population declining, would decreasing populations be better for the planet?

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