Global News Podcast - The Happy Pod: The 'Bee' song creating a buzz

Episode Date: November 4, 2023

Our weekly collection of the happiest stories in the world. This week, the Ukrainian musician whose bee-inspired song captured the hearts of millions. Also: the band pushing sustainability by walking 1400 kilometres between gigs. And, a new type of seal discovered in Greenland.

Hello, this is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service, with reports and analysis from across the world. The latest news seven days a week. BBC World Service podcasts are supported by advertising. If you're hearing this, you're probably already listening to BBC's award-winning news podcasts. But did you know that you can listen to them without ads? Get current affairs podcasts like Thank you. Amazon Music with a Prime membership. Spend less time on ads and more time with BBC Podcasts. Unexpected Elements is all about finding the surprising science angles to everyday news. Mine absolutely blood. Amazing to me.

That's Unexpected Elements from the BBC World Service. Find it wherever you get your BBC Podcasts. You know we love hearing from everyone who enjoys the Happy Pod. This week we heard from Scott Mills, who presents one of the biggest radio shows in Europe. The news can be so heavy at the moment, so I wanted to bring you this little gem that I found on BBC Sounds this week.

Just thought I'd share it. It's called Happy News, and it's made by the incredible team at BBC World Service. Does what it says on the tin. It's just happy news. Thanks for the shout out, Scott. This is Andrew Peach and this time we've got seals,

spoons and a song about bees. Hi, this is Morten in Copenhagen and you're listening to The Happy Pod. This is Aero from Bangalore and you're listening to The Happy Pod. This is Seth and I've got my fiddle here with me and you're listening to the happy pod on the way scientists in brazil working on a vaccine for cocaine addiction brazil is the second most important market the u.s is the first. In Brazil, we're talking about six million who use cocaine regularly. The seals are in Greenland.

They're a new type that's evolved to make the most of the environment. Glaciers, so the top layers of the fjord are almost freshwater, where the bottom layers are marine. So we think that that is some specific genetic characteristics that these animals have developed. And there's a musical theme with Seth, who went on tour and walked between gigs. We'd underestimate quite how long it would take us to get there because we were walking 15 or 20 miles every day. So there was a few days where we ended up fell running, scrambling up the hills to try and make it to the gigs on time.

And the Queen of Christmas defrosted online. She leads up to it saying not yet, hashtag not yet. She's been frozen for the rest of the year, bursting out of that ice cube. My 14-year-old had even seen it. Those stories in the happy part. First, the Ukrainian refugee who says she's found some light in the darkness after a song she wrote and performed went viral. 22-year-old Helen Martyniuk is a pianist who settled in the UK after the Russian invasion last year. And it was here that she tried out the electric organ

and then recorded a video of herself playing her new composition, called The B theme. It's been watched by millions, of course, and Helen told James Reynolds the tune came to her during a spontaneous moment of laughter and creativity. So originally I've made this composition for my colleague because he works with a computer and he's always really concentrated. And I just wanted to make a melody that makes him dance. And, you know, like a dancing mushroom, like up and down, up and down. And I've recorded the video and then I posted this video

and here we go, I'm just talking with you about this. Does it make you dance? To be honest, all the time my face just changed and has like 101 emotions when I play it, especially because it's really a repetitive melody. It's easy for your brain to remember the melody. This is probably the secret. How have your fellow Ukrainians been reacting to the song,

particularly those who are in Ukraine at the moment, still part of the war? The support was massive, like especially from my family, because it really brings some good smiles in these dark days. A lot of just Ukrainians who never knew me personally, they were saying, honestly, Helen, that just made my day. My day was shockingly terrifying, but that just made me laugh a little bit so that also made me happy and my family they are also still in Ukraine they supported me

like massively probably people sometimes really need this like light and something something good to laugh about it it feels like the kind of music that people are going to do videos to and do their own dances to. Have you seen anyone doing that? is like passing through and like just just random people i've heard the person in the hospital he was singing this melody i was just i couldn't i couldn't move i just was so impressed is it a song that you think you'll ever get tired of hearing i think no because all the time i'm coming to the song i literally played the melody more than 300 times just because it just happens all the time. I've never been tired. Plus, I play the instrument, which brings me joy all the time. Would you describe yourself as someone who is a person who's always happy like that? Or are you a person like almost everyone else who needs those moments of happiness to get through a day?

I'm a very emotional person. So the bee theme is a big part of me. I always smile and laugh, so I would describe myself, the bee theme is like me. Yeah, even like now, I feel like I'm a bee theme because I'm smiling and my cheeks are sore already. How, since February 2022, the beginning of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, how have you managed to find those moments to smile and even to laugh? I've been always learning how to find some simple beauty inside of the things. This is why I started taking pictures on my old camera, because I wanted to fix a good moment. And when the war started, I realized that I started losing everything. And when I was sitting in my kitchen, I was just having a feeling

everything is very pointless. And I just decided to keep the balance and started just playing the piano to leave all the emotions, to keep the balance. Simply things genuinely brings me a lot of joy. Like even the sunny weather, it's the biggest reason to make me already very happy and not think about bad things. Helen, the time has come.

Would you please play us the B theme? Oh, with pleasure. Thank you. Helen Martyniuk and her bee theme. We love stories from all over the world on The Happy Pod. I can tell you this is the first time we've been to Greenland, the world's largest island in the North Atlantic, with its dramatic fjords and icebergs. In a moment, we'll hear about a new type of seal that's been found there. First, Akulu Roshing Asvid, a senior scientist at the Greenland Institute of Natural Resources,

told me more about the landscape of Greenland and its uses. One of the things that's special about it is you have this fjord. It's about 60 kilometres long and it produces a lot of icebergs. The icebergs have many shapes and forms and many of those that comes out of this fjord will be newborn icebergs. During the next coming years they will change a lot both in colors and in shape. Nowadays it's mainly fishing for greenland halibut and that's just outside the fjord or in some of the side branches. There is this main fjord 60 kilometers and then there's some smaller side branches of the fjord

where people are fishing and hunting seals. Researchers from across Scandinavia have discovered a new type of seal that lives in Greenland's ice fjords. Now, these seals look different from other ringed seals. They're bigger and they have distinctive colours and patterns on their coats. Local hunters have, of course, been aware of them for generations. They call them Cangiat, meaning from Cangia, the Greaselandic name for the area in the west they live in. Morten Tanger Olsen is lead researcher of the study. He's an associate professor at the University of Copenhagen

and told me more about the difference between other seals and the Kangiat. Ring seals are sort of all over the place in the Arctic. It's one of the better and broader of the local population and have been that for thousands of years. From a scientific point of view, we always thought that ring seals across the Arctic was this big sort of panmictic group moving around, interpreting with each other, not really a lot of sort of variation across their range.

But local hunters have long recognized different types of ring seals, both in Greenland and in Canada, in particular distinguishing between smaller variants that were out in the pack ice and then larger variants that tend to live in the fjord. And in this particular fjord system, the local hunters have referred to the seals as Kangeat, so those coming from Kangeat, which is the Greenlandic name of the ice fjord. So that has been known probably for generations, but it's never sort of scientifically been investigated how different those seals were from other arctic ring seals. And just describe what the difference is. What's different about these seals?

So they tend to be larger in body size. They have a sort of more distinct patterning in their fur, all ring seals. The name comes from sort of ring-like, whitish rings on their coat. But these ones, they tend to have a more distinct patterning, more clear, white, yellowish, brown, dark patches. Their behavior is also very different in that other arctic ring seals tend to migrate or move over thousands of kilometers in search for food, but these ones stay in this short system. And people listening will be familiar with the idea of evolution, of animals developing to be as in keeping with their environment as possible to make the best of the environment they're in. Is that what we're talking about having happened here, do you think?

Yeah, that's what we are hypothesizing. We sequenced the number of genomes from these animals and compared it to ring seals across their range and could see that the striking also were genetically different. And using different models, we could estimate that they likely diverged more than 100,000 years ago, perhaps as long as 200,000 years ago. And during this period, they have acquired some genetic characteristics.

And we also think we see a selection of genes that might be associated with salinity tolerance. So this ice fjord is quite unique in that there's a lot of freshwater runoff from the melting glaciers. So the top layers of the fjord are almost freshwater, where the bottom layers are marine. So we think that that is some specific genetic characteristics that these animals have developed. But the differences aren't great enough for it to be defined as a new species of seal. It's a new ecotype of seal. It's a new ecotype of seal.

And obviously now we're down into semantics. It's clearly not its own species, but whether it's an ecotype or subspecies or what it is, that's mainly a scientific discussion but it's clear that these animals morphologically in their appearance are different from other arctic ringseers. Morten Tanger Olsen from the University of Copenhagen. A 17 year old boy in India has developed a smart spoon to help people with Parkinson's disease. Arav Anil is from Bangalore. He was inspired by his uncle Arjun, who has Parkinson's, and was struggling to eat because of his tremors. So using sensors, motors and a 3D printer,

Arav's smart spoon is now undergoing trials at a local university. He told me what his invention looks like. So the smart spoon which we have built is basically like a cylinder, and in the front of it there's a spoon which is attached to motors. So when the hand tremors, the spoon compensates for it by rotating in the opposite direction. And this was inspired as an invention by your uncle. Tell me a little bit about the battle that your uncle has with Parkinson's? Around a year ago, I attended a family function where I saw my uncle Arjun. He has Parkinson's disease and he was struggling to eat food. So using a spoon, he tried to pick up the food, but all the food spilled over. So he needed like

an assistant to help him eat. So Parkinson's is a disease where the patient's hand tremors and it's very hard for them to do simple household things. So most people seeing that would sympathise and understand the issues but not have the knowledge to be able to design a piece of equipment to help. Tell me where that knowledge came from in you, Arif. I was introduced to robotics when I was seven years old. And ever since then, I've been participating in more than 20 robotics competitions and developing my skills on mechanical, electronics and software. So with these competitions, I've gained a lot of knowledge on the technical aspects of building a robot. So we built around five prototypes. And for each of the prototypes, we first designed it in CAD, which is computer aided design.

And then we used a 3D printer to simulate and prototype it. Did your uncle know that you were doing this? Or did you keep it a secret from him? For the first one to two months, we kept it a secret because we wanted him to be surprised after it is fully completed. So the first time he saw it, he was absolutely impressed because he hadn't seen any other product like this. And he knew that this could have a big impact on him. And what chance is there of this being marketed and distributed to patients around the world with Parkinson's? Currently, we have tied up with RV College of Physiotherapy, and they are helping us with the validation because any medical device before coming into the market must be validated with a large group of patients. And they are giving us feedback and suggestions so that we can improve and then we are thinking of small-scale manufacturing so that first we can distribute

it among the hospitals and then to the individuals. Robotics innovator Arav Anil with me from Bangalore in India. Soon we're off to China to meet the six-year-old who can do a Rubik's Cube in six seconds. On the social network Weibo, users have spoken of how they couldn't solve a cube in six hours, let alone six seconds. And there are many who feel that her young age means that she could eventually claim the overall title in years to come. And we'll have some live fiddle playing if you stay with us. If you're hearing this, you're probably already listening to BBC's award-winning

news podcasts. But did you know that you can listen to them without ads? Get current affairs podcasts like Global News, AmeriCast and The Global Story, plus other great BBC podcasts from history to comedy to true crime, all ad-free. Simply subscribe to BBC Podcast Premium on Apple Podcasts or listen to Amazon Music with a Prime membership. Spend less time on ads and more time with BBC Podcasts. at the Federal University of Minas Gerais. We have about 20 million people in the world who consume regularly cocaine. Brazil is the second most important market.

The US is the first one. Cocaine is also a problem in Mexico. Consumption in Europe also increased in the last years. We're all familiar with the idea of vaccination, but cocaine addiction seems a surprising condition that vaccination might be an answer to. Vaccination in this case, it's a different approach than the preventive vaccination. We're talking about a therapeutic vaccine. What I mean by that, we already have this model for allergies, for example, where we use a vaccine to modulate the immune system to not recognize so strongly an antigen,

for example. We also have therapeutic vaccines for the treatment of bladder cancer, for example, where we induce an antibody that will detect cancer and help the immune system to destroy them. In fact, this mechanism was observed in the 80s by an American team who was studying why some people increase the amount of cocaine that they use. And they found that those subjects that used large amounts of cocaine, they already had anti-cocaine antibodies. So those antibodies, when they are in the bloodstream, they link to cocaine and they reduce or preclude the passage of cocaine through a protective barrier that we have in our brain named the blood-brain barrier. This is a protective barrier that we have to avoid that

virus or large molecules pass and damage the function of the brain. Cocaine is a very small molecule. So when it passes freely through this barrier, but when we have the antibodies, they link to cocaine and they reduce this passage. And you'd imagine that the next step along the road would be to do human trials. But a complication with that would be people being willing to come forward and identify themselves as a cocaine addict. Self-identification of the disease is something that is very common. Since we started to divulgate the vaccine, we have about 6,000 people that spontaneously searched to participate in the human study, the clinical

trials. I think there is a real demand for a new treatment for cocaine addiction nowadays. Professor Frederico Garcia with me from Brazil. Now, another musician who's gone viral this week with 116 million views so far on X and 82 million on Instagram for this video. The self-styled Queen of Christmas, Mariah Carey, has officially opened the season by being defrosted from a block of ice by four people dressed in Halloween outfits before declaring it's time. Her song, All I Want For Christmas Is You, which earns her $2.5 million a year, is already back in the charts. Here's music journalist and Mariah superfan Hannah Verda.

I anticipated it because, of course, on the 1st of November, she leads up to it saying not yet hashtag not yet but we all know when the Queen of Christmas declares is what we need right now and it is indeed time she's been frozen for the rest of the year bursting out of that ice cube my 14 year old had even seen it which um and considering she's uh my firstborn actually named after Mariah um Mimi she uh they're loving her hair. I think it's got something different because it's really timeless. I mean, it could have been released in 1963,

as some people might say it was, but it's been out for 29 years now. And we don't forget, we only hear it for two months of the year, so you can't really get sick of it. And it brings back all those memories. And it's just a fabulous song. A six-year-old girl in China has become the fastest female to solve a Rubik's Cube in under six seconds. Sochi Shen from Jiangsu province managed to decipher the

three by three by three puzzle in 5.97 seconds. Let's get more from our China media analyst, Kerry Allen. What you are hearing here is the sound of a new world record being set. This week, it's been announced that Chinese speed cuber Cao Xixian has set the new women's world record for solving a Rubik's Cube in 5.97 seconds. She's now the only female in the world to be recognised by the World Cube Association as being able to do this in under six seconds. And what makes this particularly spectacular is that she's only six years old. Tal's mother has told media this week that her daughter first became interested in playing with a Rubik's Cube when she was three years old and she saw her cousin playing with one. Ever since, she's been playing with one for

two to three hours a day, practicing getting faster and faster. And her success has come as a huge surprise. Truthfully, I felt like we were living in a dream for a couple of days after returning home, her mother said. We never thought that she would be breaking the world record so soon. She set the record at the Rubik's Cube International Open in Singapore, which took place earlier this year. Her record is not the fastest time overall. That was actually only set in June, when 21-year-old American speedcuber Max Park claimed the Guinness World Record. He solved a Rubik's Cube in 3.13 seconds. There's been a lot of praise for Cao on Chinese social media. On the social network Weibo,

users have spoken of how they couldn't solve a cube in six hours, let alone six seconds. And there are many who feel that her young age means that she could eventually claim the overall title in years to come. Rubik's cubes are very popular toys in China. Before Max Park broke the world speed record in June, Chinese prodigy Du Yusheng held the record in 2018 with a time of 3.47 seconds. The Guinness Book of Records says that there are other Chinese prodigies as well that have burst onto the scene in recent years. One to watch is 14-year-old Xu Riheng, who has solved a cube on camera in a whopping 2.68 seconds.

But because he did not do this at the World Cube Association, there's still a chance for him or Cao Xixian to claim the title yet. Carrie Allen reporting. When she's on tour, I'm sure Beyonce flies in a private jet. When they're on tour, Seth and Chris, who perform as Filkins Drift, walk between gigs. This is taking sustainable touring to a whole new level, walking 1,400 kilometres with their instrument strapped to their backs to play scores of venues around Wales.

I've been talking to Seth. We wanted to undergo a long-d distance walk that would be really environmentally friendly. And we thought, hang on a minute, we could combine our love of roaming and of making music. So we took inspiration from the ancient Welsh bardic tradition. We're trying to revive it and think of more sustainable ways to make music. I think we're probably the first people to do anything on this scale. And go on a long walk of 870 miles. Did you have all the gigs booked in advance or were some of them more impromptu than that? We had 45 gigs booked over the 59 days and by the time it got to the tour itself and we were

meeting people along the way and making new connections with venues and also storytellers and singers and songwriters we began to fill in the spare evenings with more and more gigs so we didn't really end up with very few evenings off okay and you know obviously you're carrying a fiddle and a guitar what else did you need to lug around with you though to be honest we tried to carry as little as we could because we had no support vehicle, no van, anything like that. We were carrying everything. So for me, Fiddle and my bandmate was carrying his guitar. And then we had microphones.

We had CDs to sell with us on the road. And in terms of clothes, that was about it. We just had one set of clothes to walk in and one set of clothes to perform in. And you've got to do it, haven't you? When you plan the logistics like this and the gigs are booked, about it. We just had one set of clothes to walk in and one set of clothes to perform in. And you've got to do it, haven't you? When you plan the logistics like this and the gigs are booked, you can't get to a hill and think, I don't fancy climbing up that right now. You've kind of got to go for it. Exactly. There's very little alternative solution, really. And sometimes we'd underestimate quite how long it would take us to get there because we were walking 15 or 20 miles every day.

And of course, we had a gig to get to. It's not like we could shift the miles around. We actually had to make sure that we walked to the venue and more importantly, arrived there on time. So there was a few days where we ended up fell running, scrambling up the hills to try and make it to the gigs on time. Was there one memory that stuck out above all others from this epic journey? One of our favourite gigs was at a place called Henbant Permaculture Farm, where they've never put on a gig before, but it's this beautiful collection of people making organic food and living communally. And we had such a wonderful gig there in one of their old timber

barns which was gorgeous another one would be on the clean peninsula where we spent about a week going around the coast there and met some really interesting sculptures and meeting these people who were living their lives off the road off the main road and we met a wonderful man who baked sourdough baker and would deliver it to the local villages on ponyback well we're lucky that you've got your fiddle with you and you've told us that you don't need more than that in order to be able to perform so although it doesn't involve walking up a hill can you do a little gig for us now? For sure yeah I'll play a tune called Annabelle's Jig which is one from us for now.

Remember, if you'd like to be part of the Happy Pod, we'd love to hear from you with a happy story from your part of the world. Drop us an email or send us a voice note to globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk. globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk. Thanks to Helen, Morten, frederico hannah and seth who's still gigging in the background as you can hear for taking part in this week's podcast the studio manager was joe mccartney the producers were harry bligh and anna murphy the editor is karen martin i'm andrew peach thanks for listening the Happy Pod is back next week. to climb the Himalayas, all 14 peaks. And the game changers. I want to play like my brother. I want what he has.

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