Global News Podcast - The Happy Pod: The search for a mystery gift giver

Episode Date: March 30, 2024

Ten-year-old Zeke and his mum want your help to track down a Japanese football fan who gave him a much loved football shirt. Also: the woman who broke eleven running records in six days, the elephant seals tracking climate change, and some very rare baby frogs.

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. A gesture of kindness that cemented a love of football for one young fan. If you were the man who gave me the Japan football jersey at Doha Airport in 2022, please email the happy pod so we can thank you.

This is 10-year-old Zeke and he needs our help. From the Global News Podcast, this is the happy pod. I'm Harry Bly. Also in this episode, we're in Chile. Meet the scientists using these animals to help with their deep sea research and our theme of rare languages. Good afternoon, I'm Daniele Iettai from San Giorgio di Noiar in Faiul, of course, and welcome to Lappipod. One listener from northern Italy got in touch.

Hi, this is Daniele Iettoli from San Giorgio di Nogaro, Italy. Welcome to the Happy Pod. It's almost two years since the Football World Cup was held in Qatar, with Argentina claiming victory. But this story isn't about football itself. We received a message from the mother of one of our younger listeners, 10-year-old Zeke from Doha. Zeke went to watch his favourite team, Croatia, play Japan.

After the match at Doha airport, a man gifted Zeke a 1998 Japanese World Cup football shirt. It's part of a football tradition where supporters swap shirts at the end of the game. And Zeke wants the Happy Pods help to track this man down to say thank you. Zeke and his mum Mohanna told us their story. We enjoyed two weeks of the 2022 World Cup here. It was amazing. And Zeke and I were on our way to New Zealand. And we got out of the taxi at the airport. And I found out he had flip flops on and no jacket. And this older Japanese man pointed to Zeke and then he pointed to his shirt and made his way

over to us. So he just dropped his jersey right over Zeke's head. And that became Zeke's jacket for the next like three days until we could get to the store. And Zeke, what was that like for you? Did you expect that gift? No, it was actually very surprising. I was just really cold. And then out of nowhere, he came because Japan lost that night. I was actually supporting the team that beat Japan.

Oh, right. Croatia. At night, I was actually supporting the team that beat Japan. Oh, right. Okay. Croatia. My favorite player is from there. His name is Luka Modric. I see. Okay, so you were supporting Croatia.

And then after the match, you ended up getting the other team's jersey. But you were still grateful for it. Yeah. And after the World Cup, during like the Asian Cup, I actually started to like Japan. He wore the jersey to the Japan-Iran game, but... Japan lost. What have people said to you when they see you're wearing the Japanese jersey? They're very surprised because it's actually very big,

down to like my knees. They're just happy I'm supporting their country. And what do your friends say? My friends are usually like, Zeke, you've got to stop wearing that. It's way too big for you. But you're going to keep wearing it, aren't you? Yeah, because then one day it'll fit me. After the AFC, we tried to find this gentleman through social media just to say like,

hey, he gave this to Zeke two years ago and he ended up wearing it to a game, having a great time. But we weren't able to find him on our own. So... Well, that's where we come in. I mean, we have listeners all over the world, including Japan, and we'd love to help track this man down. Are there any details?

Perhaps, Zeke, can you remember what this man looked like? He was probably mid-60s, I think. A good guess, yeah. And he didn't have a lot of hair, but it was grey. And he had a tiny beard. Yeah, I thought so back because we were in such a rush to get to our plane that I did manage to take a picture of them together. But it didn't even occur to me to say, like, oh, can I airdrop this to you? Or it wasn't actually until we went to the AFC game that I was like, oh, my gosh, we should try to find this guy and let him know we still have the shirt and Zeke is still wearing it.

He very much looked professorial, sort of. He was standing outside of the Doha airport and I guess he was going home. And that would have been around December, I think it was 6th or 8th, 2022. He was catching a flight from the Doha airport. And Zeke, if he's listening, by any chance, if he's listening to the happy pod right now, what would you say to him? I would probably just say, thank you for this gift. And I hope I can just find you in the future and just give you my... Jersey in the future maybe? Jersey.

Is there a Qatari jersey? We can go get one. I would say just thank you for taking the time out to just spread the love of football. Thanks for telling us about a whole tradition we might not have experienced otherwise. Mohana, Raja Kumar and Zeke. We've talked before about exploring the depths of the ocean. In November, we learned about newly discovered cold water reefs off the Galapagos Islands. Research like this normally uses complex, remotely operated underwater vehicles. But one team in Chile are using a very different type of vehicle

for their deep sea research. They're relying on a group of southern elephant seals. At up to five metres long and weighing over 4,000 kilograms, these enormous creatures have monitoring equipment attached to their bodies and over time will collect information about the waters they swim through and their own migration patterns. These seals were chosen because of their ability to dive as deep as 2,000 metres. Maritza Sepulveda, a marine ecologist at the University of Valparaiso in central Chile, is leading the project. They are really noisy and it is very interesting because in the breeding season each male has different sounds.

So different males can recognise each other using the noise. They learn about the neighbourhood, the neighbour, and if, for instance, that male is dangerous to me or not. It is very interesting because some males in the breeding season can have 80 to 100 females, each male. So to these elephant seals, you and your team have fitted satellite transmitters to them. How on earth did you do that? Well, it's not so easy.

The veterinarian was behind the animal, just trying not to be seen, and put anaesthetics just to relax and the animals go sleeping. And after that, the rest of the team collect some samples, measure weight of the animal and also to put the tag. So reassure me here, it doesn't hurt them, does it, when they're wearing this device? No, no, not at all, because you use very strong glue that we put on the hair. So it's really not painful at all. And so far, what have you been able to find out about elephant seals that you didn't know already?

We put six devices and we are seeing that the different animals have different foraging behaviour. So the information we are collecting is really new. And of course, this is not just about seals. You're also gathering data and researching the ocean under the sea. What are you hoping to measure and perhaps discover? The oceanography studies are really expensive. And the area, the fjords of southern Chile are very complicated to reach and some places never been studied before. So we are using the animals as oceanographers. Yes. So it's almost like you've employed the elephant seals as like exploration vehicles, almost. They've got the tech on them and then they're exploring the ocean

and sending you data back. I mean, tell me, Maritza, what's the bigger picture? What is this information going to be used for? And perhaps what can it tell us? You know, the southern Chile, the situation and the habitat

is changing a lot and so fast. So by using this information, we will be able to modulate how we are expecting to change due to the climate change. It's wonderful, isn't it? Because in a way, it's like these elephant seals are actually going out there and telling us about the ocean as opposed to us going down and seeing it for ourselves as humans, that is. What's this experience been like for you as a scientist? This project to me is really new because for the first time in my academic life, I am using animals just to be, like you say, by employees to try to investigate a different thing.

We're really proud to be able to work with different people and to understand and to learn new things. Marine ecologist Maritza Sepulveda. Now, some good news about one of the world's most critically endangered species, the mountain chicken frog. These extra-large amphibians used to be found on a number of Caribbean islands, but scientists say there are now only a few dozen left in the wild.

So the arrival of six baby mountain chicken frogs at London Zoo has been something to celebrate. Our reporter Jacob Evans went to find out more. This is a big frog. A big frog with a lot of responsibility. This big guy weighs in at about a kilo and now he's a new dad. A new dad to six little froglets that spawned right here in London Zoo just a few weeks ago. And if you can hear that hissing, it's because these frogs are so rare they're kept in a biosecure unit which is

carefully regulated here in the zoo. Once widespread across the Lesser Antilles, the mountain chicken frog is the largest native frog in the Caribbean. It's named after its big back legs, which used to be a local delicacy that supposedly, like everything, tasted like chicken. And if you pick them up, supposedly they make a squawking noise, a bit like a chicken. But the compounding effects of natural and human pressures decimated the population. Ben Tapley is the curator of reptiles and amphibians here at the zoo.

So this is a species that has undergone the fastest ever documented decline of a vertebrate due to disease. The amount of chicken frogs were found on about seven different Caribbean islands historically and they disappeared I guess at the time where the islands were colonized by Europeans and the mongoose was introduced. So they remained in just two islands, Montserrat and Dominica. They're probably extinct in the wild on Montserrat and on Dominica there are an estimated about 30 frogs remaining. So this species is in serious, serious trouble.

As the frogs headed toward extinction, a collaboration involving London Zoo saw a handful of those that remained airlifted from the island of Dominica in a last-ditch attempt to save them. So, as you can hear, it's quite echoey in here, and that's because we're in the amphibian exhibit at the zoo, which isn't yet open to the public. And behind the glass pane in front of me are the mountain chicken frogs. I can see them there. Just perching under the leaves, they've got lovely clay flats, they've got a pond for them to rest in, and they've got lots of rocks the side of the wall because they like to climb, and they've got lots of plants for cover. And then, of course, this biosecure unit has exact humidity, temperature and light needed for the frogs.

And zookeeper Jamie Mitchell looks after these frogs every day. There are some individuals that, as soon as they see me, will duck off into the nest or go and hide. There are other individuals that will just sit there quite happily while I'm doing my full servicing, draining a pond, scrubbing it out, refilling it, and they just sit there and completely ignore me. What are they like as parents, the mice and chickens? Protective, very protective. Whenever I'm doing nest checks, I have to be fairly quiet

and fairly swift about checking and then moving away, because if you hang around too long, they will headbutt you to make you go away. The six new babies have been celebrated by conservationists who hope their arrival will help pull the species back from the brink of extinction. They estimate the wild population is 30 right on Dominica so having six I can't kind of emphasise how excited we were to see those little metamorphs hopping around in the nest. Ben Tapley from London Zoo ending that report by Jacob Evans. Last week, one of our colleagues from the BBC's Latin America service, Carlos Serrano, woke up to find a crowd staring up at his home. But they weren't there for him. Instead,

they were looking at a mural that had been painted on a wall right outside his window, which was unmistakably the work of the world-famous graffiti artist Banksy. they were looking at a mural that had been painted on a wall right outside his window, which was unmistakably the work of the world-famous graffiti artist Banksy. If you haven't seen a photo of it, the painting, which is here in London, features swathes of green paint on a wall behind a nearby tree to give the appearance of leaves. Tim Franks asked Carlos what it's been like. It's been crazy, busy and really, really fun. You see a lot of people just in front of my window looking to the wall and smiling to me and asking me if they can go in the garden to take a picture. So it's a lot of attention, but I'm really cool with that.

Am I right in thinking that some of them thought that you might be the artist himself? That's a very common question I have been getting these days. People, are you fancy? And as in the movies, my answer is can't confirm, nor deny. Oh, perfect, perfect. So you're keeping the mystery there. All this attention, is it slightly wearing at the same time? I mean, for some people, it could be a little bit intimidating.

I'm from Colombia. I come from the Caribbean. When we are people, you know, like very friendly, very extroverts, here in London sometimes we think people are more serious, more introverts. I have been discovering a new kind of Londoner, people very open to talk, to have fun in this place. I think this moral is making the neighbourhood come together as a community, and I feel part of that. Carlos Serrano from BBC Mundo. Coming up in this podcast. It was open for four days where it had no obvious loss in pressure.

The thing was really roaring. Some of the people who were there at the time said it sounded a bit like being close to the back end of a jet engine. A vast deposit of precious gas found in Minnesota. 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 Podcasts Premium on Apple Podcasts or listen to Amazon Music with a Prime membership. Spend less time on ads and more time with BBC Podcasts. You may have heard on the Global News podcast about Jasmine Paris. She's become the only woman ever to complete one of the world's toughest ultra-marathons, the Barclay Marathons in Tennessee in the US. Well, earlier this month, there was another incredible running achievement, this time in California. Camille Heron ran 901 kilometres in just six days. That's further than running from New York to Washington and back. It's the furthest anyone's ever run in that time, and along the way, she broke 11

world records, many of them her own. Camille, who's 42 and from Norman in Oklahoma, told Sportsworld's Nishat Ladha about her achievement. This went so far beyond the typical muscle, brain pain and fatigue, I started feeling my organs being like bumper cars. My bladder was the first to go. And then I started my period and had menstrual cramps, all that type of nausea and fatigue. And then my bowels went by like day four, day five. And that kind of became the limit to trying to push those last couple of days. Did you think about quitting at all? No, no, never thought about quitting. Never thought about quitting. I'd already prepared my

mind before the race. I'm just a really happy, positive person. So even in my most dire moments, I was kind of finding a sense of humor about what I was going through. And I mean, each time I set a record, I had to readjust my goals and go for the next record. And so that just really kept me inspired and motivated as I kept going and the days kept passing along. How important is it for you to talk about what your body was going through during this extraordinary feat? When I talked about my first experience of having my period during an ultra two years ago, that ended up being the thing that resonated with a lot of women. A lot of women being like, that's happened to me. Thank you for talking about it. Now that I'm in my 40s, I'm still breaking records. I'm still pushing my human limits.

I just think it goes to show to other women, other, especially teenage girls, that having a period is power. It makes me strong. It makes me healthy. I'm able to continue to go through life and, you know, do these amazing things. So, I mean, now I'm going through perimenopause and that's another topic in itself. And let's talk about some of the other challenges during this event. Many people will wonder when you're running an ultra like this, how do you sleep? How do you eat? What do you eat? I mean, there's a lot of planning and methodology that went into it. Every four hours, I was taking a small meal, which might be like tacos or what chicken teriyaki. I had so many things, you know, over six days.

I felt like by day four, I started getting ravenously hungry. And so they had to go do some runs to get donuts and more tacos and cheese and crackers. And then in terms of sleep, I averaged something like 90 minutes a day of sleep, which is crazy for six days. Take me back to the end. What was that like to complete it and know that you'd succeeded? I'm still trying to process it all because it was just such a monumental journey and dream come true. And I mean, it's just like mind blowing what we did. I've been through so many struggles in my life

that I feel like that those struggles are what helped me get through the struggles I endure when I'm running, whether I'm training or racing. I mean, running makes life better. It makes it more interesting. It makes it more fun. I feel like this is just what I'm born to do.

I'm born to run and push my human limits. Camille Heron, and you can hear more of that interview on Sports World from the BBC World Service, wherever you found this podcast. To a story that's anything but dead air. Scientists in the US are celebrating what they're calling a dream discovery of helium buried deep in Minnesota's iron range. The natural gas is hard to find and is in hot demand, and it's not just for balloons.

I spoke to Thomas Abraham James, the CEO of Pulsar Helium, the company behind the find. We were very fortunate, so this was on our radar as a place to go. But what happened was that there was a company out there doing exploration for a different commodity. They were looking for nickel. And they were drilling down. And then unexpectedly, they hit gas.

And I can only imagine at the time, it must have been terrifying. The gas was under high pressure, so much so that inside the drill tube, inside the drill string, there was roughly about three metres worth of rock in it, and it shot out from 600 metres depth out the top of the drill rig and then like a projectile off into the distance. The gas was under such high pressure. Some of the people who were there at the time said it sounded a bit like being close to the back end of a jet engine. Some brave geologists there, they sampled the gas and they found that it was 10.5% helium, which makes it one of the greatest helium discoveries on the planet. What was that eureka moment like when you realised this is a big, significant discovery? It's not terribly spectacular in the sense of the old oil discoveries where you had oil going everywhere or gas exploding out.

But we certainly saw then the dials and then the numbers going up. And then there it was, all of a sudden, from going to no helium to bang, all of a sudden you see these astronomically high concentrations. And it was pure elation combined with pure relief as well, to be honest, to say that we actually did it. So it's incredibly satisfying. The idea that helium is most commonly used in balloons, it's got a whole host of really important uses. We've got welding, we've got MRI machines, we've got scientific research. Will this discovery

potentially negate the risk of running out of helium? Because that has been a concern. It is an endangered element on Earth, isn't it? It really is. It's very finite. That's the reason why we exist, why Pulsar exists, is to try and alleviate that shortage. So it's typically universities and research that get hit. They can't get the helium they need to do their analytics. The hospitals are a big one as well. So where they haven't got the budget or the ability to get helium for the MRI scanners, which is a huge user. And then the other one, which is big, is for semiconductors in their fabrication. So now certainly with the AI boom and the processing power that's required, helium is essential for that.

A space launch. So each time you see a rocket there about to take off on the launch pad and you've got the gas coming out the side of it, that's typically helium boiling off at negative 269 degrees Celsius. So there's a whole range of things that we really rely on. So we really hope and we're working very hard to try and give that alternate supply. Thomas Abraham James from Pulsar Helium. We've been asking you, the listener, to get in touch about your rare languages. Well, Daniele Ietri emailed us to tell us about his own mother tongue, Forlan, from northern Italy, and his work helping to preserve others. He's a documentary filmmaker and helps run part of the Bolzano Film Festival,

dedicated to what it calls linguistic minorities. This year's entries have just been announced. A flavour there of films in Kurdish, Luxembourgish and Algerian Berber. I spoke to Daniele and started by asking him about his own small language. The language is spoken in the south of the Alps, in the region that is named Faiuli Venezia Giulia. So in part of this region, people there speak four languages, maybe 400,000 speakers, quite a large number for a small language. And it's from northern Italy. How similar is it to Italian?

There are many, many similarities, of course. But then it has a vocabulary that is quite peculiar. So perhaps we could hear a little bit of Furlan. If I may say, I expected the question. So I prepared something. I found a few lines from The Little Prince, the very well-known book by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Petit Prince. And so the title would be The Petite Prince. It's really interesting because I can very much tell it's of that region. And you work with other small languages as well for the Bolzano Festival. Tell me about some of the other small languages that you've learned about.

There are a set of languages, small languages, very well known. So you know that in Sardinia, for example, in Italy, they have their own language. You know about the Basque language, etc. Then there are endangered languages, languages that are disappearing. And finally, surprising ones. For example, in the Canary Islands, a language that uses only whistles. So as someone that speaks a small, rare language, why is it important to preserve these minority languages? So I've been learning many other languages in my life and it was important for me to keep my own mother tongue living, not because I'm looking to the past, but because it's part of me. Frequently, small languages, minority languages are spoken in places that are far from

the big metropolitan areas. And then as a person living at periphery, the language is something that keeps you alive and keeps your possibility to represent yourself towards the big centers. You feel less peripheral if you keep something running that is part of your culture somehow. If you want, I can just teach you. Is that English?

Of course, yeah. The first word you would learn in Xhota is the way we say hello and we say mandi. Mandi. Mandi. This is the way how we say hello, goodbye, ciao. It's our ciao. Daniele Ieteri.

And a thank you to those who got in touch about the fish doorbell from last week's episode. In case you missed it, it's exactly how it sounds. A video doorbell for fish that you, the human, presses when you see a fish. Because of course, fish don't have hands. Here's Samantha Campbell from Winnipeg in Canada. So I found the fish doorbell from a video on Instagram.

I recently moved out of a rural area to a big city and I really miss fishing. So I love being able to see all the fish swim by. My record is nine fish at once. And the coolest thing I've ever seen is a crab. Thanks, Samantha. And that's all for this week. We've heard lots from you, the listener. Please do stay in touch. We always want to hear about your languages or the fish doorbell, or a story that made you smile. As ever, the address, well, here's Zeke again.

globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk Thanks, Zeke. That's globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk. Thanks, Zeke. That's globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk. This edition was mixed by Daniel Ehrlich. The producers were Rachel Bulkley, Anna Murphy and Jacob Evans. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Harry Bly.

Until next time, goodbye. Goodbye. 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.