Global News Podcast - The Happy Pod: The teenager faster than a calculator

Episode Date: October 19, 2024

Meet the 14-year-old human calculator. Aaryan Shukla has been practising mental maths since the age of 6 — and holds a Guinness World Records title.

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 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. This is the happy pod from the BBC World Service. I'm Paul Moss and in this edition we meet the teenage human calculator. It feels good and amazing when I complete the task correctly. Also... It was wonderful to be able to say because you helped us to complete this clinical trial we will now be able to use this treatment or it'll be available to other women in the future. The new treatment which could slash the risk of dying from cervical cancer and the festival hoping to change the perception of East Asian music.

There is a whole wealth of culture from all of East and South East Asia that is very, very unique and very, very representative of day-to-day life for a lot of people. We start with a puzzle, or maybe two. What's the square root of 93? Alright, here's another one. What day of the week was it on the 12th August 1832? You don't know? Well, me neither, but I have had the chance to speak to a 14-year-old boy who could work out the answer to questions like this and in the blink of an eye.

Aryan Shukla has just won the Mental Calculation World Cup for the second time and also holds a Guinness World Records title. Aryan spoke to me from his home near Mumbai, India and told me first how his unusual talent was first spotted. My parents noticed this first that I was doing something extraordinary and my parents then researched about the mental maths and its competitions. One of the exercises you did was multiplying eight digit numbers together and it says that you managed 28 of these in 10 minutes which I've got to say I find incredible.

I'm going to give you a chance to show us. Here's two eight digit numbers to multiply together. 17,487,362 multiplied by 12,945,190. The answer is 226380223688780. Amazing! Now the other thing which I read you did, which I found particularly extraordinary, is being able to work out the day of the week for any date between 1600 and 2099. So I'm going to give you one of those if that's okay. How about June the 12th 1742? 12 June 1742. Tuesday. That is amazing. I had to look that up. It took me even longer to do it with a computer. How does it feel when you complete an incredibly difficult task like that? It feels good that I can do this tough task but now I am trying to do it faster, 20 digits

by 20 digits in 105 seconds. Most of us can't even hold a 20 digit number in our heads let alone multiply them. I mean what does it feel like? Does it hurt your head? It feels good and amazing when I complete the task correctly. I'm delighted to say we're now joined by Ariane's father. You must be very proud of your son. He not only won this competition, I think he broke a couple of world records as well. Yes, we are very proud parents and he has done something which has never happened in

the last ten editions of the World Cup. So that is very special. Me and my wife are normal human beings. Looking at his journey for the last eight years, what we can observe, is that he was very keen from childhood to play with the numbers. Fantastic. Aryan, what about your friends? What do they think of your achievements? They are proud of me and also in India everyone feels proud that because I represent India, my nation at various international competitions so it is an amazing feeling for everyone. Is it like a sport? I mean you have to keep practicing to do it. Yes and when a competition is a year or a month, so I generally do 6-7 hours. You're doing maths, mental maths, 6 or 7 hours a day?

Yeah and in normal circumstances also I practice 2-3 hours. Is there a plan for the future? I know you're only 14 but do you want to go on and become a mathematician? I want to go in mathematics field and continue doing mental maths side by side. I saw that you can also calculate square root so tell us the square root of let me see 73. It is 8.5440037 Arjan Shukla. Now to a major breakthrough in the efforts to treat cervical cancer, one which uses existing low-cost drugs.

It is around the world the fourth most common form of cancer for women and leads to around 350,000 deaths every year. But now a study carried out in Mexico, India, Italy, Brazil and the UK has found a new approach which they believe cuts the risk of dying from cervical cancer by 40% over five years. The research was led by a university college in London and it found that the treatment also reduced substantially the chance of the cancer coming back. The Happy Pod's Holly Gibb spoke to Dr Mary McCormack, an oncologist at UCL Hospital, who told her how they ran this groundbreaking trial.

This was a randomised clinical trial which recruited 500 patients with cervical cancer that was not amenable to surgery. And what we did in the trial was we split the group and we randomized patients to receive either that standard radiation, which is daily treatment with once weekly chemo, and the other group had an additional six weeks of chemotherapy before they started the standard of care treatment. And we were able to determine that the patients who had the additional chemotherapy treatment, their survival at five years, was eight percent higher than the survival rate for the patients who had the standard of care treatment. That's quite a big difference. How groundbreaking is this? Well as an

oncologist we always want the best outcome for our patients. And with cervical cancer, we become aware that unfortunately the cancer can come back. And what we were trying to do was to see if we gave some additional treatment, could we actually reduce that distant relapse rate? And we were able to show that fewer patients had their evidence of cancer recurring outside of where they'd had the radiotherapy treatment. What has the feedback been from some of the participants? Have you had any? Patients are always excited to be part of something that's different. And clearly, when

people have remained well, they're excited that this is another treatment that can be offered to others that come along in the future. I'm just ever so grateful to all the lovely ladies everywhere that agreed to participate in a clinical trial and so you know it was wonderful to be able to say because you helped us to complete this clinical trial we will now be able to use this treatment or it'll be available to other women in the future. And on a personal level how does it feel that you have been part of something so groundbreaking? I've derived a lot of satisfaction from seeing the process through. Now that we've published our results in a peer-reviewed journal, The Lancet, which is a very high impact factor, this approach can actually be incorporated into national and international guidelines.

And that's very important because then the doctors and the oncologists treating these patients will have the confidence to say this data is now published and feel confident to actually use it in clinical practice. So what does the future of cervical cancer look like? What can we expect from future medical advances? But what we must not forget is that cervical cancer is preventable. Of course, we are very fortunate now to have access to the HPV vaccine. And of course, what we must continue to do is to encourage everybody to go for their cervical screening. And I think the final thread then is anybody

who develops any new symptoms, particularly if you're a young lady, bleeding between your periods or bleeding after intercourse, please, please consult your doctor. Likewise, for ladies after the menopause, please, please go and see your doctor because the earlier we actually pick these things up the better the chances are that we'll be able to

get rid of it for good. Dr Mary McCormack speaking to Holly Gibbs. The music of East Asia has become phenomenally popular in recent years, particularly K-pop from South Korea and its Japanese equivalent J-pop. But now a group of artists are trying to expand people's tastes, encouraging awareness of the full range of musical styles and genres in that region. They're performing at a new festival in London, Margin's United. Our reporter Tara Mewawala went along. This is BDOTS, an electronic music star from the Philippines.

Show and Tuna, aka DJ Love, produces BDOTS music inspired by his home in the squatter area of Davao City. When you live in the squatter area, you hear everything, like the sounds of a bird. The leiside song. And the dog. The other side song like... And the dog... That sounds music to me. I mix it so that poor people, they will appreciate it because they can relate it and they hear it everything, everyday life in their community.

DJ Love is one of the artists who performed at the festival, which organises sayers the I'm a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a

little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a good understanding of a lot of mainstream culture from East Asia. So the likes of anime from Japan and K-pop from Korea have had a lot of global recognition. But there's a whole wealth of culture from all of East and South East Asia that is very, very unique and very, very representative of day-to-day life for a lot of people. representative of day-to-day life for a lot of people. Outside the noisy club, I talked to people from all over the continent who have come to celebrate their heritage. I'm Jax and I'm from Melbourne, Australia. I think like a lot of people think Asian music is one thing or like more traditional stuff,

but to have so many artists showcase such different sounds, it's really important to bring us all together. I'm Claire, I'm from the Philippines. I wanna see DJ Love, that's literally my jam. I hear it in the streets, in the deep knees, in construction sites. It's like when you say that, when you play with dots out here in London, it's becoming like a big theme now. Hello, my name is Carter Tam and I'm Canadian.

It's important to have a place for the Asian people and for Chinese people, for queer people, for all of these people to just come together and share the community that we have. Backstage during soundcheck, half German, half Chinese musician Lia Lia explains why it means so much to her. I'm mixed, so it was always hard to find except the place where you sit in, either in the West or the Asian because you're always kind of in between. And coming here, I feel you feel a lot of like-minded people you know

people who are influenced by both culture and I feel like festivals like Easton Marvin is covering all the space for people like us. I wish when I was younger that I had more role models more people to look up to. Another musician, Shell Hill from Malaysia, performed at Eastern Margins in his first ever trip to the UK. People are craving definitely for more diversity and inclusivity. You know we have too many cultures and too many sonic palettes to be offering to the world and we are just doing our part and offering like this different dish.

It feels only kind of monumentalism because I don't think especially Southeast Asian like either you can say alternative or like underground-ish music has this spotlight it's history-making I would say. Malaysian musician Shell Hill ending that report from Tara Mewawala. Coming up in this podcast... We prepare the okra soup with cassava flour. We eat it and the power will come and the stomach will be strengthened to produce twins. What makes a town in southwest Nigeria the self-proclaimed twin capital of the world.

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. Stradivarius violins are famous the world over as the very best ever made. With the price of a Stradivarius, usually in the millions, most musicians can only

dream of even being able to touch one. But now visitors to a museum in Italy can come close by holding a 3D printed model that's a precise copy of the real thing. The replica has taken 10 years to perfect and it was apparently made to encourage blind and partially sighted people to start playing the violin. Marco Balagodi is head of the Arvedi laboratory at the Museum of Violins in Cremona. The Happy Pods' Abiona Boia started by asking him what was so special about the Stradivarius sound. The sound of Stradivarius is quite different and it depends by the violin you are using. But in general, we can say that the Stradivari has a power in sounding.

My understanding is that you and the team have been working on this project for 10 years. Tell me more about why it was so important for you and for the team to complete this. The first advantage that we can get is the conservation of those instruments because we can study them, but we can leave them in the case of the museum. But at the same time, we started to study the shape. And we could use to comparing different musical instrument

in the shape of the violins. This is very, very important for violin makers that today are working in Cremona. So this 3D Stradivarius is pretty accurate to the original thing. Does that mean that this can be played as well? Not today because because we printed with synthetic material now. And the first use that we can do with this model is to let the violin makers touch it, have it, and use that information in making a wonderful and high, more performing violins.

And we are working now in using for the printing of the violin exactly the same material of the violin. So we will see probably in the future we can do it. So how will this 3D model inspire visitors who come to the museum and come to see it? The visitors and the violin makers that we count in the museum, they can touch it, they can see it, they can take a picture. We have a wonderful table so they can sit there and just to see how all the shapes and then they can see the original violin in the case. So they have a comparison between the original one and a copy, but the original is not possible to

touch because we conserve it and it's very very expensive violin so it's around more than 10 million of euro. The 3D copies and the museum exhibition are going to be used to encourage visually impaired and blind people to learn how to play the violin. How does that make you feel to know that a group of people who traditionally wouldn't have access to playing this instrument will now be inspired to do so and will be helped through your work. Of course they can touch it. They can have in their hands and they can touch it. And we have a guide of course that can explain all the parts of the violin and it is like if they can have in their hand the original Stradivarius because the quality of this kind of printing is so high, they can have this kind of experience.

Of course, the first feeling is I feel proud, proud of our work, proud of our technology and I'm proud to share all those information and techniques. Marco Malagodi speaking from Cremona in Italy. Here's a statistic for you. Your chance of being born a twin is one in 42, at least that's the international average. But there's a town in southwest Nigeria where one in every ten births is a twin and that's something the people of Ibo Ora positively celebrate, holding an annual festival to mark their self-proclaimed

status as twin capital of the world. status as twin capital of the world. Drums, trumpets and dance for Nigeria's Yoruba community being a twin is worth celebrating. Wearing matching traditional dress and representing all age groups, hundreds of twins gather every year in Oyo State, the Igbo Ora Twin Festival. This town has a very unique heritage, boasting one of the highest concentrations of twins in the world. For every 100 births here, five are twin births. That's more than four times the global average, something Mother of Twins, Oppa Yemi Dane knows all too well. Among my mother's children, I am the only one that is not a twin. Five times my mother gave

birth to twins. I was so happy when I saw them, which made me hope that I would also have twins and give them the same clothes and the same shoes. And now I have them. There's no proven scientific explanation for the high numbers of twins in Igbo Ora. Researchers say genetics play a huge part. However, many locals, like Mojisola Adesga, says it's all down to diet. She uses a large club to pummel okra leaf into a soup to serve with pounded yam, a traditional dish in the region. a traditional dish in the region.

We prepare the okra soup with cassava flour. We eat it and the power will come and the stomach will be strengthened to produce twins. Whatever the reason, in Yoruba culture, having twins is celebrated as a gift from the supreme god, Olu Dumare. The younger twin is often given the name kindi, its literal meaning, the one who came after. The younger twin is often given the name kindi, its literal meaning the one who came after. The eldest named Taiwo, meaning the first to see the world. Taiwo Ogintoye is one of the organisers of this year's festival.

You know the fertility, the fraternity of being twins, you know, like we love ourselves because it is not our choice to be twins, it is destiny that made us twins. We just open our lives to be in the world and we find ourselves to be twins. That's the uniqueness. It's why Taiwo wants the festival recognised as a UNESCO cultural heritage event. He hopes it will boost Nigeria's tourism and raise awareness of the Yoruba people's unique and vibrant culture. Twins may be in abundance, but for the people of Igbo Ora, their town is one of a kind.

Ella Bignall reporting. Now some other news. Scientists in New Zealand have discovered a new species of what's known as a ghost shark, a rare type of fish that's incredibly hard to spot because it lives deep in the Pacific Ocean. Ghost sharks, also known as chimeras, don't have scales and their skeletons are completely made of cartilage. The team who discovered the new species, the Australasian narrow-nosed spookfish, say the find is exciting. And they'll now work out how best to protect them. A powered paraglider pilot in Egypt has spotted an unusual sight while flying

over the Great Pyramid of Giza. Footage he shot has gone viral on social media. It shows a dog barking and generally playing around at the pyramid summit, more than 150 meters above the ground. The animal appears to be addressing its barks at passing birds. A cat which has lived at an ambulance station in London for 16 years has been saved from eviction. Defib, as it's known, was rescued by the site's staff as a kitten, but new managers

had threatened to re-home him. A public outcry led to a petition receiving more than 60,000 signatures and Defib is now allowed to stay. And after months of rehabilitation an injured turtle has been returned to the wild. The loggerhead turtle named Nazaré washed up on a beach in the northwest England county of Cumbria. It seems to have come originally from the Azores ending up in Britain by mistake and needing support. Jane McCubbin has more on this reptile road to recovery. Her name is Nazarene and she is incredibly lucky to be alive. Back in February the loggerhead turtle was discovered by a dog walker

after being washed up on the Cumbrian coast. She was cold and weak and far from the warm waters which should have been home. A team from Blackpool's Sea Life Centre were called to action. So she was motionless, she was just about making some movements with her eyes and she was completely covered all over a shell in algae and seaweeds like she'd been floating around in the sea for some time. Her journey had taken her far off track into the cold stormy waters of the Irish Sea. Her rescue was new this because of a satellite tracking device found on her back.

That revealed Nazare's habit of getting lost and being found. Which was amazing because we found out that she was released from the coast of France, from La Roche aquarium where she'd been rehabilitated in June in 2023. So it wasn't the first time she'd been in a facility like ours. And the tag stopped beeping around December time just off the coast of Ireland and that means she probably got stuck in the storms then and disappeared. So she'd had a bit of a rough couple of months, we reckon, from the condition of her. Those months had taken their toll.

Staff removed Algi with a toothbrush. By right she should have died. But her dehydration and pneumonia were treated over three weeks of 24-hour care. And when she was finally ready to fend for herself, Nazare's final journey took her here. The warm, blue waters of the Azoresores and almost two and a half thousand miles from the Irish Sea she was released. And it was simply incredible. She kind of went into the water, kind of had a little bit of a look around and before you know it she rocketed off into the vast blue that you could see kind of before you.

We didn't really get a chance to say goodbye, it was that quick. And it was just brilliant in the sense that it was the culmination of lots of different teams coming together to allow this turtle to go back to the wild. That's what it's all about for us, it's about giving something back and giving an animal a second chance. The team hope this is the last time she ever experiences the skills and TLC of European aquariums. Jane McCubbin and TLC of European aquariums. bbc.co.uk. This edition was mixed by Dan Ehrlich and the producers were Holly Gibbs and Rachel

Bulkley. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Paul Moss. Until next time, goodbye. 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.