--:-- Oliver Conway: This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. Saks Off 5th is your secret to fashion's most wanted deals at up to 70% off.
--:-- [Sound effects: Music plays]
--:-- Oliver Conway: On the hunt for designer steals that'll turn heads and leave a trail of envy? Uncover Gucci, Valentino, Versace, Stuart Weitzman and more. With new arrivals dropping weekly at prices too good to stay confidential.
--:-- [Sound effects: Music continues]
--:-- Oliver Conway: Lux layers, statement boots and tailored essentials from Saks Off 5th will put your wardrobe on the most wanted list. Head to SaksOff5th.com or SaksOff5th store near you for a style lineup you won't want to miss.
--:-- Oliver Conway: Go on, get a little out there, into the big heart of Nevada, where you can go off-road and off the map, on two lakes or on horseback. Dip into hot springs and dive into deserts. Climb a mountain or make your best effort. See thousands of stars in some of the darkest skies. Stake out haunted hotels. Can you make it to sunrise? There's always something new to see, because we've got plenty of space to just be. Plan your trip at TravelNevada.com
--:-- Oliver Conway: This is The Happy Pod from the BBC World Service. Hello, I'm Oliver Conway, and in this edition...
--:-- Oliver Conway: You know, she was saving life. She saved a lot of lives. We meet Carolina, the rat who's retiring after using her sense of smell to detect tuberculosis.
--:-- Oliver Conway: The new vaccine providing hope in Uganda's fight against malaria. It's estimated that this vaccine rollout will prevent around 800 cases of severe malaria every day.
--:-- Oliver Conway: The man who set a world record for running barefoot on ice. They helped me understand myself more. I wish everybody to have a chance to get connected to ourselves. And the monkeys that have been crowned the best yodelers in the world. But we begin with a remarkable rodent that saved thousands of human lives.
--:-- Oliver Conway: Carolina is a rat who spent years detecting cases of tuberculosis. Local clinics in Tanzania and Ethiopia test for the disease, but the results are not that accurate. So samples which come up negative are routinely sent to be double-checked by rats.
--:-- Oliver Conway: Carolina sniffed her way through 200,000 samples, identifying many positive cases. But now she's retiring from her role with the global non-profit Apopo.
--:-- Harry Bly: This is the sound of sniffing, scuttling, and the soft squeaking of a giant African pouched rat. These rats at the Apopo Tuberculosis Detection Centre in Dar es Salaam in Tanzania can determine whether a person has TB by sniffing a sample of their phlegm.
--:-- Harry Bly: And it's all thanks to their exceptional sense of smell. Humans do have up to 400 nerve endings in our nose and dogs do have up to 900, but rats do have up to 1,200. That is why rats are sniffing even better than dogs.
--:-- Dr. Teferah Agizou: Because of just the name rats, many people easily misunderstand these rats as any other ordinary rats, but these are special rats with special capacity.
--:-- Harry Bly: To process 100 samples using a microscope, Dr Agizou says it would take a lab technician up to four days. Rats like Carolina take 20 minutes.
--:-- Fidelis Ghali: I trained and worked with Carolina throughout her entire career. In her seven years of work, Carolina has successfully detected more than 3,000 positive cases of TB and is thought to have spared around 30,000 other people from infection.
--:-- Fidelis Ghali: But at the age of eight, it was time for Carolina to retire. She's sniffed 208,235 patient samples. Fidelis and the team threw Carolina a party, celebrating her years of service and many, many lives saved.
--:-- Fidelis Ghali: It was very special. So we prepared banana and avocado. And she was grabbing everything that she liked and she was very happy. It was a party, you know. We prepared a cake, some drinks, so we enjoyed the day.
--:-- Oliver Conway: Last year, Carolina and her peers prevented nearly 400,000 new cases in Tanzania and Ethiopia. And across East Africa, the programme has raised detection rates for TB by 40%.
--:-- Oliver Conway: You know, they are doing an amazing job. So we treated them nice, nice, so that they live long. And she's just resting, you know. She doesn't work. She's resting, just eating and sleeping, exercising.
--:-- Oliver Conway: That's all. You know, she was saving life. She saved life. She saved a lot of lives.
--:-- Harry Bly: Fidelis Ghali ending that report by Harry Bly.
--:-- Oliver Conway: Malaria is a huge problem in Uganda, with the entire population of the East African nation at risk of infection. But help is at hand, thanks to the world's biggest rollout of a malaria vaccine, which began earlier this month.
--:-- Oliver Conway: The new jab has been described as a game changer by health professionals. The Happy Pod's Holly Gibbs found out more from our health correspondent, Dominic Hughes.
--:-- Dominic Hughes: So the introduction of a malaria vaccine is massive. Many experts say it's the thing that could really change the picture and has the potential to save millions of lives.
--:-- Dominic Hughes: Uganda has started rolling out a vaccine called the R21 vaccine. It's developed in the UK, produced in India. It's relatively cheap. And this Uganda is the biggest single country rollout so far.
--:-- Dominic Hughes: It involves three and a half million vaccine doses across 105 districts in Uganda, targeting 1.1 million children all under the age of one. And it's a huge logistical challenge, but the potential benefits are also massive.
--:-- Dominic Hughes: It's the 19th country actually in Africa to do a rollout, but we've seen nothing on the scale, on this scale before, because Uganda is one of the worst affected countries by malaria.
--:-- Dominic Hughes: It's got the world's highest malaria incident. So roughly half of the population are affected by malaria. And this programme has been launched in a district called APAC in northern Uganda.
--:-- Dominic Hughes: And that's reported to have the highest number of mosquito bites per person globally, over 1500 bites per person annually. So you can see this is an area where malaria spread by mosquitoes is going to have a massive impact.
--:-- Dominic Hughes: And what the reaction been to this news about the vaccine It been greeted I think as a really significant milestone in this fight against malaria not least by Uganda's government.
--:-- Dominic Hughes: It's estimated that this vaccine rollout will prevent around 800 cases of severe malaria every day. So as well as easing pressure on a stressed healthcare system, It's also going to relieve pressure on family finances through reducing them having to pay for relatively expensive hospital visits.
--:-- Dominic Hughes: So potentially there's a huge economic benefit as well. Now, the World Health Organization has played a really big role in trials of this malaria vaccine in Africa.
--:-- Dominic Hughes: And it says this rollout is an historic turning point in Uganda's fight against malaria. It characterises this really as that they say it's a bold step to protect its children, save lives and secure a healthier future.
--:-- Dominic Hughes: Now, the vaccine has been described as a game changer, so I think it's fair to say there's lots of hope riding on it.
--:-- Dominic Hughes: So what's next in getting this vaccine rolled out? So it's targeting children initially in around 105 districts like APAC, where malaria infections are highest.
--:-- Dominic Hughes: Now, the R21 malaria vaccine is administered in four doses, right? for children aged 6, 7, 8 and 18 months.
--:-- Dominic Hughes: Just to remind you, the aim is to reach 1.1 million children in those districts across Uganda where malaria is surging. But there are plans then to expand the whole scheme nationwide.
--:-- Oliver Conway: Next to a man who's overcome major personal challenges to set a series of world records for barefoot running, driven by a desire to help others.
--:-- Oliver Conway: Pavel Durakovich, who was addicted to alcohol, uses the sport to raise money for disadvantaged children. Pavel, who's 46 and from Poland, set a new world record earlier this year, becoming the fastest person to run half a marathon barefoot on ice.
--:-- Pavel Durakovich: I did not really prepare running on ice before or running on snow. I mean, I run barefoot on all different kinds of terrain and all different kinds of temperature.
--:-- Pavel Durakovich: But it's also about breathing, about controlling your mind, about telling your mind what to do, not your mind to be afraid. You know, you tell your mind what you want it to do and then you complement it with breath.
--:-- Pavel Durakovich: Human nature is impossible. Like, you know, we cannot even comprehend what we can do and for me it's a very nice journey.
--:-- Pavel Durakovich: So why did you decide to take on these challenges then, in particular running barefoot?
--:-- Pavel Durakovich: Okay, so I did three challenges so far. three Guinness world record and it is actually to raise money for the foundation so we organize camps and we bring people kids from from orphanages kids in need so diamond soul foundation they we bring them to pistoli from poland most of them they fly for the first time most of them is the first time they are in a restaurant having pizza seeing the sea having like you know a decent good food and also learning about emotions, working with a therapist, working with a yoga instructor, working with the breath.
--:-- Pavel Durakovich: So they have a chance to experience something probably incredible for them. But breaking records barefoot is only part of Pavel's story.
--:-- Pavel Durakovich: Seven years ago, he was contemplating taking his own life because of a long and deep addiction to alcohol. His is a story of recovery and transformation through sport.
--:-- Pavel Durakovich: It's a story of achieving the impossible by an ordinary person who once hit rock bottom. I was 13, like, you know, and I didn't know better. All adults were drinking, like, you know, I was in a country where heavy drinking was a part of doing business, part of life.
--:-- Pavel Durakovich: When I got drunk, when I was 13 years old, it was just like, you know, a pill for me. Something like, you know, to hurt me, to cope with myself. I don't know, to feel better, to feel normal just for a second.
--:-- Pavel Durakovich: And I was hooked. And I was drinking all my life, almost destroying myself. I'm very grateful. I'm almost eight years sober now.
--:-- Pavel Durakovich: And with that sobriety, I mean, I can experience life. Of course, it's not easy every day. We all have our challenges. We all have suffering, which we go through.
--:-- Pavel Durakovich: And it's not going to stop, you know, but you always get the choice how to do it. I found different ways through breathing, through yoga, through sports, through helping others.
--:-- Pavel Durakovich: We all can choose the better and more healthier. And now, you know, I have a chance to tell those kids that, OK, emotions are OK. Like, you know, feeling sad, like, you know, it's OK.
--:-- Pavel Durakovich: Life doesn't look like it is on Instagram and not everybody looks like it's on Instagram. You have to understand that we all suffer. This is normal, like, you know.
--:-- Pavel Durakovich: And these challenges that you take on, I wonder just how much they help you. Those events and those challenges they help me understand myself more i wish everybody to have a chance to to get connected to ourselves i think i was very lost in my life and you know besides the accomplishments i think the most thing i i've got out of it is that i'm a little bit closer to knowing myself that i know who pavel is and i wish this to all of the people and all of the kids
--:-- Oliver Conway: It's a beautiful but not easy experience. And you can hear more from Pavel and other inspiring athletes on the BBC Sports Hour, wherever you get your podcasts.
--:-- Oliver Conway: Now, don't worry, I won't be attempting it myself, but how good is your yodelling? Well, a study by researchers at the University of Vienna in Austria has found that monkeys could be the best yodelers in the world.
--:-- Oliver Conway: As Stephanie Zacherson explains. When you think of yodeling, you might associate it with the sound of music, the Swiss Alps or the Austrian uplands, but perhaps not with a Bolivian rainforest.
--:-- Stephanie Zacherson: But researchers have found that South American monkeys might be the best in the world at it. They recorded and studied the cause of the primates in a wildlife sanctuary.
--:-- Stephanie Zacherson: Now that might not sound that similar to human yodelling but the researchers say that while human yodelers leap between notes spanning one octave or less the primates can jump more than three musical octaves at once enabling them to switch between high and low frequencies remarkably fast.
--:-- Stephanie Zacherson: Here's another slowed down clip.
--:-- Stephanie Zacherson: The research included black and gold howler monkeys black-capped squirrel monkeys and Peruvian spider monkeys.
--:-- Dr. Jake Dunn: Dr Jake Dunn an associate professor in evolutionary biology from Anglia Ruskin University in the UK says these primates are able to produce the sounds because they have a vocal membrane a thin ribbon of tissue in their throat that humans lost through evolution.
--:-- Dr. Jake Dunn: Which allowed us to develop our way of speaking. Having this ability to be able to have extra things vibrating in their throat increases the complexity.
--:-- Dr. Jake Dunn: So humans have evolved sort of big brains to be able to make language possible But we have quite a simple throat with just with vocal folds.
--:-- Dr. Jake Dunn: Monkeys have kind of come up with this trick to be able to have this additional bit of tissue in their throat to increase the complexity without the need for a big expensive brain like we have.
--:-- Stephanie Zacherson: Now exactly what the monkeys are saying when they're making these noises isn't clear, but the group of so-called new wild monkeys whose range stretches from Mexico to Argentina were found to have evolved the largest vocal membranes of all the primates.
--:-- Stephanie Zacherson: Suggesting that they've developed them out of an important need in their vocabulary. So even though they might not become professional yodelers anytime soon, they're able to use their skills to communicate better and ensure they get attention from other monkeys.
--:-- Oliver Conway: And still to come on the podcast...
--:-- Stephanie Zacherson: When the tea time alarm goes off, genuinely I want to know what you do. I'm so curious about tea time. I need to know the truth. Is it a real thing? Is it just a big joke on us Americans?
--:-- Oliver Conway: So is the UK tea time alarm real? We find out what's behind this viral trend on social media.
--:-- Stephanie Zacherson: To Indonesia now and a project that aims to protect the rainforest and improve the lives of local people at the same time by providing affordable health care.
--:-- Stephanie Zacherson: The ASRI clinic in western Borneo offers discounts if everyone in a village agrees to stop chopping down the trees. Patients can also pay by giving their time or handicrafts or collecting and nurturing seedlings which are replanted in areas of deforestation.
--:-- Ade Mardiati: The clinic is set in the foothills of the Gunung Palung National Park. It's a small wooden structure covered in colorful flowers and surrounded on all sides by dense tropical rainforest which is home to wildlife like sunbears, pangolins and orangutans.
--:-- Ade Mardiati: On a day like today, the clinic sees up to 50 patients coming in with everything from toothache to flu and hypertension.
--:-- Ade Mardiati: Today, they're being treated by Dr. Sari, who has recently started working here.
--:-- Ade Mardiati: One of Dr. Sari's patients today is Mat Jais, who is being treated for chest pains.
--:-- Mat Jais: When Asri visited our village, they told us that they would give a different rate if no logging takes place.
--:-- Mat Jais: I used to work as a logger when I was young, when I was 20 or 22 years old, to cover the cost of living.
--:-- Mat Jais: Nobody in our village cuts down trees anymore. Especially now that we have Asri clinic, they come to visit and educate us.
--:-- Mat Jais: So there is no way we would do it again.
--:-- Ade Mardiati: In total, there are 81 local villages in which Asri monitors whether logging has taken place. And out of these 81 villages, 15 are entitled to the biggest discount, which is 70%.
--:-- Ade Mardiati: Only 3 out of the 81 villages don't currently receive any discount at all.
--:-- Mat Jais: Matt is happy he gets a discount for the healthcare. But I wondered how he felt about others having to pay full price for the same treatment.
--:-- Ade Mardiati: It's not just people who have contributed to logging themselves who have to pay more. It's actually anyone who lives in a village where trees have been cut down recently.
--:-- Ade Mardiati: This is to encourage us to stop logging, and it is good. We risk things when we cut down trees. For example, floods.
--:-- Ade Mardiati: That is why we were willing to change. I guess if the advice makes sense, we'll take it.
--:-- Ade Mardiati: It's also important to point out that the clinic doesn't require payment immediately and nobody is ever turned away if they don't have the money up front.
--:-- Ade Mardiati: Patients are also able to pay with whatever they can offer. A few metres from the clinic, Asri are collecting payment in the form of seedlings from another recent visitor to the clinic, 42-year-old Mardalina.
--:-- Mardalina: Mardalina has been paying for medical treatment for herself and her family in this way for over 10 years.
--:-- Mardalina: It all began when my daughter was sick and we went to see a doctor at ASRI. And I actually didn't have any money.
--:-- Mardalina: Mardalina was terrified. Her nine-year-old daughter had an abscess the size of an egg at the back of her neck and the other local healthcare options could even be dangerous.
--:-- Mardalina: In the past, people in small villages like this would go see a witch doctor. When I was feeling sick with a stomachache or headache, I was told I was possessed by an evil spirit.
--:-- Mardalina: Madalina wanted to ensure that her daughter got the very best treatment possible. But when she arrived at the Asri clinic, she wasn't sure whether they would be able to help.
--:-- Mardalina: The cashier said to me, you can pay with seedlings if you don't have cash. So I did.
--:-- Mardalina: I'm a single mother. So I said to myself, if there was an alternative to cash, I would do it so that my daughter could receive the treatment she needed.
--:-- Ade Mardiati: Mardalena says that she's collected more than 10,000 seedlings in total from the nearby forest.
--:-- Ade Mardiati: A steady supply of seedlings means she has credit in the bank any time either she or a family member is unwell and needs to visit the clinic.
--:-- Oliver Conway: A scientific breakthrough has allowed a paralysed woman to turn her thoughts into speech almost instantly.
--:-- Oliver Conway: Anne Johnson, who's from Regina in Canada, had a catastrophic stroke in 2005 when she was just 30, leaving her unable to move or talk.
--:-- Oliver Conway: She's become the first person to benefit from a brain implant that fluently converts the word she says in her mind into computer-generated speech, as she thinks them rather than waiting for complete sentences.
--:-- Oliver Conway: It enables her to hold conversations and avoid being interrupted. The system uses a voice generated from old recordings of Anne and sounds like this.
--:-- Oliver Conway: My colleague Anna Foster spoke to Gopala Anuman Chippali, an assistant professor in electrical engineering and computer sciences at the University of California, Berkeley, who's part of the research team.
--:-- Gopala Anuman Chippali: She was very excited to first hear her own voice in the first place, but now she actually reports being able to volitionally control the speech synthesis, meaning she feels like it's an embodiment of herself.
--:-- Gopala Anuman Chippali: That kind of embodiment is very important for technology like this to actually be useful for them so that it's like second nature to them to be able to use this.
--:-- Gopala Anuman Chippali: And then, of course, you know, the brain has its own mechanisms of learning to use it better, like how you're working with a new gadget.
--:-- Gopala Anuman Chippali: You may not be very good in the first place, but then as you keep using it, you get better.
--:-- Oliver Conway: How is she able to differentiate between what is said out loud and what stays in her head? Because we've all got this internal dialogue.
--:-- Gopala Anuman Chippali: And I think that the speed of it might make people think well how can I stop everything that I think from just just coming out and people hearing it all how can she switch between the two as we speak we have all these stages in converting what we want to say to actually choosing the words to say and making all the right movements in with our mouth and your lips and the tongue and the jaw and hearing the sound itself right so in someone who paralyzed but within that cortical function like Anne here she has chosen what to say she she knows the words she wants to make those movements and now she's trying to make them except the pathways that take her neural command to her mouth are now broken down so that's what we are augmenting right so we are really not tapping into her thinking or inner speech or anything just yet.
--:-- Gopala Anuman Chippali: It's the intention to move. And that's a very strong signal, very different from like general thinking.
--:-- Oliver Conway: As you said that there was just this moment of enlightenment for me. So actually, the way that she doesn't blurt things out is exactly the same way that we all don't blurt things out.
--:-- Gopala Anuman Chippali: The pattern, the activity in the brain is exactly the same. Yeah, that's exactly right.
--:-- Oliver Conway: Can the technology be replicated at scale? Could this be available to anybody who needs So this is an experimental study which is really on exemption to just verify whether this kind of technology for neural implantation would work in someone who is paralysed, right?
--:-- Gopala Anuman Chippali: To that end, this is a research study. But there are still some milestones in making this more mainstream to have it be available with a low power consumption, not be able to be wireless and actually someone can be sent home with.
--:-- Oliver Conway: Finally, many of us like a practical joke, but what about when it's a whole country trying to fool another? Well, that's what happened on social media when thousands of British users attempted to convince Americans about the supposed tea time alarm that goes off here every day at four o'clock to let us know it's time for tea.
--:-- Ella Bicknell: It's hardly a secret. Brits love a cup of tea. Whether it be a mug of strong English breakfast or a milky brew of Earl Grey, it's a quintessential part of British culture.
--:-- Ella Bicknell: So imagine UK-based TikTokers exploiting that stereotype to trick Americans across the pond. My mum's gone out and it's about to be the tea alarm. The tea time alarm's just gone off.
--:-- Ella Bicknell: What's up, Americans? It's very, very real. We're not joking. The tea time alarm is in fact a thing. Videos show people being caught off guard by a daily alarm, dropping what they're doing whether they be at a football match on a zip line or even on the London Underground.
--:-- Ella Bicknell: When making your tea please mind the drip between the bag and the cup. The trend has gone viral with people finding creative ways to explain the alarm and the fines that supposedly come to those who ignore it.
--:-- Ella Bicknell: Basically the lampposts in our streets double up as alarms. If you miss this alarm there is a fine you will get given. I'm not quite sure like how much because I think it depends on your age and income I'm pretty sure.
--:-- Ella Bicknell: And it's safe to say that it's left some Americans quite confused. When the tea time alarm goes off genuinely I want to know what you do. I'm so curious about tea time. I need to know the truth. Is it a real thing? Is it just a big joke on us Americans?
--:-- Ella Bicknell: The trend's even been spurred on by the official TikTok accounts of the UK government and well-known UK brands. This is the UK's official tea time announcement. Oh, nice. All airport services will pause temporarily while colleagues enjoy a mandatory tea break.
--:-- Ella Bicknell: Yes, it might be a bit of internet nonsense, but it's a clever combination of the British self-deprecating humour and our reputation for strange rules and customs.
--:-- Ella Bicknell: And we at the BBC are no different. Ah, perfect timing. Anybody want a cuppa? Yes, I'd better go and stick the kettle on.
--:-- Oliver Conway: Ella Bicknell there reporting.
--:-- Oliver Conway: And that's all from The Happy Pod for now. But if you have any cheerful stories for us, email globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk and you can see some of our interviews on YouTube by searching for The Happy Pod.
--:-- Oliver Conway: This edition was mixed by Pat Sissons and produced by Holly Gibbs and Harry Bly.
--:-- Oliver Conway: Hi, our editors, Karen Martin. I'm Oliver Conway. Until next time, goodbye.
--:-- Oliver Conway: to Playboy. We're prohibited. Sign up today for a generous welcome bonus. Download the Moto Casino app today.
--:-- Oliver Conway: Go on, get a little out there into the big heart of Nevada, where you can go off-road and off the map on two lakes or on horseback. Dip into hot springs and dive into deserts, climb a mountain, or make your best effort. See thousands of stars in some of the darkest skies. Stake out haunted hotels. Can you make it to sunrise? There's always something new to see because we've got plenty of space to just be. Plan your trip at TravelNevada.com
--:-- Oliver Conway: Now I'd like to introduce you to Meaningful Beauty, the famed skincare brand created by iconic supermodel Cindy Crawford. It's her secret to absolutely gorgeous skin.
--:-- Oliver Conway: Meaningful Beauty makes powerful and effective skincare simple, and it's loved by millions of women. It's formulated for all ages and all skin tones and types, and it's designed to work as a complete skin care system, leaving your skin feeling soft, smooth, and nourished.
--:-- Oliver Conway: I recommend starting with Cindy's Full Regiment, which contains all five of her best-selling products, including the amazing Youth Activating Melon Serum.
--:-- Oliver Conway: This next-generation serum has the power of Melon Leaf stem cell technology. It's melon leaf stem cells encapsulated for freshness and released onto the skin to support a visible reduction in the appearance of wrinkles.
--:-- Oliver Conway: With thousands of glowing five-star reviews, why not give it a try? Subscribe today and you can get the amazing Meaningful Beauty system for just $49.95.
--:-- Oliver Conway: That includes our introductory five-piece system, free gifts, free shipping, and a 60-day money-back guarantee. All that available at MeaningfulBeauty.com.
--:-- Oliver Conway: This message is sponsored by Greenlight. With school out, summer is the perfect time to teach our kids real-world money skills they'll use forever.
--:-- Oliver Conway: Green Light is a debit card and the number one family finance and safety app used by millions of families, helping kids learn how to save, invest, and spend wisely.
--:-- Oliver Conway: Parents can send their kids money and track their spending and saving while kids build money confidence and skills in fun ways. Start your risk-free Green Light trial today at greenlight.com slash iHeart.
--:-- Oliver Conway: That's greenlight.com slash iHeart.
--:-- Oliver Conway: America is changing, and so is the world. But what's happening in America isn't just a cause of global upheaval. It's also a symptom of disruption that's happening everywhere.
--:-- Oliver Conway: I'm Asma Khalid in Washington, D.C. I'm Tristan Redman in London, and this is The Global Story.
--:-- Oliver Conway: Every weekday, we'll bring you a story from this intersection, where the world and America meet. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.
