--:-- Oliver Conway: Welcome to The Happy Pod. We just swam across the Arctic Circle. Woo! Hello, I'm Oliver Conway, and in this edition, we go swimming across the Arctic Circle under the midnight sun.
--:-- Oliver Conway: Just do it. This doesn't have to be a midlife crisis. Just do it. And it won't be as cold as you think.
--:-- Oliver Conway: The groundbreaking IVF technique that stops babies inheriting certain diseases. When we heard about that first positive pregnancy test, it was such an amazing feeling.
--:-- Oliver Conway: The scheme where you can hire a grandchild for the day and... The more you learn to look after an animal, the more you're learning about yourself and learning how to look after yourself. It's a lifesaver.
--:-- Oliver Conway: The dog given a new lease of life in New Zealand.
--:-- Oliver Conway: Now, if you listened to our happy pod from the 21st of June, you may have heard our editor, Karen Martin, responding to a listener question about whether she ever gets a day off. She said that she did, but she was keen to highlight the hard work done by the whole team of happy journalists.
--:-- Oliver Conway: Well, now for our first story, she has been showing us all how it's done, casting aside her editor's hat and diving right in.
--:-- Oliver Conway: OK, everyone, this just in. We have the BBC World Service here. Please cheer.
--:-- Oliver Conway: I'm in the north of Sweden for this year's Swim Across the Arctic Circle. It's an open water swimming competition that around 600 people from around the world come to take part in.
--:-- Målin Basteberg-Reinqvist: My name is Målin Basteberg-Reinqvist and I'm working here at the race office at Swim Larket Circle.
--:-- Målin Basteberg-Reinqvist: It's very, very beautiful here and to swim under the midnight sun is also a really good experience. And like we have this weekend with the fantastic weather, it's going to be a super beautiful swim.
--:-- Marjorie Leighton: My name is Marjorie Leighton. I'm originally from New Zealand, but I live in Scotland.
--:-- Marjorie Leighton: Beautiful conditions, warm water and really good organisation and good camaraderie amongst all the people swimming.
--:-- Marjorie Leighton: When you told people what you were doing, what were the sorts of reactions you got?
--:-- Marjorie Leighton: Well, they think I'm mad anyway, so they just think, well, there she goes again.
--:-- Oliver Conway: There are two swims, a two and then a three kilometre race. The longer one starts in Finland, crossing the Arctic Circle into Sweden, going back in time, if you will, because of the different time zones.
--:-- Oliver Conway: Five, four, three, two, one. To start the swim, we were all counted in.
--:-- Oliver Conway: Wetsuits are obligatory if the water temperature drops to below 16 degrees Celsius. We were lucky that for us, the water was one degree warmer. so I was in skins which is a normal swimming suit for you non-swimmers.
--:-- Oliver Conway: I spoke to some of my fellow competitors after the first race.
--:-- Oliver Conway: It's hard but it's funny I'm a little bit crazy not doing this.
--:-- Oliver Conway: The atmosphere is just amazing it's my first race this doesn't have to be a midlife crisis just do it.
--:-- Oliver Conway: Absolutely fantastic I'm so glad I'm going to get the chance to do it again tonight and do the 3k swim I got talked into the 2000 by this lovely lady over here.
--:-- Oliver Conway: And I'll be back for the 3km soon tonight.
--:-- Oliver Conway: It's now several hours later and we've been transported to Finland by bus. The midnight sun is giving an orangey glow to the sky as we wait nervously to go again. This time it's three kilometres.
--:-- Oliver Conway: Will we make it in time?
--:-- Oliver Conway: And I made it in a time of 47 minutes, so I did manage to arrive before I left.
--:-- Oliver Conway: Here's how some others got on.
--:-- Oliver Conway: Oh, it was beautiful. It was really gorgeous. I mean, I immediately got left behind because everyone just ran in the water. I was like, oh, they're gone. But I just went at my own pace. I had my own private boat entourage. But yeah, no, it was really, really lovely.
--:-- Oliver Conway: And I'm just really pleased to have made it. The experience is amazing. I did the 2000 first and then did this one and almost didn't make it, I thought, at one point. But the crowd was great. The energy is awesome. Midnight sun, you can't beat it. It's awesome.
--:-- Oliver Conway: Yes, I made it! It makes me happy. And you see all the other people. You can talk to people. I mean, it's funny. It's a day that I'm looking forward. So I will dream next year too, I think.
--:-- Oliver Conway: An Arctic Circle swimmer, ending that report by Karen Martin.
--:-- Oliver Conway: And if you have a hobby that makes you happy, we'd love to hear about it. As ever, the address is globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk.
--:-- Oliver Conway: We look at them now, full of life and possibility, and we're overwhelmed with gratitude. The words of one woman after her baby was born using an experimental IVF technique combining the DNA of three people.
--:-- Oliver Conway: The method, aimed at preventing mitochondrial disease, combines the egg and sperm from a mother and father with a tiny amount of DNA from a second donor egg.
--:-- Oliver Conway: Scientists in the UK confirmed this week that eight babies had been born using the technique.
--:-- Louise Hislop: My name is Louise Hislop from the Newcastle Fertility Centre.
--:-- Louise Hislop: I asked what it was like to be involved.
--:-- Louise Hislop: It's such an amazing feeling. It's quite nerve-wracking. You're hoping that the embryos are going to develop and develop to a stage that they'd be able to implant and result in a pregnancy and to be able to translate that into the clinical lab where it such a relief to see these embryos developing and then to know ultimately that it resulted in a pregnancy.
--:-- Louise Hislop: It such a good feeling Yeah, because it's not just a scientific breakthrough, it's also someone's life.
--:-- Louise Hislop: Exactly. And these women, when you think about them, they've specifically been approved for this technique because they're at high risk of passing on severe disease to their offspring. and without the technique they wouldn't be able to have genetically related children.
--:-- Louise Hislop: And just take us through the journey that you've been on to eventually reach this breakthrough.
--:-- Louise Hislop: It's been such a long journey. You go all the way back to get approval to do the research from our regulators because obviously it involves human embryos, demonstrating that it looks like the technique is safe, that we are generating good quality embryos that could result in a pregnancy.
--:-- Louise Hislop: And then obviously at that point, all the work that was done by various individuals to get the law changed so that ultimately this technique could be translated from what was the research lab actually into the clinical laboratory where it could be used to treat patients.
--:-- Louise Hislop: And was there a moment when you thought this is going to work?
--:-- Louise Hislop: As an embryologist, whenever you see those good quality embryos, you've always got your fingers crossed. You think it could be this time.
--:-- Louise Hislop: And one of the things about being an embryologist is it is a bit of a roller coaster because those good quality embryos unfortunately don't guarantee a pregnancy.
--:-- Louise Hislop: But when we heard about that first positive pregnancy test, it was such an amazing feeling. So you have the joy of knowing that the embryo is going to become a baby.
--:-- Louise Hislop: When do you find out if they are going to be disease-free, as you intended?
--:-- Louise Hislop: We have an indication from the technique, but it's not until the baby's born and they have a blood test and the urine samples, and it's at that point that we know whether they're going to be free from the disease or not.
--:-- Louise Hislop: And there are now eight of these babies?
--:-- Louise Hislop: That's correct. So seven ladies, one of them had a set of identical twins, so eight babies in total.
--:-- Louise Hislop: And that's proved that your concept works?
--:-- Louise Hislop: It's still early days. Obviously, we're following up to make sure that they're healthy at birth, that they're developing normally, and we'll be monitoring them on for many years to come.
--:-- Louise Hislop: Now, as you say, it's taken a long time to get here. What will you say to other scientists who try to get their research, try to get it to become successful, and it just keeps failing?
--:-- Louise Hislop: It's part of being a scientist. You've just got to persevere and you've just not got to be afraid of trying something new, thinking outside the box, because it is possible to get there.
--:-- Oliver Conway: We go now to the mountains of rural Bulgaria, where for the past five years elderly people living alone have been able to, well, borrow a grandchild.
--:-- Oliver Conway: The student volunteers chop wood, collect hay and keep people company.
--:-- Will Chalk: In a dry, sunny field with Bulgarian mountains stretching away in the distance, 11 teenagers are sweeping hay.
--:-- Will Chalk: On the slopes below them are small rural villages, white and orange houses clinging to the wooded hillsides.
--:-- Will Chalk: And the people in those villages are why the teenagers are here.
--:-- Evelina Pacheva: One woman even started crying because we helped her move her firewood.
--:-- Evelina Pacheva: It's a really good thing we're doing.
--:-- Madiha Kalilova: At first it was difficult because it's hard for them to accept the idea of interacting with strangers, so-called grandchildren.
--:-- Madiha Kalilova: But with patience and the love these young people bring and their willingness to help, they quickly won over their hearts.
--:-- Madiha Kalilova: Our goal is very simple and deeply human, to help people.
--:-- Oliver Conway: Back in the field, the students are breaking for lunch, having some food and even taking a quick nap in a hammock.
--:-- Oliver Conway: It's tiring work, but the project coordinator, Emilia Georgieva, says that's kind of the point.
--:-- Oliver Conway: The work happens in two directions. While the young people think they're helping the elderly, they're actually growing and learning new things about rural life, things they never had to do before.
--:-- Oliver Conway: So the project has a two-way benefit.
--:-- Oliver Conway: And from the sound of volunteer Emre Yuku, it's working.
--:-- Oliver Conway: I chopped wood for the first time here. It's very interesting for me. I really like the fact that we're helping people.
--:-- Oliver Conway: This is, for now, a small-scale local project, but after winning a prestigious award, charity bosses are hoping to take it to the national level and that teenagers giving up their time to help some of the most vulnerable in society will soon be seen all across Bulgaria.
--:-- Oliver Conway: And that was Will Chalk.
--:-- Oliver Conway: Still to come on the happy news.
--:-- Oliver Conway: To reach this level, it's an indescribable feeling and I'm proud of every single one of them. I'm proud of how we managed together and it's going to be the best day of my life.
--:-- Oliver Conway: A World Cup final for a sport with magical origins. We'll be right back.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: Next to a story from a listener that combines many of the things we love here on The Happy Pod. Friendship, new beginnings and of course, animals.
--:-- Oliver Conway: As a young dog, George, a staffy Hunterway cross, spent his days chained up in a trucking yard in Wellington, New Zealand, along with his mother, Gemma.
--:-- Oliver Conway: That is until Alex Henderson persuaded the owner to let him take them for regular walks.
--:-- Oliver Conway: Then, as the dogs grew older and more expensive to care for, they were given to him full time.
--:-- Oliver Conway: Now, King George, to give him his proper title, has become a local celebrity, working with children and even helping to win support for a law against keeping dogs chained up for long periods.
--:-- Oliver Conway: Alex told Peter Goffin more about his canine friend.
--:-- Alex Henderson: He's just a big, lovable teddy bear, but he's got big muscles, big mouth, lots of clean, healthy teeth, but he's just a big, lovable ball of love and energy, really.
--:-- Alex Henderson: Eventually, the public just got to know him, and from the word go, he's been a sociable, outward-facing character.
--:-- Alex Henderson: What type of community work do you do with George?
--:-- Alex Henderson: About two years ago he had a year and a half he had a the first signs of a ligament injury and so I've been fundraising with him so he's been out in public a lot in his George Mobile but before that I was walking them around and they were cared for by the Change Dog Awareness charity which is a Facebook charity amazing along with other charities they've helped to get the law changed but he was involved in that from the word go along with his mother there's that and I went on sort of calls out to less advantaged dogs, in other words, dogs that were even worse off.
--:-- Alex Henderson: And he became friends with a few of the dogs that I walked. And I used to go to a cafe and the kids would just love, love coming up and patting him. And it's just really, really nice.
--:-- Alex Henderson: So it's just like walking along and people were drawn to him. And there was that chained dog law that you mentioned.
--:-- Alex Henderson: Have you been able to change that?
--:-- Alex Henderson: I feel that, you know, George has personally changed it himself. He's just joking. But he actually was part of the chain dog awareness protest. So now, I think it's September this year, having dogs on a chain for long periods will be illegal.
--:-- Alex Henderson: Hopefully it'll be a thing of the past before too long.
--:-- Oliver Conway: Did you mind if I ask you about the veterinary care that George needs now?
--:-- Alex Henderson: So he's still waiting to have that, his next operation. It's a bit out of my reach. So I did start a fundraiser. It's called a cruciate ligament surgery. Very common with dogs, especially bigger dogs. But without it, he's not able to walk.
--:-- Oliver Conway: Earlier, you mentioned the George Mobile. I was wondering if you could tell us about George's appearance when you've taken him out, because he wears a bit of a costume, doesn't he? And has this George Mobile that he rides around.
--:-- Alex Henderson: Yes, not the embarrassing glitter and plastic crown that I had a few years ago, but he has like a sort of a jacket or a couple of jackets because it gets a bit cold on the wagon there. And I sometimes put a scarf around him and he loves his glasses.
--:-- Alex Henderson: I mean, he just looks a character being carted around a big dog, being carted around by a human on a bicycle.
--:-- Alex Henderson: People often, they have the stereotype like pit bull dogs or staffies. They say, oh, they turn or they can get dangerous. But this is really a direct contrast to the stereotype that he looks like this big, humorous character that could be in a cartoon.
--:-- Alex Henderson: It just instantly draws people to him, especially kids, people learning about him and they ask questions and he's becoming a well-known character around Mission Bay and Mount Wellington.
--:-- Alex Henderson: I think they're really beginning to adopt him as a local character and hopefully as an ambassador for dogs welfare around the area because there are a lot of changed dogs and dogs that need proper looking after.
--:-- Oliver Conway: So is your hope that people will see George and realize that dogs like this shouldn't be kept on a chain, should be able to live their lives and can be friendly companions and friends?
--:-- Alex Henderson: Totally true. I mean, with my journey, I've actually come a long way myself, and that's due to the dogs I've looked after.
--:-- Alex Henderson: And if only people could realize from school age that the more you learn to look after an animal, the more you're learning about yourself. And this even includes things like boundaries and learning how to look after yourself. It's a lifesaver.
--:-- Alex Henderson: I mean, it gives you a new life in the sense that you learn that the simple joys of just walking down the street and then crossing the road and seeing what was on the other side. It's actually always on the go and always learning and discovering.
--:-- Oliver Conway: So I think it's just amazing.
--:-- Oliver Conway: Alex Henderson talking to Peter Dauphin.
--:-- Oliver Conway: Now to an invention that's thought to have saved the lives of around 5,000 premature babies.
--:-- Oliver Conway: It's an incubator designed for use in African hospitals that can run with just a car battery and a bottle of water.
--:-- Oliver Conway: It's also relatively cheap at $400 compared to $40,000 for a standard incubator.
--:-- Oliver Conway: And while it doesn't have all the same functions, it still meets international standards.
--:-- Oliver Conway: The machines, made by engineering students in Spain, have now been sent to 30 countries.
--:-- Esperanza Escribano: Mommy princess, you fresh. Mbiyiwo Bertil sings a song to her three-month-old twins, Elliot and Eliana.
--:-- Esperanza Escribano: Elliot and Eliana came into the world very early. I gave back in seven months, two weeks.
--:-- Esperanza Escribano: The boys one weigh 1.7 kilos, So the other one was 1.6.
--:-- Esperanza Escribano: Mbijiwa was told to take the babies to a hospital in Kribi in Western Cameroon.
--:-- Esperanza Escribano: So they told me that they need an incubator in order to regain their weight so that they can be like human newborn children.
--:-- Esperanza Escribano: After two weeks, the twins were allowed to share a single incubator.
--:-- Esperanza Escribano: When they joined them together, they were very happy. They decided to sleep all night, even play together at daytime. So it was quite a hard time to sleep and rest also
--:-- Esperanza Escribano: The incubators that saved Eliana and Elliot were actually made by university students 6 miles away in Pamplona northern Spain
--:-- Esperanza Escribano: And it was there in Pamplona that I saw the incubator for myself. A large plastic box with transparent blue sides and a couple of strong handles for carrying.
--:-- Esperanza Escribano: Its inventor, Pablo Bergasa, was on hand to show it to me.
--:-- Esperanza Escribano: So this incubator is like an artificial womb. There's just a front window where the baby is introduced inside.
--:-- Esperanza Escribano: And here we have a small temperature probe that is attached to the baby.
--:-- Esperanza Escribano: The incubator is intelligent enough to self-regulate, so the baby is in the comfort zone.
--:-- Esperanza Escribano: Pablo began designing this incubator eight years ago.
--:-- Esperanza Escribano: He was shocked to learn that many hospitals don't try to save babies that are less than a kilogram in weight because they know they don't have the tools they need to do the job.
--:-- Esperanza Escribano: After three years of design improvements and safety tests, Pablo's incubator was ready to send to a hospital in Cameroon.
--:-- Esperanza Escribano: Pablo was able to monitor the use of his first device remotely using a SIM card, just like the one you'll find on a mobile phone.
--:-- Esperanza Escribano: And it's an experience he will never forget.
--:-- Esperanza Escribano: When they were assembling the incubator, a baby that was only 500 grams was born.
--:-- Esperanza Escribano: And once they assembled the incubator, they said, well, we don't have anything to lose. We can try to put the baby in the incubator.
--:-- Esperanza Escribano: They told me, Pablo, don't be excited because this baby is going to die because he is very, very, very small.
--:-- Esperanza Escribano: So minutes and hours passed and the incubator was still turned on.
--:-- Esperanza Escribano: Days passed also, and one and a half months later, they sent me a picture of the baby that survived.
--:-- Esperanza Escribano: In the hospital, this baby was called the Little Miracle.
--:-- Esperanza Escribano: I was so excited that one year later, I was able to meet Little Miracle and his mother, and she said, being a parent is the best thing in my life.
--:-- Esperanza Escribano: This project is a small-scale, homemade approach to international aid. But that doesn't mean it's not making a difference.
--:-- Esperanza Escribano: Pablo and I called Dr. Gemdi Melani, a pediatrician in Cribi, Cameroon.
--:-- Esperanza Escribano: She's the same doctor who helped look after babies Elliot and Eliana.
--:-- Esperanza Escribano: Her hospital has four incubators, and she guesses that 50 babies have used them in the last six months.
--:-- Esperanza Escribano: But she tells us it's not enough.
--:-- Esperanza Escribano: If it's possible for them to send me more, I'd be delighted because the demand is high.
--:-- Esperanza Escribano: Very often I have babies arriving and I don't have room for them in an incubator.
--:-- Esperanza Escribano: So do you think your babies would have survived without an incubator?
--:-- Esperanza Escribano: I don't think so. Because when they were in the incubators, they were taking good care of them, like the womb. So out of the womb, they wouldn't have even survived without the incubators.
--:-- Oliver Conway: That report by Esperanza Escribano for People Fixing the World, which you can hear wherever you get your BBC podcasts.
--:-- Oliver Conway: Sports news now, as they say, and Belgium has become the first European country to win the World Cup in a sport inspired by Quidditch, the fictional game from the Harry Potter universe.
--:-- Oliver Conway: Quad ball merges rugby, dodgeball and tag with brooms.
--:-- Harry Bly: This might sound like a football match, but this is quad ball. And while it's heavily inspired by Quidditch, players don't fly around on broomsticks.
--:-- Harry Bly: Instead, they run around with plastic sticks in between their legs as they throw a ball around, attempting to get it through hoops.
--:-- Harry Bly: Quad ball started in 2005, invented by two students in the US state of Vermont.
--:-- Harry Bly: It grew rapidly from a niche game at college to an international sport, with its first World Cup taking place in 2012.
--:-- Harry Bly: Here's how it works. Teams have 21 players, with seven players on the pitch at any one time.
--:-- Harry Bly: Three chasers and one keeper defend their team's three hoops and attempt to score against the other team.
--:-- Harry Bly: Beaters, of which there are two, attempt to disrupt the other team by throwing one of three dodgeballs at players.
--:-- Harry Bly: Anyone struck by a dodgeball must drop the ball, dismount their broom, and run back to their own hoops and tag back in.
--:-- Harry Bly: And then there's the seeker. They must catch the flag, which is attached to the flag runner, an impartial official who must try to prevent either seeker from grabbing the flag.
--:-- Harry Bly: Goals are worth 10 points. The flag is worth 30.
--:-- Harry Bly: Belgium were this year's hosts and this year's winners.
--:-- Harry Bly: The first time a European country has won the Quad Ball World Cup.
--:-- Harry Bly: They beat Germany in the final 170 to 90 in front of a crowd of 2,000 spectators.
--:-- Seppe De Witt: We just became world champion of quad ball and it's really unbelievable.
--:-- Seppe De Witt: Seppe De Witt is from the winning team.
--:-- Seppe De Witt: I've started this sport 12 years ago together with a bunch of these people.
--:-- Seppe De Witt: 12 years of my life spending together with these people. And to achieve this on the biggest stage, like the opponents are the crazy goods.
--:-- Seppe De Witt: To reach this level, it's an indescribable feeling.
--:-- Seppe De Witt: And I'm proud of every single one of them. I'm proud of how we managed together. And it's going to be the best day of my life.
--:-- Christian Krieger: Quad ball really brings people together.
--:-- Christian Krieger: I play in the US, and we have people from a lot of different backgrounds, very gender diverse.
--:-- Christian Krieger: Really, it's been great to see teams, see different countries come together and all just have a love for the sport and really welcome each other to just, like, play ball.
--:-- Oliver Conway: Quad-ball player Christian Krieger ending that report by Harry Bly.
--:-- Oliver Conway: and that's all from the happy pod for now if you want to get in touch our email is global podcast at bbc.co.uk and a reminder that you can watch some of our interviews on youtube by searching for the happy pod this edition was mixed by james piper and produced by holly gibbs and rachel bulkley our editor and arctic swimmer is karen martin i'm oliver conway until next time Goodbye.
--:-- Oliver Conway: where the world and America meet. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.
