The Happy Pod: Beers, braids and bonding

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1:42Get started today at Wealthfront.com. 3.3 % base APY via Program Banks as of January 30, 2026. It is representative variable, requires no minimum, and is earned on funds swept to Program Banks. Instant withdrawals subject to conditions boost up to$150 ,000. Cash account offered by Wealthfront Brokerage, LLC, member FINRA, SIPC, not a bank. Investing involves risk, including possible loss of principal investment advisory services provided by Wealthfront Advisors, LLC, and SEC-registered investment advisor. This is the Happy Pod from the BBC World Service.

2:17I'm Holly Gibbs, and in this edition… It gives dads a real opportunity to spend an extra five, ten minutes with their daughters. I'm not saying every single day. And in doing so, we're hoping that the conversations that they have along the way, that they might not remember the braiding, but they'll remember the conversations. The dads behind the viral sensation Pints and Ponytails. How new research has found a way to convert a common plastic into a drug for Parkinson's disease. When you think about plastic, people tend to think of it as this waste or end-of-life material that doesn't have any value or any sort of potential for further use.

2:55But plastic waste is just carbon. Plus the return of rhinos to Uganda. It's a great day. It's a great season for Uganda. The communities are very excited to see that this species is coming back 43 years down the road. and why getting old is actually good for you.

3:20We start with a dad's night out with a twist. Welcome to Pints and Ponytails. That's Pints and Ponytails, a meeting of dads at the pub learning how to do hair on mannequins. The sessions, however, are much more than just buns and braids. The whole thing was the brainchild of Matthew Lewis Carter and Lawrence Price, who both experienced mental health struggles in the early days of becoming a dad and decided to set up their own podcast and host events such as Pints and Ponytails. When they posted the footage of the event on social media, it encouraged millions of people around the world to get in touch and try it for themselves.

4:02I spoke to Matthew and Lawrence. It's easy to watch a video of Pints of Ponytails and just see dads learning to braid their daughter's hair. But there's so much more to it than that. It's traditionally a feminine task that dads want to step up and get involved with. In doing so, it then deepens the conversation that they can have with their daughter. We put up a first event. We got 10 friends together and the internet just loved it. and we thought okay let's let's do this again but let's make it bigger we had 35 dads turn up at the second event but these dads turned up fully present fully wanting to learn a skill to establish a deeper connection with their girls and what we found is there was a nervous energy in the room when the dads first come in it's quite a strange thing to see when you come into a room full of like 35 mannequins and pints just strapped to the table it's like the start of um a horror film but after that the the nervous energy slowly started to dissipate we wanted to make sure that we were providing a safe space for dads to get together and to learn a new skill that honors their daughters and in doing that break old stereotypes we are getting hundreds of men not just in the UK but globally get in touch because they actively want to be a part of this new progressive approach to fatherhood.

5:27So we feel at the moment we've kind of stumbled into something which is a huge honour but a huge responsibility to help facilitate the safe spaces for all those dads to step up. We've had messages from Mumbai to Sydney to LA to Guatemala. Like it's really just, like we've had voice notes from dads, I was listening to one from Ecuador before we jumped in on this. So I think there's a real thirst for dads. What's the feedback been from fathers who attend these sessions? We got a lot of the dads to write a post-it note. And one of them just said, my daughter always says my hands are too big to do hair, but I can't wait to show her the new skills I've learned tomorrow.

6:10And there were so many just beautiful messages like that. It really speaks kudos to these dads who turned up to this event. And it gives dads a real opportunity to spend an extra five, ten minutes with their daughters. I'm not saying every single day. And in doing so, we're hoping that the conversations that they have along the way, they might not remember the braiding, but they'll remember the conversations. And I think that's what our goal is here. Yeah, it's through our actions that the next generation learn. And that's what's been so encouraging for us to see all these dads stepping up and wanting to break old stereotypes.

6:43And for us, that's just hugely optimistic about the next generation and the hands they're in. Yeah, I think what we also have, we've had a lot of messages from girls and their memories of their dads doing their hair. I can relate. No offence to my dad, but when he did my hair, it was awful. Bless him. But he would have benefited from pints of ponytails. Yeah. And you know what? It's just like the braiding, the hairstyles, they don't have to be perfect. It's so easy to look at the event and think, God, you know, we need to be doing lots of different hairstyles. But if we just give them a few of the basic skills and maybe if mum isn't there one day or if mum isn't up for the task in the morning, the dads can go, look, it's OK, I've got this today.

7:24Apart from learning how to do a ponytail, why is it important that things like this exist? There are so many layers to this, so many reasons. Something we haven't touched upon yet as well is the symbolism of dads stepping into the space that traditionally, stereotypically has been considered a role of the mother in terms of preparing and styling and doing the daughter's hair. And the symbolism of dads stepping into that space to take that on themselves really does thread into dads stepping up to start to take and pick up more of the invisible load at home as well. So it might start with doing the hair for their daughters, but it will then go on to many other areas as well.

8:05It's a safe space for dads to share their mental health journey since becoming fathers specifically with other men in the same position as them in a pub environment that they're familiar with. And it is also, crucially, a skill that again opens up another door in which dads can connect on a deeper level with their daughters. and 10 minutes a day here or there over many weeks, months and years. I mean, that can completely, that can deepen the relationship with a father and a daughter to a level which they never might have had previously. There is a generation of boys now who are coming into the world and they're already being labelled toxic, which, you know, we think is so far from the truth.

8:47I don't think boys come into this world being toxic. They come with love and kindness. but I really hope that we can stand there and just you know wave a flag and say there is a group of dads out there there is a form of masculinity that is so confident within its own masculinity with these feminine traits and I think that is the sign of a real man you know a man that is confident in his ability to have feminine traits and lean into that and teach those findings to his children. Matthew Lewis Carter and Lawrence Price. Next, to an unexpected solution that could help in the fight against both plastic pollution and Parkinson's disease.

9:31Researchers at the University of Edinburgh have found a way to convert a common plastic found in food and drink packaging into a drug which is regarded as the best way of managing the symptoms of Parkinson's disease. The drug already exists, but this method could have a big impact on the way medicine is made in the future. I caught up with our reporter Lucy Atchison. So the drug is called levodopa and it's the main treatment for Parkinson's disease. It's traditionally made using fossil fuel derived chemicals and obviously that has a huge environmental impact. What the drug does is it essentially helps restore dopamine levels in the brain and that improves the symptoms of Parkinson's like tremors, stiffness and slow movement.

10:13Dopamine is a chemical which is essential for controlling movement so if you're able to restore it in the brain then you can really improve the symptoms that people experience. And how did the researchers find out that this was possible? This uses a new approach which is called engineering biology. It's part of a wider move towards more sustainable and lower energy drug production. The researchers built on their earlier work which included producing paracetamol from plastic using similar methods and so what they did was they genetically engineered E. coli bacteria and they reprogrammed it to help make useful compounds.

10:49How this works in practice is essentially the plastic and specifically here we're talking about polyethylene terephthalate which is used in food and drink packaging. It's broken down into its chemical blocks and then the bacteria is used to convert those molecules into levodopa through a series of biological reactions. The whole process takes around 24 hours and it happens at room temperature, so it uses far less energy than typical production methods. Professor Stephen Wallace is from the University of Edinburgh's School of Biological Sciences who led the research. I think when you think about plastic, people tend to think of it as this, you know, waste or end-of-life material that doesn't have any value or any sort of potential for further use.

11:28But plastic waste is just carbon. And we work in my lab in an area of biotechnology called engineering biology, where we can program microbes to do things with carbon. So when we started this project a couple of years ago, we were like, great, could we potentially design a strain of bacteria that could turn plastic waste into something, you know, a bit more than just another plastic bottle or a discarded piece of material? And yeah, we're really thrilled that we've been able to do it. Wow. So what's the reaction been? Well, it's been extremely positive on two fronts. So environmentally, around 50 million tonnes of polyethylene terethylate plastic is produced every year.

12:09Much of it becomes waste and it also takes hundreds of years to break down. So this method suggests that plastic waste could actually be repurposed into something valuable, tackling pollution. Medically, it also offers a more sustainable way to produce essential drugs and it reduces our reliance on fossil fuels. Dr Becky Jones is from the charity Parkinson's UK. It's really exciting to see any Parkinson's research, but particularly new and innovative ways of creating the levodopa drug. Levodopa is needed and used by many people to manage their symptoms. So it's really exciting to see new and innovative ways of using that drug that's helping people live well with Parkinson's for as long as possible.

12:55So Lucy, what's next for the drug? Professor Wallace and his team are now working with their industry partners to see if this process can be scaled up commercially. If that's successful, it could mean that plastic waste becomes a raw material for medicines and a new industry could emerge, which is bio-upcycling. Lucy Atchison. To Uganda now and a conservation milestone. For the first time in more than 40 years, rhinos have returned to the country's Kedepo National Park, a vast expanse of savannah in the remote northeast near the border with South Sudan. Tom Rolls has more details. The last rhino in Kedepo is thought to have been killed back in 1983, making the species extinct in the wild in Uganda.

13:41Poachers wanting their meat and horns had exploited political instability to wipe out around 700 of the animals once found in the country's national parks. But now, two southern white rhinos have arrived at a new protected sanctuary, the first of eight intended to help re-establish a thriving population in the park. They were moved there from a privately owned ranch, which has been breeding rhinos from four it imported from Kenya in 2005. Dr James Misenguzi is the executive director of the Uganda Wildlife Authority. He says it marks the beginning of a new rhino story for Kedepo. It's a great day.

14:20It's a great season for Uganda. That a species that got wiped out 43 years ago in 1983 has been introduced back into the country. We started with a seed population of six rhinos and we've been able to multiply them to 61, thereby having a founder population. Now we have made a decision to introduce them into the wild. So we are taking the southern white rhino, eight of them, into Chidepo Valley National Park. We have also started a programme to take 20 of them into Ajayi Wildlife Reserve. The rhinos will be monitored by veterinary teams to ensure they adapt to their new home. And Dr Muzunguzi says they've also taken steps to protect them from poachers, using rangers and remote tracking, and getting the support of local people.

15:13We have sat down with the communities to show them the benefits that are going to our crew as a result of the introduction of these animals, and they have agreed to work with us to protect them. The communities are very excited. The communities are very, very happy to see that this species is coming back 43 years down the road because there are so many benefits that are going to accrue. First of all, jobs, because as the Uganda government, we have a policy that once we have species introduced and a national park set up and boosted, then we have employment from local communities. We also give back 20 % of the revenues collected to the communities to be able to carry out community development programmes of their choice.

15:55Jeff Morgan is the founder of Global Conservation, which has been helping to ensure the rhinos will be safe at Kedepo. He says people will also benefit from it becoming a safari destination. Uganda has the same level of attractions as Kenya, it just has not been developed as well. And so really using the tourism as a development tool for humans to have a better life, that's exciting for me is to see, you know, I can become a guide, I can open my own lodge, I can have a taxi, I can have a restaurant. All the people around the national park can benefit from that park's protection. This reintroduction is part of Uganda's National Rhino Conservation Strategy, which aims to restore the animals to all the areas they used to inhabit.

16:41and it's hoped they will also help other species by restoring natural ecosystems. Jeff Morgan says he's optimistic. My dream is to have them in all the parks soon in Uganda and throughout Africa. What it brings to me is it shows that the places are being protected again so that we can introduce key species like this. Rhino recovery in Uganda is just one great story and we hope for many more. I think what we have to do as a species, our human species, is protect our current national parks, take care of what's left, the last 10 % of our forests and our wildlife species. Tom Rolls reporting.

17:33Coming up in this podcast, case closed. Well, I looked at every book I could. I asked people and it wasn't until 15 years later I was in the Natural History Museum and live outside broadcast brought this mineral in and they said we can't identify it they then looked at me said is it a fake could it be a fake how one woman's mysterious rock is now on display in a museum.

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20:55Welcome back to The Happy Pod. People often joke that getting older means being over the hill or past it, but others prefer to think of themselves as improving with age like a fine wine. Well, new research from Yale University suggests that for some, that's actually true. It found that around a third of people over the age of 65 showed improvements in things like memory and problem solving, while more than a quarter had better physical abilities as they got older. The BBC's Laura Foster discussed the findings with Graham Easton, a clinical communications professor at Queen Mary University in London.

21:33It was from a large national study in the US of 11 ,000 participants over 65 and they followed them for 12 years and they looked specifically at two things. One was their cognitive function, using things like memory tests and math skills, and the other was physical function. And what they used to measure that was their walking speed, which is quite a good marker that we know in elderly people, things like disability or hospitalisation and stuff. They then discovered that when they looked at the individual trajectories of these people over 12 years, they found that 32 % had a measurable improvement in cognitive function and 28 % had an improvement in their physical function.

22:15So scientists have noticed these improvements. Why do they think this happened? Well, what was really interesting is that they also measured the participants' beliefs or thoughts or attitudes to ageing using a questionnaire. And they found that those with more positive beliefs about ageing were significantly more likely to show improvements, both in cognition and in walking speed. And common attitudes can be absorbed from a very young age and become quite strong self-talk that can then influence biological and health issues. There have been quite a few studies that suggest there is a significant, if small, effect between the way you think about ageing and your health.

23:02And are people's attitudes shaping their capabilities or are people's capabilities shaping their attitudes, do you think? Because this is an observational study, we can't prove a link cause and effect. The researchers did go to quite a lot of trouble to reduce the chance that it was just down to better functioning people feeling more positive about ageing. So at the beginning, they checked their baseline health and functioning, for example, and adjusted for other factors too. And even having done that, they found that still this positivity predicted later improvements in function. But not everyone improved with age, sadly.

23:40What could one do in order to help ensure they age well? Our genetics are probably the most important factor and then environmental factors and how we look after ourselves, what we eat and so on, particularly good evidence around the Mediterranean diet. And things like positive attitude are probably more about tweaking around the edges of those things. Graham Easton. Next, the story of how a mysterious and unidentified mineral from Morocco ended up in the British National History Museum. Anna Grayson, a trained geologist, bought the rock from a roadside stall whilst on holiday in the North African country more than 50 years ago.

24:19After years of arguments and even claims that it could be fake, it has finally been identified as an aeronite. Anna Grayson spoke to the BBC's Richard Hamilton. I was pregnant and I was feeling a bit unwell so I said could we stop the car. We did buy one of these wonderful mineral stalls they have there. It was mainly full of sparkly stuff but there was this one blue thing, this big blue chunk and I went to have a look at it and I knew that I'd seen some tiny fragments of it before. I went to look at it and I asked the chap and I said what is it and he said c 'est lapis madame meaning it's lapis lazuli.

24:55I could see immediately it wasn't just the wrong shade of blue. This is more of a Prussian blue. Lapis is a real ultramarine rich blue. So I thought well I'll ask a few more questions. Where does it come from? Dans les montagnes madame. Just dans les montagnes. I wasn't going to get any more information. In the mountains. In the mountains yes in the mountains. But what was interesting was structures on it because it shines. It's got faces as if it's got got a sort of triangular pyramidal look about it. And this structure is called Slickensides, and it's formed in faults, geological faults. So in a way, this is a fossil earthquake, which makes me think it's come from the Atlas and the main faulted region.

25:33I thought I'm going to buy it anyway. So did some really hard bargaining. I quite like bargaining in Morocco. And after some time, we got the price right. So how did you start to then try and find out exactly what it was? Well I looked in every book I could, I asked people, I took it down to the Camborne School of Mines in Cornwall and they looked at it and from the colour they thought oh that looks like copper and that turned out to be incorrect and it wasn't until 15 years later I was in the Natural History Museum and live outside broadcast brought this mineral in and they said we can't identify it.

26:09They then looked at me said is it a fake? Could it be a fake? because a lot of fakes did come out of Morocco at that time. I said, I'm sure it's not a fake because of the structures on it. And they said, can we keep it for a bit? So they had it for a year and they found that it had properties completely new to science and it didn't really fall into one of the established mineral categories because it looks like a mineral called an amphibole. But a zeolite, which is usually a lighter colour than this, has tiny channels running through the crystals, empty channels that are water molecules can get down but not much else so it was completely unique so in 1996 it was decided to announce to the world that it was a brand new mineral and for some reason it just captured the public imagination I think the sense of adventure the romance of Morocco I think also the fact that a woman had done it you don't expect women to do that you didn't then anyway.