The Happy Pod: Escaping death on a glacier

0:00This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. If journalism is the first draft of history, what happens if that draft is flawed? In 1999, four Russian apartment buildings were bombed, hundreds killed. But even now, we still don't know for sure who did it. It's a mystery that sparked chilling theories. I'm Helena Merriman, and in a new BBC series, I'm talking to the reporters who first covered this story. What did they miss the first time? The History Bureau, Putin and the apartment bombs. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts. This is a happy pod from the BBC World Service.

0:48I'm Anka Desai and in this edition, learning what really matters the hard way. I thought my only regret really, if I die up here, is that I didn't spend more time with my wife and my family. Life is so fragile and you've really got to appreciate the small things. A hiker who nearly died in a fall on a glacier urges others not to repeat his mistakes. Also, a surprising new source of fresh drinking water and a vaccine to protect one of Australia's best-loved animals against a disease that's threatening their survival. Most of those populations have around 50 % infection and disease rate. It causes eye disease, it can lead to blindness, but of course the most important thing is in females where it makes them infertile.

1:31And? And I'm off to Listern-Varne at the end of the year I'm off for the bitter crack now The girls and the beer I'm fairly shifty for a man of six The man helping couples find love at Europe's largest matchmaking festival.

1:57We start with an amazing story of survival against the odds. Just over a month ago, Alec Loon was in Bergen in Norway when he decided to set off on a solo trek on a glacier in the Folgafone National Park. Four days later, Alec, who's an award-winning American journalist and an experienced hiker, failed to turn up for his flight home. He'd fallen and seriously injured himself, losing his phone, food and water. Even after the alarm was raised, the storm meant it took two more days to find him. As Alec told my colleague James Kumrasami, the stunning scenery meant he'd been trying to continue his trek despite a broken shoe which he'd repaired with tape.

2:39It was just beautiful. It was this lake of meltwater full of these tiny little kind of iceberg-y bits of ice. The ice was obviously really blue like you see in photos of glaciers. And, you know, after that, it was getting a bit late, but I wanted to try and make it over to the next valley. When I was on this very steep slope, I don't remember exactly how it happened. I remember taking a step and slipping. And then I started sliding down the mountain. And then I started rolling down the mountain. And then I was really pinballing down the mountain. When I was falling, I just remember having this thought that this is really bad.

3:19I ended up crashing into a rock so hard that it broke my femur, fractured my pelvis, and fractured a couple of vertebrae in my back as well. My only communication that I had was my phone, and my phone fell out of my pocket, and it was just too hard to get up the slope. The pain was just, you know, really intense. So you then had several days there. I mean, just how did you survive? What did you have to survive on? So I had my tent, my sleeping bag, my sleeping pad, which was really critical. And then I had maybe a dozen granola bars that were in the pockets of my backpack for kind of snacking on.

4:06And a couple of peanuts. I just knew that it was probably going to be four days until anybody realized something had gone wrong. And I just kind of went into like robot mode where I just focused on what I needed to do next. You know, I need to blow up my sleeping pad, need to get out my sleeping bag and try not to think about what ifs. I realized that I might die up there. And I thought about that. And I thought my only regret really if I die up here is that I didn't spend more time with my wife and my family. I just thought to myself you know I would do anything and I'm going to do anything to get back to my wife and family.

4:53And it was it was thanks to a photo you sent to your wife that they were able to locate you is that correct? I had sent her a photo of me in front of the higher tongue of the glacier so that helped a bit and then also my journal in my phone once she got into my computer, she could see the notes that I had made all the way up to the point where I fell. So that helped the police also understand where to start looking and the military, because in the end, it was the military helicopter that rescued me. What was that like? What was that moment like? You know, I was starting to really doubt, starting to really lose hope, starting to really, really doubt my chances.

5:33And then I heard the sound of a helicopter. And it was getting closer and closer and finally I saw this helicopter flying up the valley. You know, my heart leapt and I just started waving to that helicopter and yelling at it. But then after a while, the helicopter didn't see me and it just flew away. I thought, okay, either the helicopter is going to go refuel or I just missed my one chance. And luckily, half an hour, 40 minutes later, the helicopter came back, started scanning the slope again, and I was waving. And finally, the door of the helicopter opened and somebody waved back at me. And that's when I knew that it was finally all going to be over.

6:17It lowered two rescuers down to me on a rope, and they just started putting their clothing on me to try and warm me up. And they put like a safety blanket it around me as well. The helicopter had to go back for more fuel before it could take me off the mountain. One of the rescuers just hugged me for 40 minutes just to try and warm me up a little bit. So that was kind of the shape that I was in. What have you learned about yourself? You know, I'd say the main lesson I learned is just that life is so fragile and you've really got to appreciate the small things and appreciate your family. that's just the most important thing you just don't think it's going to happen to you we're on this earth temporarily and uh it could happen to anyone at any time so safety first and uh don't be afraid to turn around alec loon speaking there now to a rather unusual discovery a huge reserve of drinking water deep under the atlantic ocean it's what's known as an aquifer, a naturally occurring underground area where fresh water accumulates.

7:26But while they've been found in shallow seas before, this one is around 50 kilometres off the coast of Cape Cod in the northeastern US. The UN predicts that global demand for fresh water will exceed supplies by 40 % in five years, so finding new sources could be hugely important. It was discovered by Expedition 501, a$25 million global collaboration backed by the US. The BBC's group of party spoke to one of the chief scientists, Brandon Dugan. We started drilling down into the sediments, looking at the water in the pore space of those sediments, and we discovered and documented water that had salinity less than one part per thousand, so meeting fresh drinking water criteria below the ocean, and so significantly fresher than the ocean, and significant volumes of it, hundreds of metres of the sediments beneath the ocean, had this freshened water in it.

8:19And Brandon, how unusual is it for fresh aquifers to be located under the seabed? Or is it simply the case that we've just not looked up until now? Nobody studied it directly. So we knew that it could exist. But this far offshore, 30 kilometres, 40 kilometres, 60 kilometres offshore, we didn't know exactly how fresh that water was or how old it was. And so the exciting thing here was we went out with the intention of really focusing on the water and how fresh it was. And now we have data and information that we can figure out when did it get into the sediments and how is it going to be responding to sea level today where it's bound by saltwater.

8:55It's exciting in the fact that we've documented how far it goes offshore. Near shore systems, so tens of meters or hundreds of meters, are pretty well understood. These systems that go offshore tens of kilometers or even more, 50 kilometers, are not well understood. Now we have the information to really understand where that water came from and when it came there. Paint us a picture. What does it look like at source? Imagine if you go to the beach and you start digging a hole and all of a sudden you get down into the wet sand and then you just left that hole sit there, you'd see water flowing in it.

9:24And so we're looking at the water in the pores between all of those sand grains and clay grains. If you wanted to put it in sort of a volumetric system, it's a large expanse through many different types of rocks and sediments, but it is filling up these pores between them so it has a solid around it, like on the beach. How urgently do we need new water sources? And to that, how significant could this find be? I think it's very significant in terms of it's a new alternative source for potential freshened water. But I think we need to look at many solutions to address the water stresses that we see around the world.

9:58You are gathering data, as you just highlighted, and there are still lots of questions to be answered. And one of them is, is it drinkable? How feasible might it be for human use? We know from a salinity standpoint that some of the water has a low enough salt content that it could meet freshwater standards for drinking or human use. But like any water that you would use for human use, it would have to go through treatments for any viruses or microbial activity that are out there. So there would still have to be general water treatment for this water. As we moved farther offshore from our 30-kilometer offshore site to our 70-kilometer offshore site, the water started to get a little bit saltier.

10:35And so that would also need treatment to remove some of the salt and to do general pathogenic and virus treatment for human consumption. So it would require standard treatment, but it looks like it would be a viable source after treatment because it's similar to things that we see in nearshore environments or even onshore. Brandon, have you tried any? I have not tried any. We all wanted to try it. We all understood that the most important thing was to answer our science questions and make sure we're operating in a very sterile and safe environment. Brandon Dugan from Expedition 501. Thousands of single people from around the world have gathered in a small town in the west of Ireland in the hope of finding love the old-fashioned way.

11:15Europe's biggest singles event takes place every September in Lisdunvarna, a month-long gathering that's been going on for nearly 170 years and is thriving despite the plethora of modern options open to those seeking a soulmate. Ireland's last traditional matchmaker is on hand to help romance blossom, aided and abetted by music and dancing in every bar in the village, as Bernadette Kehoe has been finding out.

11:45Soon after midday, on every day of the matchmaking festival in the normally quiet town of Listoon Varna, couples take to the dance floor in huge numbers and carry on swinging around the floorboards until the early hours. Willie Daly is at the heart of the action. And I'm off to Listern-Varne at the end of the year. I'm off for the bit of crack now. Every year, Willie sets up a makeshift office in one of the pubs where the unattached can come to seek out his services and he claims to have matched 3 ,000 couples. It's a kind of a magic. The thing is, like, you know, the people walk around, You know, fellas walk up to girls that haven't met them before.

12:31They don't say, how are you? Are you enjoying any place of the music? They just say, will you marry me? It sounds all very impulsive, Willie. It is, but it's fantastic because in another town or another city, if you walked up to a fence and said, will you marry me, they'd probably have your rest. Since 1857, crowds have descended on rural Listonvarna every September. Traditionally, the month that the harvest would be safely in and bachelor farmers in search of a wife might start to think about a companion for the cold winter nights ahead. You know, the places of life was romance. They're always in a romantic mood and a happy mood.

13:13You see the prospects of maybe finding love, finding the one. That's a big trend for a lot of people in life, is finding the one, you know. Willie, now in his advanced years, learned the art of matchmaking from his father and grandfather and is never far away from his precious lucky book, where generations of his ancestors tucked away profiles of those seeking love, based on discreet conversations that once went on at horse fairs, cattle fairs, weddings and even funerals. Willie believes the well-thumbed book can bring luck to those seeking love. How the book works is you touch the book with both hands, towards the rise between 7 and 14 seconds, and you'll be in love and married in six Irish months.

13:59Now if you're single, very single, don't want to maybe get married, be young, you touch the book with one hand, and you'll be in love and happy. And whilst romance may be Liston Varna's main theme, it's not all about lonely hearts colliding. There's a very big connection of people meeting, you know, maybe not panicking about marriage, maybe have been married, maybe widowed. But they come and they make a lot of friends and they come again and a very big part of it is dancing. A lot of people come now from America, they come from Germany, quite a substantial amount each year come from England as well.

14:37Of course, modern dating apps now offer single people plenty of online opportunities to endlessly swipe right or left. But the matchmaker-in-chief says nothing can replace a real-life encounter. I do be shocked at the amount of interest that's been made by young people who have tried other systems, you know, but they just find that they're not so real. I suppose the matchmaking, if you introduce someone to them, you know, there's an old saying, a bird in your hand is walked through in the bush. There's nothing wrong at the computer. I think it's good where it's walked. 20 ,000 people flock to Listoon Varna every year, proving that an old-fashioned encounter on the dance floor can't be beaten, even in the age of technology.

15:29bernardette kehoe reporting

15:35coming up in this podcast we weren't expecting that it was going to happen so obviously you can imagine our surprise when outcome eight healthy little very cute babies it just reminds us how amazing nature can be the iguana who's had eight babies all by herself

15:59If journalism is the first draft of history, what happens if that draft is flawed? In 1999, four Russian apartment buildings were bombed, hundreds killed. But even now, we still don't know for sure who did it. It's a mystery that sparked chilling theories. I'm Helena Merriman, and in a new BBC series, I'm talking to the reporters who first covered this story. What did they miss the first time? The History Bureau, Putin and the apartment bombs. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

16:38Of all Australia's amazing animals, few capture human affection in quite the same way as the fluffy-eared, ever-sleepy koala. As well as bushfires and loss of habitat, they've been under threat for decades from a serious outbreak of the sexually transmitted disease chlamydia, which is responsible for 50 % of koala deaths. Now, though, a new single-dose vaccine has been approved, which is hoped will make a big difference. Rebecca Kesby spoke to Peter Timms, professor of microbiology at the University of the Sunshine Coast, who is behind the research. Koalas are in the Queensland and New South Wales area, and most of those populations have around 50 % infection and disease rates.

17:17So it's a pretty major challenge for them. And therefore, at that level, populations or small or subpopulations are sort of going locally extinct. So it's a pretty big deal and it's a pretty nasty disease as well. It causes eye disease that can lead to blindness. But of course, the most important thing is in females where it causes reproductive tract disease or it makes them infertile. So if you put all that together, it can often be the tipping point whether populations survive or don't. So we've got this new vaccine. How effective is this? And also, how are you going to catch all these wild koalas to administer it?

17:52We do know that the vaccine is safe. We've done lots of work and that's obviously an important step. But as well as that, it reduces infection levels. But the most important thing it does is it stops or reduces at least, it's not perfect, infections becoming disease. So disease is the thing we're trying to stop here. Some fairly long studies now that show that across a 10-year period, we've been lucky enough, that shows that the number of koalas that are getting disease is reduced very significantly, more than 50, 60%. The second part is how will we give the vaccine to koalas? So we have a multi-stage approach here.

18:26We'll certainly give the vaccine to animals that come into wildlife hospitals. So unfortunately, lots of koalas do come into wildlife hospitals and treatment places around the country, thousands and thousands of them, actually. That's because they're getting hit on the road by cars, unfortunately, or 50 % of the animals that come into wildlife hospitals come in with disease. So that's already an obvious group of animals we could help with vaccination. But as well as that, there are wild koala population studies that are being done because people build roads and houses, unfortunately, and that requires animals being displaced.

18:59So again, there are hundreds, if not thousands of koalas in that. So to begin with, we'll be vaccinating those animals that I guess we've helped put it at risk from chlamydia. At one point, though, why is chlamydia so prevalent among koalas? I'm guessing from that that maybe they don't mate for life. Why are they affected so badly? We used to think that they were not very good at maintaining immune response, but we know now from our vaccines that that's not true. They do breed pretty well with, you know, key male koalas that might be infected. So, you know, perhaps that's part of the study as well.

19:30And also we do know the other thing is that stress is not good for koalas. It does affect disease. and we know that drought and bushfires and also urbanisation together combine to sort of put us in a tipping point. So it's a good question we only know half the answer to at this point. Professor Peter Timms from the University of the Sunshine Coast in Australia. Staying with wildlife, a zoo here in England says it's witnessed one of the rarest events in the animal kingdom after the immaculate conception of eight baby iguanas. The hatchlings emerged from eggs laid by a female cask-headed iguana who had never had access to a mate.

20:05The lizard species is native to Central and South America and zookeepers say there are few documented cases of this type of reproduction worldwide. Phil Mackey went along to find out more. Staff at the exotic zoo in Telford were surprised when Carol, a four-year-old cask-headed iguana, laid eight eggs because they don't have any males in their collection. They put the eggs in an incubator to see what would happen. After three weeks, the eggs began to hatch. Scott Baker is the zoo's director. We weren't expecting that it was going to happen, so obviously you can imagine our surprise when out come eight healthy little very cute babies.

20:41It just reminds us how amazing nature can be. Because the iguanas were born through parthenogenesis, a type of asexual reproduction, they're exact clones of their mother. What with it being midweek and the school's back, it's quiet at the zoo but there was still some excitement from the visitors who were able to come. I thought it was interesting to see wasn't it? I didn't see one before. Really fascinating how it can like clone itself almost. The hatchlings are about the length of a typical smartphone and a lime green in colour with a black stripe along the length of their bodies. They can live up to 10 years in captivity and will eventually be found new homes in other zoos.

21:19Phil Mackie with that story. Like many countries around the world, Malawi in southeastern Africa often struggles to produce enough food to feed itself. Around 80 % of the population is involved in farming, but climate change has contributed to famines and cyclones in recent years. Now though, a new method has been allowing farmers to dramatically improve their yields with help from a special solar-powered tractor. Myra Anubi reports from northern Malawi. Driving across Malawi, there are green fields of maize as far as the eye can see. It's a country's staple crop. However, you can also see some of the maize is failing, and that will be disastrous for those farmers.

22:01But in one village called Eshekweni, they might have a solution.

22:09As I arrive, I'm greeted by a group of farmers singing about a method they're using called deep bed farming and how they're not going back to their old ways. Wilfred is a farmer who's been using deep bed farming in his maize fields for a few years now. Can you tell me how much more crop you've gotten from deep bed farming? On a small piece of land, very small piece of land, I got about 10 bags, 50 kg bags, which I wouldn't have before. How much would you have gotten before from that small piece of land? One bag. No, one bag. Really? Yeah. So this kind of farming is good. Deep bed farming is all about digging deeper than usual breaking up the hard ground or hard pan that you typically find in Malawi Godfrey Komwenda is from TNE, the organisation that's developed this method When there is hard pan that means the water will not be infiltrating down the soil and even the root development will not be there So when it comes to breaking the hardpan, we are encouraging farmers to break at 30 centimetres deep to allow water to infiltrate.

23:26The hardpan is basically that hard ground before you get to 30 centimetres. Yes. So if you are broken below 30 centimetres, it is good in terms of now constructing a bed. The beds the farmers can make now are deep. This allows roots to grow properly and holds the rainwater in. But digging deep is back-breaking work. And there's precious little mechanisation on farms in Malawi. So that's where an innovation from the UK could help.

23:57This is AFTRAC, a solar-powered tractor designed by engineers at Loughborough University. So our tractor is a very small unit. It's got only two wheels and you walk behind it. And you lower the digging chain into the earth. And it digs up the earth to a depth of about 400 to 500 millimetres. Toby Williams is one of the designers behind this tractor. So far, it's just a prototype, but Toby and his team have won a million-dollar prize to develop it and hope to build the latest version in South Africa soon. He believes that, along with deep-bed farming, it can make a big impact. So by having this tractor, you can increase food yields significantly, meaning you're moving people from food poverty, where they're below subsistence and they're just trying to grow food for themselves to a point where they can grow enough food that they can also sell surplus.

24:45Maybe they can try and take on cash crops in the future, which means they've now got an income. Wilfred hasn't used a tractor yet on his farm, but he has felt the impact from deep bed farming. When I harvested maize from the deep beds, because I had many bags, I sold some of them. The money that I got, I used for my rakish everything. Like what? good food like meat, rice and other. I changed my life. Studies have shown deep ed farming can improve yields by 40%. The method is now being promoted by the Malawi government and so far around 35 ,000 farmers have been trained to do it. And it's hoped that possibly with a bit of help from the solar tractor, deep ed farming can help the country be food and income secure.

25:35And you can hear more on people fixing the world or wherever you get your BBC podcasts from. And finally, we often ask you to get in touch with your positive stories. And Amber Cassidy has done just that. She emailed to tell us about her old friend, Tobias Rich, who's been travelling the world, picking up litter wherever he goes. Amber says the photos he posts on social media showing the bags of rubbish he's collected always make her smile. So we gave Tobias a call to find out why he does it. You feel so powerless that you cannot do anything about it. I was just thinking about it and not taking action.