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0:40

Hi, mister Balijiojo. on

0:42

the farm where grew up in France,

0:45

we basically grew everything organically

0:47

and made everything else else. Times

0:50

got hard in the late seventies. and

0:52

my mom and dad slowly gave in

0:54

to what they perceived to be modernization using

0:57

more and more chemicals and formulas.

1:00

They bought

1:01

machine harvester for the vineyard when I

1:03

was fifteen.

1:05

I saw the journey of our land from

1:08

being vibrant, alive, full

1:10

of war mushrooms and salads to

1:13

becoming more and more of a monoculture devoid

1:15

of life. The green

1:17

revolution is a bloodless battle. It's

1:20

the fight against Pembina and the fight for

1:22

improved agricultural production.

1:27

I'm

1:30

with my brother, DiJI, who runs the farm

1:32

today.

1:32

We

1:36

were putting way too many chemical products on

1:38

the vines. The

1:41

harshest products weren't necessarily the most

1:43

effective. We began to be a bit kinder

1:45

towards nature around ten years ago, but

1:49

that was after a lot of deaths from cancer. And

1:52

we know that from our own experience.

1:56

My dad died of lung cancer. He

1:59

never smoked in his

1:59

life. but the very harsh

2:02

stuff he was using in the vineyard

2:04

killed him.

2:08

Today, people take more precautions when

2:10

working with synthetic fertilizers and

2:12

crop treatments. But overuse

2:14

of these chemicals strips

2:16

the very life from the soil.

2:23

Wherever you are, However, urban

2:25

or rural, in the mountains, in

2:27

the forest, the desert,

2:29

you are living on soil. All

2:31

kinds of different soils that are

2:33

formed over billions of years,

2:36

Timing with fungi, insects, tiny

2:39

microbes,

2:40

anterior nutrients, all

2:43

of which gives us life.

2:45

Our planet is called Earth, and

2:48

to our

2:48

knowledge, there is no life

2:50

anywhere else because there's no

2:52

fertile earth and there's no living

2:54

soil. This

2:56

is the on the story, life

2:59

in the soil. It's time to root

3:02

here on the BBC World Service.

3:05

really

3:09

My mom, Leijre,

3:11

still lives on the farm. Yes.

3:17

We did use fertilizers. The

3:20

men My husband, your

3:22

father, would do the treatment, and

3:25

I'd be just behind him. They

3:29

called him

3:29

non blue. The blue man's

3:32

covered in spray, holding

3:34

up the blinds, Nowadays,

3:37

people are safely in their gardens, not

3:39

then.

3:40

the human know yet he can be and yet to me

3:42

no definitely

3:45

The new technology that

3:47

we're showing is an autonomous tractor. And

3:49

it's the first time that we've ever been able to take

3:51

the operator outside side of the tractor.

3:54

On vast monocrop Prairie

3:55

farms around the world, there

3:58

might not even be a person

3:59

driving the tractor in the cabin. It's

4:02

a profound disconnect. Not

4:05

only are people poisoning the soil,

4:07

but we are more and more from

4:09

it.

4:10

different manifestations of

4:12

change that you can see in soils

4:15

resulting from decades

4:17

of industrial farming. Tony

4:19

Juniper is an environmentalist who

4:22

has spent his life campaigning for

4:24

sustainable agriculture. There's

4:27

different ways in which you can see that.

4:29

Some is the erosion, which is contributing to

4:31

that brown fringe around many coastal

4:33

areas across the planet. Another

4:35

is the loss of the organic matter, which

4:37

is including the unwanted plant remains

4:39

that vast store of carbon, which is now out of

4:41

the soil and into the air, the loss

4:43

of that functioning biological manifestation

4:46

that's going on between the microbes and the

4:48

worms, the compaction of the soil

4:50

through the heavy use of machinery. And

4:53

what we've done, we've kind of deluded

4:55

ourselves about food security through

4:58

masking these effects with the application

5:00

of vast quantities of manufactured

5:02

fertilizers having depleted the

5:04

natural fertility of the soil, we've

5:07

resorted to solutions out

5:09

of big bags or out of bottles.

5:13

You

5:13

just take a tiny bit

5:15

of soil on your finger and you

5:17

put it on the microscope and it's

5:19

just 444 of

5:21

billions of microbes.

5:24

Today, I work with organic one

5:26

producers who make wine as

5:28

naturally as possible, growing

5:30

grapes without the use of weed killers, pesticides,

5:33

fungicides, or artificial fertilizers.

5:37

Hans Peter Schmidt is a pioneering

5:39

soul researcher.

5:39

That means as

5:42

many people we have on

5:44

the whole globe. As

5:47

many microorganisms, we

5:49

find in a teaspoon of

5:51

salt, I

5:52

don't know what all these microbes do

5:55

in this spoon of soil,

5:57

but what I know is if they are not

5:59

there,

6:00

soil is dead.

6:01

and plants cannot grow.

6:04

And this soil will flash away in the

6:06

next rain.

6:14

Two hundred or so years ago, it was

6:16

in possible to imagine that synthetic

6:18

fertilizers would harm the soil.

6:22

Let alone burn the ozone layer at such

6:24

a catastrophic

6:24

rate. you

6:28

can see the so called pronged

6:31

scummy bear. Sorry for

6:33

the German, but

6:36

In the living museum in Giesen

6:39

in Germany, a group of teenage

6:40

students are enthralled by

6:43

bubbling glass students in Steam.

6:46

unchanged since the eighteen

6:49

thirties. This is where used to fund

6:51

Libbey, the brilliant nineteenth

6:53

century pianist sewed the

6:55

seeds for the first synthetic fertilizers.

6:58

His research made way for the twentieth

7:01

century haver and

7:02

Bosch process.

7:05

Perfect

7:05

agriculture is the true foundation

7:07

of all trade and industry, he

7:10

wrote. Libic's

7:12

chemical theories about agriculture were

7:15

central to the industrial revolution.

7:17

This was the beginning of mass production.

7:21

Soil was pushed to yield evermore.

7:23

And of course, the interest in

7:25

how it could do that caught like

7:27

wildfire. Voca

7:30

Ratz is a professor of animal

7:32

ecology at Libbey University

7:33

here. Libbey

7:36

is and was essential

7:39

for all the things we do

7:41

and know about soils today.

7:45

When he started up, soil

7:47

was a mysterious thing

7:50

and everyone believed plants take

7:52

their organic matter from the soil

7:54

and nobody thought about nutrients.

7:57

And now the organic matter and so

7:59

on is still important

7:59

as a storage component

8:02

for storing CO2 and so on. But

8:04

now all our work circles

8:06

about solenutrients,

8:08

the release of solenutrients, the

8:11

loss of solenutrients and

8:14

What I see is very important

8:16

for my personal work

8:18

is that Libbey actually

8:20

established the idea

8:22

of soil as a nonrenewable resource.

8:28

Born

8:28

in eighteen o three, Libbey

8:30

grew up in Damestat, the son of a pharmacist.

8:34

In this sequence of shady

8:36

rooms with brick and turf

8:38

rolls, work benches with

8:40

glass jars and tools. There are several

8:42

portraits showing the pale

8:44

faced man staring intensely

8:46

into the distance.

8:49

Here, Limb and his students

8:51

scrutinized the effects that

8:53

mineral nutrients would have on

8:55

plant growth, and developed

8:57

the theory of the law of the

8:59

minimum, the central tenet of

9:01

agricultural chemistry.

9:04

My name is Kurt Hemshaw. I'm a

9:07

food chemist at the East of the Ludwig

9:09

University here in Giesen.

9:12

The

9:12

law of a minimum says that

9:14

that nutrients, which is at the

9:17

lowest concentration determines

9:19

the growth of a plant.

9:22

Very important is potassium, then

9:26

calcium, magnesium, and

9:28

you need, of course, nitrogen,

9:31

And for Suez is

9:33

also one of the most important compounds

9:35

for proper plant growth. If

9:37

any of these essential nutrients

9:40

is reduced, you have a

9:42

lower plant growth.

9:44

In other words, if a plant does

9:46

not have the correct balance of nutrients,

9:49

its growth will be restricted by the

9:51

deficient nutrient. A

9:53

transformational discovery, but the

9:55

nature of soil the very

9:57

means by which the prawn growth was

9:59

still a mystery to Libya.

10:03

Yan Simons is Professor of Seoul

10:05

Science here at Libbey University.

10:08

And

10:08

this is because he thought a

10:11

soil is more or less,

10:14

only kind

10:15

of

10:16

place where plants

10:19

are rooted. but

10:21

he didn't consider the

10:23

reactivity of soil. So he

10:25

thought that he has to

10:27

make these fertilizers pretty

10:30

insoluble to prevent them

10:32

being leached out of the soil by rainwater.

10:35

So he designed a fertilizer

10:37

and failed completely. But this

10:39

failure forced him to have

10:41

a closer look at

10:43

the soil, and he recognized that

10:46

soils are retaining nutritional

10:49

elements in two

10:51

kinds of forms, in a more

10:53

chemical form, but also in

10:55

a more physical form. that

10:58

hold the mag in the soil, but

11:00

still renders them available for the

11:02

plants. And so he

11:04

was on a much better track there.

11:08

Alongside Libya at the beginning of the industrial

11:10

revolution, others were

11:12

seeking ways to increase the fertility of

11:14

the soil.

11:15

So now

11:17

we're going to go up to the Rossminster

11:20

Farm, and we're going to see the

11:22

world's oldest long term ag

11:24

a cultural experiment

11:25

which is called Broadbark. At

11:27

Rothamstead, north of London

11:29

in the UK, John Laws and his

11:32

working partner Henry Gilbert set

11:34

up a long term field experiment, which

11:37

continues today. The

11:38

first crop was

11:39

sown in the autumn of eighteen

11:42

forty three. and it was

11:44

established

11:44

to see what the effects of various

11:47

fertilizers, including farm yield manure,

11:49

were on the yield.

11:51

We're heading

11:52

towards picture book fields,

11:55

rows of different greens. I'm

11:57

driving Margaret Glendinning and

11:59

Ashley in Pearson. two

12:00

scientists based here. Do we need to

12:02

inform Fermión manure and then they

12:04

introduce artificial fertilizers?

12:07

Exactly.

12:07

it. So they had PharMEDium, then

12:10

importantly, they had a strip where

12:12

no fertilizer at all was applied, a

12:14

controlled strip. And then

12:16

they had other strips with increasing

12:18

amounts of nitrogen fertilizer

12:20

and also phosphorus and

12:22

potassium

12:22

and magnesium and sodium.

12:25

The the five elements that they knew

12:27

that some plants needed to

12:29

grow. Yeah.

12:32

There

12:32

we go. These are,

12:35

like, in front of us, are several of the long

12:37

term experiments. This is who's bali. And

12:39

you see the changes in the green color.

12:41

That's literally just down to the nutrition

12:43

treatments. And then beyond

12:45

that, you have a strip of

12:47

land, wheat, just zero

12:49

till. And then beyond that, you can't see

12:51

it because the zero till wheat's doing so well

12:53

this year. but we have the exhaustion

12:55

land and something called the acid strip as

12:57

well, which is really interesting to look

12:59

at because you'll see at the top the

13:01

pH is kind of standard average. And as you

13:03

go down, it becomes quite high. And

13:05

you can actually see the gradient. It's where they used

13:07

to dump the lime. and you can see they kind of

13:09

got a bit lazy carrying it down the field

13:12

and so where it kind of tapers

13:14

off, it's very acidic and

13:16

you can kind of see that crop goes from

13:18

a really nice, well established crop of

13:20

winter wheat, all the way down

13:22

to Bear Fallo, Bearground, And

13:25

when you compare the yields between these different

13:27

patches, then what are the conclusions?

13:29

You get the highest yield

13:32

here with the high level of

13:34

farmland manure and the

13:36

mixture

13:36

of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium.

13:38

In a

13:39

nearby building, Margaret showed me

13:41

the soil sample archive. So

13:43

we've got

13:45

three hundred thousand samples of

13:47

crops. soils and fertilizers in

13:49

here. I think we have room for about another

13:52

thirty years' worth. Yeah. I know, Luca, that and this

13:54

smell of it is extraordinary. We can

13:56

actually smell the earth in

13:58

here. And looking

13:58

at the beauty for glass bottles

13:59

filled with seeds and

14:02

soil and what else do we

14:04

have? These are samples of straws.

14:07

Hey, And then over here, we have the

14:09

soil samples. So these are some of the old

14:11

soil samples and these wonderful glass

14:13

bottles with these fantastic labels,

14:15

these handwritten labels, telling

14:17

you the the name of the experiment, the

14:20

date, the depth that the soil

14:22

was taken from, how much it

14:24

weighed, the weight of the soil and the bottle and

14:26

the cork. at

14:27

what feels like a crisis in our soil,

14:29

can these jaws tell us anything

14:32

about our earth today? Well,

14:33

I personally think they're incredibly

14:35

useful. I mean, a lot of those experiments were

14:37

initiated, driven by the need to

14:39

produce food, to sustain a human population,

14:42

whereas now the agenda has changed.

14:44

professor

14:44

of ecology at the University of Manchester,

14:48

return budget.

14:49

So carbon sequestration, for example,

14:52

those kind of experiments can

14:54

form on the best management

14:56

strategies if we want to build carbon

14:58

in the soil. They could potentially

15:00

inform on what the best strategies

15:02

would be in terms of maintaining

15:04

the diversity of life in the soil,

15:06

and they might be able to inform

15:08

in terms of what the best

15:10

fertilizer practices would be in the

15:12

future.

15:13

Richard

15:14

and I met recently in the ancient

15:17

forest of Runrock in Scotland,

15:19

sitting amongst the trees

15:21

I asked him if you could help me in the

15:23

twenty first century understand

15:26

better what carbon is and how

15:28

the soil plays a vital role in

15:30

climate change. I

15:32

guess the issue is that it's intangible,

15:34

isn't it? I think that's why people find it

15:36

difficult to relate

15:37

to this global warming issue,

15:39

this carbon dioxide issue, I

15:42

mean, carbon's everywhere. So

15:44

all living plant material has

15:46

carbon in it. We have carbon in it. The soil

15:48

organic matter has carbon in it. In the atmosphere,

15:50

we have carbon dioxide. And there's

15:52

a natural cycle. So

15:54

plants take up carbon dioxide.

15:56

They grow biomass. They're biomass

15:58

using the carbon And then the amount

16:00

of carbon in the soil

16:03

depends really on the rate of

16:05

decomposition. And if decomposition is

16:07

higher than the input, you

16:09

get a decline in the amount of carbon

16:11

in the soil. And the cause of

16:13

that decline is microbial activity,

16:15

all those animals, for example, breaking

16:17

down that organic we see here.

16:19

And when they do that, they

16:21

release carbon dioxide. And I think the

16:23

important thing to recognize is that that's a natural

16:25

process. It's an entirely natural

16:27

process. The problem is when human

16:29

interventions come along, it

16:31

destabilizes that natural

16:33

process. Comdoxides are one of the main

16:35

greenhouse gases. higher

16:37

concentrations of

16:38

carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, that all contributes

16:41

to climatic warming. But there's

16:43

also other greenhouse gases, nitrous oxide and

16:45

methane, which are actually more potent. And

16:47

they are also generated from

16:49

the soil. Nitrous oxide is generated

16:52

from fertilization of soils and the

16:54

process of dehumidification. And these

16:56

are all greenhouse gases that when they

16:58

accumulated in the atmosphere, they all contribute

17:00

to the warming of the atmosphere. Used

17:03

Hebeg

17:05

was preoccupied with

17:07

the source facility. He

17:09

had no idea about nitrous oxide and its

17:12

lethal effect on our atmosphere.

17:14

He wanted to bring an end to starvation.

17:17

He was surrounded by the disruption

17:20

to harvests during the Napoleonic

17:22

Wars. And in eighteen

17:24

sixteen, age thirteen, he

17:26

would have survived what has been referred

17:28

to as the greatest subsistence crisis

17:30

in the

17:30

western world.

17:32

there was a volcano explosion in

17:35

eighteen sixteen in Indonesia with

17:37

global effects. And it's so

17:39

called a year without summer. and

17:41

they set also effects on the

17:44

production of food

17:46

and maybe he's staffed also

17:48

from hunger as he was

17:50

thirteen years old in that

17:52

time. Maybe this has engaged him

17:54

to think how to get all

17:56

the people on the globe enough food

17:58

and how to prepare

18:00

even more food to

18:02

allow the people to

18:05

stay safe and healthy.

18:09

Organic

18:09

ash blocking the sun, strange

18:12

weather patterns, It's incredible

18:14

to think there could be a food

18:16

shortage two hundred years ago. But

18:18

there's also a view that

18:20

since the invention, synthetic fertilizers have

18:23

actually contributed to the cause

18:25

of food shortages. So

18:28

my

18:28

name is Kurt Hampshire. There

18:30

were approximately one billion people

18:33

at this time and

18:35

this year, we will reach eight billion

18:38

people. And I think one of the

18:40

main things, which led

18:43

to this explosion in the

18:45

number of people is the invention

18:47

of synthetic fertilizer. And

18:49

all these corresponding technologies

18:52

now how to store food, how to conserve

18:55

food. Besides drinking

18:57

water, this is the most important thing for

18:59

this enormous growth. And

19:02

the serialization started there.

19:04

And what we need to understand is

19:06

to have growth. We need to have

19:08

resources. and that is what people

19:10

realized even at that time.

19:12

Christophe Mueller is a professor of

19:15

proppant ecology at the Libbey

19:17

University his focus is

19:19

sole processes in relation to

19:21

climate change. This

19:23

German guy, Sussman, He published

19:25

a study in seventeen forty

19:28

three where based on the

19:30

resources he estimated to be on earth

19:32

how much the population can

19:34

grow. and he came up with six billion people. I mean,

19:36

we know, of course, we surpassed this

19:38

one. The main reason was that

19:40

people thought, well, with the technology increase,

19:44

By adding fertilizer, we started boosting

19:47

the output of our

19:49

soil as one of the most

19:51

important resources for human

19:53

development People

19:54

were just focused on

19:56

growth. Growth of feeding

19:58

enough people that brought the

19:59

greener evolution after the second world

20:02

power into place All of

20:04

these kind of things were supported by these

20:06

kind of ideas of growth and

20:08

utilizing resources before

20:10

we started realizing, and that was

20:12

fifty years ago, we come to a

20:14

limit. Today,

20:15

scientists and governments know

20:18

more, but growth is still

20:20

the driver. Although it appears

20:22

like the right thing to manufacture, it's

20:24

cheaper food that's killing us,

20:27

Tony Juniper. We've fallen

20:29

into this trap of of cheap food. And

20:31

that cheap food label

20:33

is in a frames

20:35

which are also really quite misleading. The

20:37

idea, for example, of conventional

20:40

farming. It isn't conventional. The industrial

20:42

model of farming that we've got

20:44

now is about seventy to a years old. For twelve

20:46

thousand years before that when agriculture

20:48

existed, it was basically sustainable

20:51

organic agriculture. What we've fallen

20:53

into is a temporary project, conventional

20:55

farming in in that sense. I would

20:57

describe organic farming, which is looking after

20:59

the environment as conventional farming.

21:02

an industrial farming as a temporary aberration

21:04

which will end sooner or later,

21:06

either because we choose to end it or

21:08

because it will destroy its own foundations

21:11

by polluting the atmosphere,

21:13

causing climate change and degrading

21:15

the very foundations of its existence, which

21:17

is

21:18

the soil. People

21:20

have an incredible capacity for denial. It

21:23

often serves us well. It helps us

21:25

to enjoy life, to focus on the good

21:27

times.

21:27

But just for a moment, Let's

21:30

immerse

21:30

ourselves in the natural world around

21:33

us. Why

21:35

on earth would we want to destroy

21:38

it? Soil

21:43

is not

21:48

there's obvious when it's covered in snow and yet

21:50

the soils under the snow and ice

21:52

of this higher altitude of the most

21:54

fragile and delicate. The

21:57

other first to give news of entire ecosystem.

21:59

We're just heading out of

22:02

Inbrooke City to a

22:04

baseball have liquor,

22:05

which is high above the city,

22:07

about two thousand six hundred

22:10

meters. Seoul

22:12

scientists which had budget was

22:14

in Austria in March. The ski

22:16

season had finished early because

22:19

it was not enough snow. going

22:22

into the alpine zone where you have

22:25

grasslands and alpine plant communities,

22:27

and the soils here are particularly

22:29

sensitive to climate change. And

22:31

I guess the two issues that we're

22:33

particularly interested in in relation to

22:35

climate change is how changes

22:38

in snow cover are affecting the soils

22:40

because the expectation is as the climate gets

22:42

warmer, there's gonna be less and

22:44

less snow. I think some people have

22:46

predicted that above two thousand

22:48

five hundred meters. There could be

22:50

fifty percent less snow by

22:52

the end of this century. So

22:54

that has implications for these ecosystems and their

22:57

soils, but it also has wider

22:59

implications for humans in terms of things like

23:01

water quality, clean air,

23:03

and also carbon sequestration.

23:06

My particular interest is in the

23:08

biology of the soil. So I'm

23:10

interested in all the microorganisms that live

23:12

in the soil how

23:14

they break down organic matter, how

23:16

they recycle nutrients, and how

23:18

they provide nutrients for the

23:20

actual plants. So the worry that we have is

23:22

that changing snow conditions, if you lose

23:24

snow, you lose that blanket of

23:26

insulation, you

23:28

actually change the system so there's more free store cycles,

23:30

which is breaking up the soil. It's

23:32

damaging and killing many of these microorganisms.

23:35

so it's disrupting those key processes of

23:37

nutrient cycling that actually operate

23:40

in the soil.

23:42

I caught up with

23:43

Richard when he got back. We met

23:45

in Runok Forest. You know, we're

23:47

the only species who doesn't really

23:50

acknowledge that we come from this very earth. You

23:52

know, we're the only species who actually doesn't

23:54

respect the soil. And I wonder where

23:56

that stopped. Yeah.

23:57

It's it's something I consider a

23:59

lot myself really. Because if you

24:02

go back in history, people worship the

24:04

soil and people respected

24:06

the soil. I mean Cleopatra is a very good

24:08

example. In Egypt, the earthworm

24:10

was sacred as a result of its benefits

24:12

for soil fertility and the penalty of

24:14

removing an earthworm from Egypt was

24:16

death. You know, people really respected,

24:19

obviously, the organisms in

24:21

the soil, and really because of the importance

24:24

for maintaining the fertility of the land.

24:26

And when

24:26

you realize that these incredible animals

24:29

can do, you may well want to protect

24:31

them with the highest lowest possible

24:34

Vogma Voltas. On the

24:36

Philippines, we did research project

24:39

on dry rice cultivation, and

24:41

this is a problem. I mean,

24:44

watering rise is a very old system

24:47

to keep competitors

24:49

of rise away. On

24:51

the other hand, if you leave this water away, all the organic matter

24:54

that has accumulated under

24:56

water under anoxic conditions.

25:00

suddenly becomes exposed to

25:03

oxygen and to

25:05

oxidation.

25:07

And so our aim

25:10

was to look for

25:12

methods to stabilize this

25:14

organic layer. And of course, as

25:16

a animal psychologist, our

25:18

first idea was to introduce earthworms.

25:21

And the impact of

25:23

these earthworms was enormous.

25:26

They reduced the

25:29

release of climate

25:31

active gases by

25:33

more than fifty percent.

25:36

So that would be a

25:38

climate change. Emma,

25:40

very important. So by stabilizing

25:42

these organic components and

25:45

soil earthworms could really

25:47

contribute to safe

25:49

water, Eartherms can do a lot.

25:51

Earther and farming would be very

25:54

important, but our

25:56

research project stopped then,

25:58

so we couldn't

25:59

get into an applied part of

26:02

this offer, but it's published so

26:04

anybody can do it if it wants or if

26:06

she wants. We have

26:08

been farming intensively

26:10

on an ever growing industrial scale

26:12

for the last forty years.

26:14

And just in that time,

26:16

we have made a third of

26:18

our agricultural earth around the world

26:21

devoid of life. Let's

26:23

listen to the scientists

26:25

we know that Seoul is a vast living

26:27

ecosystem is central to our survival.

26:29

In the northern hemisphere,

26:33

fear. We're enjoying the pouches of

26:35

harvests now doing these

26:37

autumn equinox. Thank

26:39

you. soil for all the

26:41

hard work.

26:44

I'm Isabelle

26:46

Giron. Next week, I'll be in France

26:49

discovering the pressures of

26:51

taste. The understory life

26:53

in the soil is produced

26:55

by Capeland and is a cast

26:57

iron radio product trend for the BBC

26:59

World Service.

27:04

My question for

27:06

Crown Science is our

27:08

artistic brains different. I want

27:10

to know why

27:10

Lloyd makes us sneeze. It's

27:12

called the A Chiu Syndrome actually.

27:15

Seriously? Crowd science is the podcast

27:17

that takes your questions about anything

27:19

and everything. How do we navigate

27:21

in space? What happens to bugs

27:23

during the winter? Can smell enhance

27:25

your appetite and goes in search of the

27:27

answers. Even a few years ago, that would have sounded

27:29

like science fiction. How much do people need

27:31

to spit into a pot? We

27:34

usually just

27:35

a few drops of saliva, let's

27:38

say. If it's

27:40

interesting, we investigate.

27:41

Are humans naturally

27:43

cleaner tidy.

27:45

That's possibly the most disgusting thing

27:47

I've heard this way. But it's one

27:49

of the nicest fun facts you're going to

27:51

hear today. So I'm actually holding a

27:54

donut. What are you gonna

27:54

do with that? That's crowd science from the BBC

27:57

World Service. I've been wondering vlogs

27:59

for quite some time. Just

27:59

search for crowd signs wherever you found

28:02

this podcast.