Author: BBC World Service

CrowdScience listener Saoirse is vegan and doesn’t eat honey. But she’s been wondering - might honey actually have environmental benefits, by giving bee populations a boost?

To find out, presenter Anand Jagatia dons a bee suit and opens up some hives with biologist Dave Goulson, who reveals that there are over 20,000 bee species on earth – and not all of them need saving. Honeybee researcher Alison Mcafee talks about the importance of beekeeping for crop pollination, and why honeybee colonies around the world are collapsing. Although, as she explains, in some places beekeeping might actually be bad for endangered wild bees. We travel to Kenya to meet Loise Njeru and Lucy King, who show how the humble honeybee can be a powerful tool for conservation – helping to protect the mighty elephant. And, on a rooftop in London, former beekeeper Alison Benjamin explains how we can support the wild bee species that need our help.

Producer and presenter: Anand Jagatia Location recording: Sophie Ormiston Series Producer: Ben Motley Production Co-ordinator: Ishmael Soriano

Much ado was made about a cancelled auction of an ultra-rare set of Shakespeare’s folios, which could have fetched millions of dollars.

This headline – along with Shakespeare being one of the world’s most well-known playwrights – inspired the Unexpected Elements team to delve into the science of stories.

First up, we find out why your brain loves a tale. We then discover that some people can’t see images in their mind when they read, and reveal the impact this could have.

Shakespeare’s folios are almost 400 years old, but how have they survived that long? We get on the line with Kathryn Kenney, a book and paper conservator, to find out how she keeps precious books safe.

We also find out about a disappearing island, whether climate change needs a new narrative and if you could eat books to survive. All that, plus many more Unexpected Elements.     Presenter: Marnie Chesterton, with Camilla Mota and Tristan Ahtone Producer: Margaret Sessa Hawkins, with Alice Lipscombe-Southwell, Imaan Moin and Minnie Harrop Studio Manager: Rhys Morris

This week, 124 countries agreed at the World Health Assembly in Geneva on measures aimed at preventing a future pandemic. The agreement very strongly favours a “One Health” approach, appreciating how so many potential pathogens originate in human-animal interactions. Still to agree on the terms of how to share pathogens and information with global science and vaccine researchers, eventually the treaty will need to be signed by at least 60 countries. But can the inequity between countries of the global south and north, and issues of intellectual property, be bridged?

A new study on origins of the Nigerian mpox epidemic points strongly to zoonotic crossovers and mobility of wildlife in West Africa. Edyth Parker of Redeemer’s University in Nigeria describes their phylogenetic tree.

Can the bovine form of H5N1 flu infect pigs, and could domestic pig populations then provide a crucible for further variants to develop? Jürgen Richt of Kansas State University and colleagues have been investigating. We need to keep up vigilance.

Lucy van Dorp of University College London, working with a consortium including London’s Crick Institute, has been looking at a moment in the past when human activity provided an opportunity for a bacterial human pathogen to change its lifestyle. According to their phylogenetic tree, the bacterium Borrelia recurrentis (which causes louse-borne relapsing fever in humans) adapted and moved from ticks to human body lice around about the same time as humans started using woollen clothing.

And Susan Lieberman, VP for International Policy at the Wildlife Conservation Society, was in the trenches of the Pandemic Agreement negotiations, and shares some of her hopes for its success.

Image: World Health Assembly formally adopts by consensus world's first Pandemic Agreement, Geneva, Switzerland - 20 May 2025 Image Credit: Magali Girardin via EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

Presenter: Roland Pease Producer: Alex Mansfield