Russian drones and missiles hit nearly every district of Kyiv overnight. A record 539 drone and 11 missiles strikes were recorded by Ukrainian authorities. Meanwhile, Dutch and German intelligence agencies have warned that Russia's use of chemical weapons in Ukraine is intensifying in both frequency and strength.
Also on the programme: Donald Trump is due to sign the "Big Beautiful Bill." And music's "bad-boy" brothers Noel and Liam Gallagher are onstage together for the first time in sixteen years as Oasis play their first reunion show in Cardiff.
(Picture: A drone explodes in the skies above Kyiv. Credit: Reuters)
Listener Dickson Mukisa from Uganda has been gazing up at the stars. But he’s not making wishes. He wants to know whether we can harness their energy, in the same way we do with our OWN star – the sun. After all, they may seem small and twinkly to us, but each one is a gigantic flaming ball of energy, with a power outputs averaging around 40 quadrillion kilowatt-hours per year – EACH! With somewhere between 100 and 400 BILLION stars in our own galaxy alone, that’s a lot of power! Can we get ‘solar power’ from stars that are such a long way away from earth? And what might we use it for?
Alex Lathbridge heads to the University College London Observatory, to peer through the eyepiece of an enormous telescope and see some stars for himself. Professor Steve Fossey explains just how much of the light energy of the stars reaches us on earth. In other words, how BRIGHT they are.
Once the starlight reaches earth of course, we have to capture it. Could traditional solar panels do the job? Alex meets Professor Henry Snaith from the University of Oxford, to find out about the future of photovoltaic technology, and why it could all be heading out to space.
Once in space, things start getting weird! What if we made an enormous fleet of solar panels, and put them all into orbit around a star, soaking up every last drop of that precious energy? That might sound like science fiction, but the idea has been around for decades. It’s called a Dyson Sphere, or Dyson Swarm. Swedish researcher at the Insitute for Future Studies, Anders Sandberg explains how we might be able to build one around a neighbouring star... in around 10,000 years or so.
But maybe it’s not all about light. Finally, Alex explores the mysterious, invisible energy of the ‘solar wind’, with Pekka Janhunen, Finnish physicist and inventor of the “E-Sail”, which might be able to harness the power of the stellar wind, too.
Presenter: Alex Lathbridge
Producer: Emily Knight
Series Producer: Ben Motley
(Image: Astronomer looking at the starry skies with a telescope. Credit: m-gucci via Getty Images)
Ukraine says Russia carried out its biggest drone and missile attack on the capital yet, just two days after the US announced it was suspending the supply of some critical weapons to Kyiv, and hours after Presidents Trump and Putin spoke on the phone. We report from Kyiv.
Also in the programme: President Trump’s huge tax and spending bill squeaks through Congress – but will it be a vote-winner or loser at next year's midterm elections? We hear from a Republican pollster; and a security contractor for the controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation tells the BBC they were instructed to shoot first and ask questions later.
(IMAGE: Smoke is seen from outskirts of the city, after a Russian drone and missile strike, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine July 4, 2025 / CREDIT: Alina Smutko / Reuters)
Starting pistol fired ahead of Nigeria's 2027 elections. Two main opposition leaders form alliance in bid to unseat President Bola Tinubu and the ruling party.
We meet a Kenyan breastmilk champion -who is donating litres of breast milk to families in need.
Plus, what are natural assets and why do we need to value them in Africa?
Presenter : Charles Gitonga
Producers: Blessing Aderogba in Lagos, Sunita Nahar in London, and Richard Kagoe in Nairobi.
Technical Producer: Philip Bull
Senior Producer: Paul Bakibinga
Editors: Andre Lombard and Alice Muthengi
Dutch and German intelligence accuse Moscow of 'widespread' use of chemical weapons in Ukraine. Also; Donald Trump says a ceasefire is nearing for Gaza, and today is gonna be the day. Oasis are back!
The X-Press Pearl shipping disaster takes us on a voyage through shipping-related science.
First, we learn about how pollution from the X-Press Pearl explosion impacted the foundation of the marine food web – plankton. We also hear about an innovative system that can help slash the shipping industry’s greenhouse gas emissions.
And we take a short trip in a time-machine back to the Stone Age, where biological anthropologist Professor Yousuke Kaifu from the University of Tokyo explains what it takes to recreate a Palaeolithic voyage from Taiwan to the Ryukyu Archipelago.
We also look at how artificial intelligence could help Canadian caribou cross sea ice, the science of lightning and thunder, and the tricky disputes around shipwrecks and treasure.
All that, plus many more Unexpected Elements.
Presenter: Marnie Chesterton, with Meral Jamal and Godfred Boafo
Producer: Alice Lipscombe-Southwell, Minnie Harrop and Imaan Moin
A contractor who worked at aid distribution sites in Gaza says he saw colleagues firing on Palestinians waiting for food. The GHF categorically denies the allegations. Also: objects in space, and big Roman footwear.
The US House of Representatives has narrowly approved President Trump's budget bill, despite the Democratic leader in the House delaying the vote for more than eight-and-a-half hours with a marathon speech. The bill aims to slash spending on social welfare programs while increasing funds for border-related operations. We hear from a former senior Immigration and Customs Enforcement official.
Also in the programme: Gaza doctor Marwan al-sultan is killed; and the interstellar comet moving through our solar system
(Picture: A view of the US Capitol Building at dawn, in Washington, DC, USA, 03 July 2025. Credit: EPA)
There's a surge in cases and deaths from H5N1 bird flu in Cambodia - we hear what's the driver and how concerned we should be. Erik Karlsson, Head of Virology at the Pasteur Institute in Phnom Penh and director of the WHO’s H5 Reference Laboratory has been watching the uptick.
An interstellar interloper has been spotted entering our solar system. Most likely a comet, and possibly visible in the sky, it’s just the third such visitor we’ve ever seen. Josep Trigo of Spain’s Institute of Space Sciences (CSIC) and the Catalan Institute for Space Studies is one of many astronomers keeping his eye out.
DNA from an ancient Egyptian buried in cave 2,500 BCE, the oldest to date, tell a tale of travelling ancestors, according to research led by Adeline Morez of Liverpool John Moore’s University and published in Nature.
Also, Corey Allard of Harvard university has been looking at a particular type of sea slug. Published in the journal Cell, the work has been trying to work out how these slugs effectively nurture and manage stolen chloroplasts – stolen from ingested plant cells - within their own bodies. Artfully, they may use these “Kleptoplasts” to dodge periods of food shortage.
Presenter: Roland Pease
Producer: Alex Mansfield
Production Coordinator: Jazz George
Liverpool and Portugal footballer, Diogo Jota, killed in car crash in Spain, aged 28. He had 3 young children and had just married his long-term partner. Also: Thailand gets a second caretaker Prime Minister in a week.
