Author: BBC World Service

It's a simple metal box that moves nearly all of our goods around the world. Designed for uniformity and interchangeability, the shipping container has reshaped global trade and our lives in the nearly 70 years since its creation.

But listener Paul wants to know if these heavy steel containers could be made with lighter materials to cut down on the fuel needed to transport them, especially when they're empty. Could we make shipping containers a more efficient process and reduce the shipping industry’s sizable greenhouse gas emissions?

Host Anand Jagatia travels to Europe's largest port in Rotterdam looking for answers. Speaking to environmental scientists and industry insiders along the way, he takes a look at how the humble container might be modified to once again remake global shipping, from materials, to designs, to how it’s shipped. And thinking outside the box, we explore which innovations might benefit the whole system – from machine learning to new, carbon-free energy sources.

For an industry that’s not always quick to change, we speak with the changemakers trying to disrupt the way 90% of the stuff we buy moves, in hope of a greener future.

Featuring: Maarten van Oosten - Port of Rotterdam Authority Marc Levinson - historian, economist and author Greg Keoleian - School for Environmental Sustainability and Center for Sustainable Systems, University of Michigan Hans Broekhuis - Holland Container Innovations Trine Nielsen, Flexport Tristan Smith - University College London Elianne Wieles – Deep Sea Carriers, Port of Rotterdam

Presenter: Anand Jagatia Producer: Sam Baker Editor: Cathy Edwards Production Coordinator: Ishmael Soriano Studio Manager: Steve Greenwood

(Photo: Port of Rotterdam, Maasvlakte Deep Sea Carrier Area. Credit: Sam Baker, BBC)

The Olympics is all about flying the flag for your home country, shoulder to shoulder with your team-mates. But what if you have no team-mates? At this year’s Olympic games, four countries had just one competitor. Like Sean Gill from Belize, Somalian runner Ali Idow Hassan, or Romano Püntener, a mountain-biker representing Liechtenstein.

This got us thinking about the only one. The panel discuss what it must be like to be an ‘Endling’ – the last remaining animal of an otherwise extinct species, and wonder if there might be ways to bring them back.

We delve into the intriguing psychology behind the urge to collect things, why collectors are so entranced by rare items, and how the psychological pull of ‘exclusivity’ and ‘limited editions’ can make us vulnerable to marketing scams.

And what about a baby, born of only one parent? A ‘virgin birth’ – a miracle perhaps? Not so, as we discover that females giving birth without any help from males is surprisingly common. It is called Parthenogenesis, and although humans cannot do it, a dizzying array of animals can. Alexis Sperling from the University of Cambridge explains the science.

News montage sources: Channel 5 Belize, BBC News

Presenter: Marnie Chesterton with Chhavi Sachdev and Andrada Fiscutean Producer: Emily Knight with Florian Bohr, Julia Ravey Sound engineer: Emily Preston

In June this year there was the first detected occurrence of rabies in Cape fur seals, discovered after a rabies case in a dog that had been bitten by a seal. Professor Wanda Markotter, Director of the Centre for Viral Zoonoses at University of Pretoria, has been trying to work out how the virus spread into seals and how to keep people (and their pet dogs) safe.

The Japan Meteorological Agency issued a seismic “advisory” last week alerting local authorities and the public to a heightened risk of a massive, tsunami-generating earthquake on its southeast coast. Californian emergency manager and sociologist James Goltz, has been working with Japanese experts to evaluate a new dynamic alert system that they introduced after the great 2011 earthquake and tsunami which claimed up to 20,000 lives further north.

We hear from Professor Alan Jamieson from the depths of the Tonga Trench. He recently dived into it to see what weird and wonderful creatures he’d find there – but when he reached the bottom, he didn’t see what he expected...!

And Steven Goderis of the Free University of Brussels tells us about the Chicxulub impactor - the massive asteroid smacked into Earth off the Mexican coast causing the mass extinction event which wiped out the dinosaurs. He’s part of a paper in the journal Science, looking into the history of the impactor - revealing it was a rare carbonaceous asteroid from beyond Jupiter.

Presenter: Roland Pease Producer: Jonathan Blackwell Production Coordinator: Andrew Rhys Lewis

(Image: Fighting Seals. Credit: Edwin Remsberg via Getty Images)

In June this year there was the first detected occurrence of rabies in Cape fur seals, discovered after a rabies case in a dog that had been bitten by a seal. Professor Wanda Markotter, Director of the Centre for Viral Zoonoses at University of Pretoria, has been trying to work out how the virus spread into seals and how to keep people (and their pet dogs) safe.

The Japan Meteorological Agency issued a seismic “advisory” last week alerting local authorities and the public to a heightened risk of a massive, tsunami-generating earthquake on its southeast coast. Californian emergency manager and sociologist James Goltz, has been working with Japanese experts to evaluate a new dynamic alert system that they introduced after the great 2011 earthquake and tsunami which claimed up to 20,000 lives further north.

We hear from Professor Alan Jamieson from the depths of the Tonga Trench. He recently dived into it to see what weird and wonderful creatures he’d find there – but when he reached the bottom, he didn’t see what he expected...!

And Steven Goderis of the Free University of Brussels tells us about the Chicxulub impactor - the massive asteroid smacked into Earth off the Mexican coast causing the mass extinction event which wiped out the dinosaurs. He’s part of a paper in the journal Science, looking into the history of the impactor - revealing it was a rare carbonaceous asteroid from beyond Jupiter.

Presenter: Roland Pease Producer: Jonathan Blackwell Production Coordinator: Andrew Rhys Lewis

(Image: Fighting Seals. Credit: Edwin Remsberg via Getty Images)