Author: BBC World Service

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50 Things That Made the Modern Economy - Elevator

In 1853 Elisha Otis climbed onto a platform which was then hoisted high above a large crowd of onlookers, nervy with anticipation. A man with an axe cut the cable, the crowd gasped, and Otis’s platform shuddered – but it did not plunge. “All safe, gentlemen, all safe!” he boomed. The city landscape was about to be turned on its head by the man who had invented not the elevator, but the elevator brake. As Tim Harford explains, the safety elevator is an astonishingly successful mass transit system which has changed the very shape of our cities. Producer: Ben Crighton Editors: Richard Knight and Richard Vadon (Image: Modern Elevator, Credit: iurii/Shutterstock)
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CrowdScience - Space Mining

Mining asteroids, moons or even other planets has remained firmly within the realm of science fiction. But as certain elements become increasingly scarce on Earth, private companies and even nation states are looking to make extra-terrestrial mining a reality. Presenter Marnie Chesterton heads to an Earth-based mine in Scotland to see just how tricky space mining could be, and what possibilities it holds. On the way she discovers what laws govern this new far frontier, and hears from a space prospector who already has designs on key sites for exploration. Could our solar system's asteroids really become self-fuelling gas stations for spaceships?

Do you have a question we can turn into a programme? Email us at crowdscience@bbc.co.uk

Presenter: Marnie Chesterton Producer: Jen Whyntie

(Image: Double the Rubble Artist Concept. Credit: NASA)

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50 Things That Made the Modern Economy - Contraceptive Pill

The contraceptive pill had profound social consequences. Everyone agrees with that. But – as Tim Harford explains – the pill wasn’t just socially revolutionary. It also sparked an economic revolution, perhaps the most significant of the late twentieth century. A careful statistical study by the Harvard economists Claudia Goldin and Lawrence Katz strongly suggests that the pill played a major role in allowing women to delay marriage, delay motherhood and invest in their own careers. The consequences of that are profound. Producer: Ben Crighton Editors: Richard Knight and Richard Vadon (Image: Oral contraceptive pill, Credit: Areeya_ann/Shutterstock)
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CrowdScience - Should we eat Insects?

For most people the idea of chewing on a caterpillar or tucking into a tarantula is pretty unpalatable. Yet according to the United Nations, some two billion people around the world consume insects regularly. This prompted World Service listener Saman from Pakistan to ask the BBC CrowdScience team “are insects a serious food source?”

To tackle this question, we head to Burkina Faso in West Africa where shea caterpillars are an important part of the local diet in a place where food security is low and malnutrition is high.

Here we follow scientist Charlotte Payne as she tries to crack the tricky science behind the caterpillar’s life cycle and see how local entrepreneur Kahitouo Hien is trying to change lives and reduce malnutrition with edible caterpillars.

Do you have a question we can turn into a programme? Email us at crowdscience@bbc.co.uk

Presenter: Anand Jagatia Producer: Louisa Field

(Image: Bowl of cooked Caterpillars. Credit: BBC/Anand Jagatia)

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50 Things That Made the Modern Economy - TV Dinner

The way educated women spend their time in the United States and other rich countries has changed radically over the past half a century. Women in the US now spend around 45 minutes per day in total on cooking and cleaning up; that is still much more than men, who spend just 15 minutes a day. But it is a vast shift from the four hours a day which was common in the 1960s. We know all this from time-use surveys conducted around the world. And we know the reasons for the shift. One of the most important of those is a radical change in the way food is prepared. As Tim Harford explains, the TV dinner – and other convenient innovations which emerged over the same period – have made a lasting economic impression. Producer: Ben Crighton Editors: Richard Knight and Richard Vadon (Image: TV Dinner, Credit: Shutterstock)
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CrowdScience - Why Do We Have So Many Accents?

Why do we have so many accents - even when we’re speaking the same language? What's happening in our brains and mouths to make us sound so different from each other? This week’s question from listener Amanda takes CrowdScience to Glasgow in Scotland: home to one of the most studied - and distinctive - accents of English.

Along the way we visit a voice coach to try and learn a Texan accent, use ultrasound to see what different sounds look like inside our mouths and find out how a brand new dialect was formed when many accents collided in New Zealand.

Do you have a question we can turn into a programme? Email us at crowdscience@bbc.co.uk

Presenter: Nastaran Tavakoli-Far Producer: Cathy Edwards

New Zealand Mobile Unit recordings courtesy of Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

(Image: A mouth screaming white letters. Credit: Thinkstock)

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50 Things That Made the Modern Economy - Gramophone

“Superstar” economics – how the gramophone led to a winner-take-all dynamic in the performing industry. Elizabeth Billington was a British soprano in the 18th century. She was so famous, London’s two leading opera houses scrambled desperately to secure her performances. In 1801 she ended up singing at both venues, alternating between the two, and pulling in at least £10,000. A remarkable sum, much noted at the time. But in today’s terms, it’s a mere £687,000, or about a million dollars; one per cent of a similarly famous solo artist’s annual earnings today. What explains the difference? The gramophone. And, as Tim Harford explains, technological innovations have created “superstar” economics in other sectors too. Producer: Ben Crighton Editors: Richard Knight and Richard Vadon (Image: Thomas Edison Phonograph, Credit: James Steidl/Shutterstock)
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CrowdScience - Does Weather Affect our Health?

Do your joints ache when it's raining? Are you blighted with headaches when the wind picks up? If the answer’s yes then you're definitely not alone. People have been linking their heath to the weather since the time of the Ancient Greeks - but is the effect real?

CrowdScience heads for the hills and gets closer to the clouds to have a go at answering this 2,500 year old question.

People who believe they’re sensitive to the weather aren’t always taken seriously. But presenter Datshiane Navanayagam hears about the latest ground-breaking experiments that show there's a lot more to it than folklore. And if you've ever wondered why you're particularly prone to aches and pains in the winter, the answer could all be in your genes.

Do you have a question we can turn into a programme? Email us at crowdscience@bbc.co.uk

Presenter: Datshiane Navanayagam Producer: Anna Lacey

(Image: Man looking up to grey clouds. Credit: Thinkstock)

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50 Things That Made the Modern Economy - Battery

Murderers in early 19th century London feared surviving their executions. That’s because their bodies were often handed to scientists for strange anatomical experiments. If George Foster, executed in 1803, had woken up on the lab table, it would have been in particularly undignified circumstances. In front of a large London crowd, an Italian scientist with a flair for showmanship was sticking an electrode up Foster’s rectum. This is how the story of the battery begins – a technology which has been truly revolutionary. As Tim Harford explains, it’s a story which is far from over. Producer: Ben Crighton Editors: Richard Knight and Richard Vadon (Image: Used Batteries, Credit: Gerard Julien/Getty Images)