The Compass

Khorgas in Kazakhstan is going through an economic boom and Chinese trains stop here and their loads are shifted on to the Kazakh trains. This region was the gateway of the ancient Silk Road, a meeting place of cultures and languages. We meet nomads who have called this land home for centuries and pioneers developing a city for the future. Presenter: Rose Kudabayeva and Peter Shevlin Producer: Monica Whitlock(Photo: The KTZE-Khorgos Gateway dry port, a logistics hub on the Kazakh side of the Kazakhstan-Chinese. Credit: Getty Images)

The new Chinese Mombasa–Nairobi railway has finally overturned over 100 years of history by replacing the British-built Uganda Railway - the most strategically important conduit in the scramble for Africa. Cutting the time between Mombasa and Nairobi from 10 hours to 4.5 hours. Chinese interests may be at the centre of these investments - but the impact is regional, how is the Kenyan population benefiting from this new service?Presenter: Larry Madowo and Peter Shevlin(Photo: The inaugural journey of the Standard Gauge Railway, from Mombasa to Nairobi, Kenya, on May 30, 2017 Credit: Getty Images)

Dr Vybarr Cregan-Reid looks at how modern living is changing our faces. With the help of professor Saw Seang Mei in Singapore and the UK's top ophthalmologist, professor Chris Hammond, he tells the story of how baffled scientists sought to understand the rocketing rates of myopia in the Far East, where more than 80% of teenagers are short-sighted. Dr Cregan-Reid learns about the various theories put forward before Australian researchers cracked the mystery in 2004. Spoiler alert: It is not to do with screens.Evolutionary biologist Professor Noreen von Cramon-Taubadel, from New York State University, tells Dr Cregan-Reid about how our jaws have been reacting to changes in our diet. They are getting shorter and less dense, but our teeth are erupting as if it is still 50,000 years BC. At London's Natural History Museum, Professor Fred Spoor takes us through the impact the modern world is having on our teeth and the shape of our mouths.Back in Singapore, the country's leading plastic surgeon, who spends most of h

Dr Vybarr Cregan-Reid investigates what the last 250 years has done to our backs. What is it about modern life that has promoted back pain, especially lower back pain, from a rarity to the number one cause of pain and disability in the world?In the remote Kenyan Village of Pemja, Dr Cregan-Reid meets people with such excellent backs that they are the subject of international study. He hears from pain-wracked workers in Nairobi whose backs today are a pale version of those of their grandparents' and at the London Design museum he comes face-to-face with the artefact that has done most to weaken our backs - the chair.Chairs with backs are now so ubiquitous it is reckoned there are around 10 for each of us but as recently as 1800 they were a rarity. Not that we have much choice but to sit down today. At the start of the 19th Century fractions of one per cent of people sat down for a living but today three quarters work in offices or drive for a living. We put our spines into positions they were not designed to s

For nearly two million years we evolved in close sync with our environment but 250 years ago the industrial revolution happened and changed everything. The innovation and technology it brought had many benefits but there was a physical cost as progress also designed out movement from our lives.From spending hours on our feet outdoors, our jobs have moved indoors and largely involve sitting down for most of the day in offices, factories or driver cabs. It has resulted in feet that are getting flatter, backs that are weaker and eyes that cannot see very much without help.Dr Vybarr Cregan-Reid hears from evolutionary biologists, academics, anatomists and public health professionals in Singapore, Kenya, Australia, the UK and the United States; about the impact of modern life on our physical self and what we can do to return our bodies to the state that nature intended.The good news is there is no need to spend hours on treadmills or pumping iron, in fact we would injure ourselves a lot less if we were a bit more

Medellin used to be one of the world's most dangerous cities, with a sprawling network of slums and a serious crime problem fueled by drug trafficking. During the 1990s, there was a dramatic transformation. By integrating the city's plumbing and transportation into the barrios, renovating the homes of tens of thousands of families and creating open public spaces, the city has been transformed.Fi Glover returns with Dr Ellie Cosgrave, director of UCL City Leadership Laboratory and urbanist professor Greg Clark to look for the most inspirational cities, from those tackling environmental issues and urban violence. This week they consider Morocco’s urban development model.(Photo: The Metrocable in Santo Domingo Savio neighbourhood, in Medellin, Colombia. Credit: Getty Images)

It is said that by 2050 cities will be home to 6.4 billion people. They stand at the centre of the world’s most pressing challenges. Presenter Fi Glover is joined by Dr Ellie Cosgrave, director of UCL City Leadership Laboratory, and urbanist professor Greg Clark. They scour the world looking for the most inspirational cities, from those tackling environmental issues and urban violence, to encouraging political participation and transforming slums. This week they look at the city of Glasgow, which has one of the highest murder rates in western Europe, and how it has tackled knife crime. Could it be a model for other cities to follow?(Photo: A Glaswegian prostitute shows a kitchen knife that she carries around for protection. Credit: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)

Presenter Fi Glover, Dr Ellie Cosgrave, director of UCL City Leadership Laboratory and urbanist professor Greg Clark, analyse and critique the participatory budgeting of Paris, where citizens vote on how to spend part of the city’s budget. They also look at how Valletta in Malta regularly tops 90% voter turnout in political elections. Are they models other cities should follow?Image: Hotel de Ville, Paris (Credit: Getty Images)

As investment in the night-time economy rises, we look at how this is working in London. Is anywhere else doing a better job?Presenter Fi Glover returns with two new panellists to analyse and critique the best policies from global cities: Dr Ellie Cosgrave, Director of UCL City Leadership Laboratory; and urbanist Professor Greg Clark. The team scour the world looking for the most inspirational cities, from those tackling environmental issues and urban violence, to encouraging political participation and transforming slums. Are they models other cities should follow?Image: The City of London at night (Credit: Neil Hall/European Photopress Agency)

How is data being used to help Seoul run smoothly? And how have 20,000 sensors transformed life in Santander, Spain? Both cities have implemented innovative policies that are solving pressing challenges to city life. Presenter Fi Glover returns with two new panellists to analyse and critique the best policies from global cities: Dr Ellie Cosgrave, Director of UCL City Leadership Laboratory; and urbanist Professor Greg Clark. The team scour the world looking for the most inspirational cities, from those tackling environmental issues and urban violence, to encouraging political participation and transforming slums. Are they models other cities should follow?Image: Songpagu district in Seoul at night (Credit: Getty Images)

San Francisco’s mandatory recycling scheme and sustainable public transport come under the spotlight. The panel also consider the town of Kamikatsu in Japan, which aims to be 100% zero-waste by 2020. Are they models other cities should follow?Presenter Fi Glover returns with two new panellists to analyse and critique the best policies from global cities: Dr Ellie Cosgrave, director of UCL City Leadership Laboratory; and urbanist professor Greg Clark. The team scour the world looking for the most inspirational cities, from those tackling environmental issues and urban violence, to encouraging political participation and transforming slums.(Photo: David Wicks (R) and Glendon Johnson (L) with the San Francisco Water Power and Sewer's SFGreasecycle, a program that collects used cooking oil from San Francisco restaurants to be recycled into biofuels. Credit: Getty Images)

After exploring our wasteful past and the reality of today’s trash challenge, Australian journalist Alexandra Spring asks if we are on the tipping point of a rubbish free future.Alexandra joins blogger Kathryn Kellogg to find out more about San Francisco’s growing zero waste ambitions. Encased in one single mason jar, Kathryn describes the tiny amount of waste she created over two years and how living without a trace has changed her life.Then, Alexandra meets the inventor Veena Sahajwalla, who shares her belief that we should consider our rubbish to be a resource for the future. As Alex discovers, this attitude and Veena’s engineering skills have stopped millions of tyres from ending up in rubbish dumps, and could lead to cities around the world being built from recycled materials. Producer: Chelsea Dickenson and Ben Cartwright.(Photo: A jar full of all the garbage blogger Kathryn Kellogg threw away in two years. Credit: Audio Always)

Alexandra Spring continues her exploration of how our relationship with rubbish has evolved through time at the foot of Monte Testaccio in Rome - a hill built of 53 million discarded olive oil amphorae, which were thrown away nearly 2000 years ago. She meets the architect Tom Rankin, who shares how this ‘dump’ is indicative of the Roman spirit to waste.Moving through the decades, the historian Agnes Sandras takes Alexandra back to France in 1883, when Parisian Prefect Eugene Poubelle sparked public outcry by forcing citizens to buy a box in which they would place their waste. They discuss how this early form of a modern day ‘bin’, or ‘poubelle’ in French, shaped how people viewed litter.Then, sharing her view on how our attitudes to waste have changed throughout the last century, professor of history Eiko Maruko Siniawer explains to Alexandra how a shift in ideology to embrace modern luxuries saw waste spiralling out of control at the end of the World War Two. Producers: Chelsea Dickenson and Ben Cartwright

For three series, My Perfect Country has sought to build the perfect country. Inspired by positive thinking, it takes policies from around the world that actually work and have solved global problems. We ask why they work, and whether they could work anywhere. Out of this comes a forensic analysis of what good global policy should look like.In this one-off special, the My Perfect Country team travel to the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where they join a group of bright, curious, switched-on students who use the past three series of My Perfect Country in their learning of global policy. Elizabeth Schmidt, professor of practice at the School of Public Policy, uses the My Perfect Country series to inspire and educate her students. The course explores strategies for designing and measuring successful policies, as well as strategies for convincing others that proven policies are worth pursuing.Across three days, Fi Glover meets all 19 students and hears the direct impact that the My Perfect Country series h

Alexandra Spring explores how our relationship with rubbish has evolved over time, beginning on a boat, sailing across the Pacific, with Ocean Conservancy’s Chief Scientist George Leonard. Together, they discuss how trillions of micro plastic particles have created a sea-sized portion of plastic soup, and how poor waste management across the world has led to a garbage emergency.The conversation continues with author Gay Hawkins, who believes an ‘out of sight, out of mind’ attitude is shaping our psychological relationship with trash.Then, Alexandra speaks to the photojournalist Kadir van Lohuizen, who has witnessed our human wasteful ways at six major dumps around the world. He shares how litter is not only destroying, but saving some local communities.Producers: Chelsea Dickenson and Ben Cartwright

The Sun’s light defines what we mean by day and night, how we tell time and how we apportion our time, both consciously and unconsciously. The turning of the Earth that wheels us in and out of the Sun every 24 hours seeps into every aspect of our biology. In the final programme, Dava Sobel recalls the 25 days she spent as a human subject in a study of circadian rhythm. The lab was housed at Montefiore Hospital in the Bronx, NY, but it could have been anywhere, sealed and self-contained as it was. We’ll hear what happens when you are light deprived.To know the Sun is an age-old dream of humankind. For centuries, astronomers contented themselves with analysing small sips of sunlight collected through specialised instruments. They chased after eclipses that exposed otherwise hidden layers of the Sun’s substance, and they launched Earth and Sun-orbiting observatories to monitor our star from space. Today, several satellites ‘watch’ our star from outer space. In August 2018, NASA’s Parker Solar Probe, set off on a

At any moment, the predictions of your local weather forecaster might be suddenly superseded by space weather, a special breed of storms fomented on the Sun and launched toward Earth with potentially devastating consequences. Most of the time, the solar wind billowing out from the Sun blows right past our planet without causing any ill effects whatsoever, but today, with our navigation and communications technology dependent on satellite based systems, a downdraft of space weather could disrupt entire countries. Dava Sobel turns to Aditya L1, a new satellite under construction in India, to learn how many countries are developing their own eyes to watch the sun from space.To know the Sun is an age-old dream of humankind. For centuries, astronomers contented themselves with analysing small sips of sunlight collected through specialised instruments. They chased after eclipses that exposed otherwise hidden layers of the Sun’s substance, and they launched Earth and Sun-orbiting observatories to monitor our star fr

Inspired by the Chariot of the Sun, a beautiful artefact of sun worship, Dava Sobel island hops in Denmark to explore the cult of the Sun, before science, during the Nordic Bronze Age. Ancient people would not have needed an eclipse to make them see the Sun as an all-powerful force. The Sun’s life-giving light and heat inspired rituals and relics dating back to the earliest humans.Music composed by Chris O'Shaughnessy. Producer: Kate Bland and Kate ReaAudio for this programme was updated on 9 September 2020.(Photo: Chariot of the Sun. Credit: National Museum of Denmark)

The Sun, our star, produces its prodigious energy by a process of nuclear fusion at its core. We are unable to mimic that trick here on Earth: our nuclear reactors work by splitting atoms, not fusing them, and generate a lot of toxic waste. With a free standing solar mini grid in Kenya and the problems of the old grid system in California, Dava Sobel explores the progress being made in tapping the Sun for its inexhaustible supply of free, clean energy. Music composed by Chris O'Shaughnessy. Co-produced with Tom Roseingrave.Audio for this programme was updated on 8th September 2020.(Photo: Solar panels on the Kitonyoni grid are cleaned. Credit: BBC)

The Sun, our star, the source and sustainer of all life on Earth, is also a death star in the making. To know the Sun is an age-old dream of humankind. For centuries, astronomers contented themselves with analysing small sips of sunlight collected through specialised instruments. They chased after eclipses that exposed otherwise hidden layers of the Sun’s substance, and they launched Earth and Sun-orbiting observatories to monitor our star from space. Today, several satellites ‘watch’ our star from outer space. In August 2018, Nasa’s Parker Solar Probe set off on a mission to go so far as to ‘touch the sun’ for the first time. Our view of the sun from here is relatively murky. Nevertheless, astronomers have managed to piece together an understanding of the stars, and especially the Sun itself - how it’s constructed, how it behaves, how it came to be, forming from a vast cloud of cold hydrogen gas and the dust of older stars in a sparsely populated region of the Milky Way.Dava Sobel orbits the Sun, getting a