Hello and welcome to News Day from the b.b.c. World Service with Alex Ritson. They knew of Korea has staged a 3rd missile test in 3 weeks this last missile has a full and latest missile has fallen into the Sea of Japan in the air or perhaps not disruption continues a British Airways for a 3rd day off of a total computer shutdown the grounded flights worldwide we're looking at the history of if they would be nice I follow all young people who take Pods motivated by the same thing why I'm glad America is saying Europeans need to become self-reliant and is America suffering from a so-called Trump slump will be looking at the country's falling tourism numbers as we stand to lose over the next 3 years 840000 visitors to Los Angeles and this coming year could be as many as a quarter of a 1000000 at almost a $1000.00 per visit or you're looking at a quarter of a $1000000000.00 of losses this year the 1st the news. This is the b.b.c. News Hello I'm Jonathan Izod the British Security Service m I 5 is to carry out an inquiry into how it missed the danger posed by a suicide bomber who killed 22 people at a pop concert in Manchester last Monday reports say the authorities were repeatedly warned that someone a baby seemed set on carrying out a terror attack more from Tom Simons police are trying to understand Salmond Beatty's network of friends and relations but now the security service m I 5 has launched a review of how he was overlooked despite earlier warnings he held dangerous extremist views the B.B.C.'s been told a baby was reported to the police as someone susceptible to radicalization around 5 years ago for now the government's police and security services are concentrating on the immediate investigation the policy question how best to prevent it happening again will have to wait North Korea has increased regional tension by firing a short range ballistic missile into the Sea of Japan defying international tends to rein in its nuclear program the missile launch the 9th this year drew immediate condemnation Japan's prime minister said tackling the threat from North Korea was a top priority and his spokesman you're Shaheed Asuka said there must be action I know done with this launch from a standpoint of our line and shipping safety was extremely dangerous and a clear infringement of the United Nations Security Council resolution and we absolutely cannot allow these provocations by North Korea and we protest North Korea in the strongest words possible hundreds of demonstrators a block the main streets in the center of the Moroccan capital right batten support of the protests taking place in the north of the country against rising youth unemployment protesters called the government corrupt and a failure last Friday violence broke out in the town of our same as police tried to arrest the well known activist longstanding grievances were exacerbated in October last year when a fish seller in Samer was killed has he tried to prevent local officials destroying his stock. The French president Emmanuel Micron will hold talks with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Paris later today during the election French election campaign Mr Putin hosted France's far right lead them are in the pen and Mr Macross team accused Russian agents of launching repeated cyber attacks against them you see Williamson reports France and Russia have long disagreed over how to resolve the Syrian conflict almost goes an extension of Crimea but this meeting billed as a chance for the 2 men to get to know each other also has a more personal or couldn't as following the Kremlin's apparent support for Mr Mack Ron's far right rival during France's recent election campaign the new French president has suggested that he's open to dialogue and a fresh start but there's a subtle message in the invitation he's issued to Mr Putin not a state dinner at the Elise a palace but a working lunch at best I see Williamson This is the world news from the b.b.c. The mayor of Paris has called for a black feminist festival in the city in July to be banned on the grounds that it discriminates against white people organizers of the neon supper festivals say 80 percent of the venue will be kept for black women the man and he Delgo said she reserve the right to prosecute the organizers of a stampede at a football match in the national stadium in Honduras has left at least 4 people dead and many more injured police officials say hundreds of fans tried to force their way in to see the sold out match a police spokesman said too many tickets have been sold for the end of season game between more Tiger and hunters Progresso in the Hunter and capital to go seek help or he said police fired tear gas and water cannons at the crowd. Protesters on public about on a beach in the Brazilian city of Rio have been demanding the resignation of President Michel Tema who is embroiled in a continuing corruption scandal Mr Pena insists he is innocent could he Watson was at the demonstrations at the. The musicians and artists joint accounts to quickly change the d.d.a. Is an act of everybody not on the other leg you know it's not a bad we're not listening and like I have a brilliant popular at the also doing lots of really wrong come on everybody knows that. The president says he's innocent and won't resign over neat recordings allegedly showing his supporting rides to a politician in prison yes it is the days and weeks go on his popularity is waning and the 73 year old Australian fisherman has had a close encounter with a great white shark which leapt into his small boat north of Sydney Terry Selwood was fishing when the 2.7 metre shark suddenly appeared Mr so would suffer deep cuts before radioing for help and scrambling clear he was picked up by marine rescue team which later returned to collect his boat and the dead shark he said his enthusiasm for fishing hasn't been dampened. B.b.c. News. Thanks for the News Jonathan welcome to News Day with Alex. On the way stories from North Korea the United States and Germany will be asking looking at whether there's such a thing as the Trump slump there are claims that the u.s. Is tourism industry is suffering after Donald Trump became the u.s. President. But our top story North Korea has fired another missile this time a suspected ballistic missile which traveled about 400 kilometers before landing in the Sea of Japan it's the 3rd missile launched by Pyongyang in the last 3 weeks in defiance of international efforts to rein in that nuclear program joining us now is Stephen Barr a Vic a journalist posed in the South Korean capital So Steve what more do we know. We know that the. Missile tests are going ahead with clockwork like regularity and that there's been one launched every week since the new South Korean president took office. So we're left to parse what's going on and try to figure out if North Korea is carrying out these launches for technical purposes if they're testing some weaponry and they're trying to advance the length and the strength of their launches or if perhaps they're trying to send a message to the new South Korean government So what reaction has there been from the South Korean government and particular the new South Korean leader. There's been after each of these launches president moon has convened meetings of his national security staff and they've issued very unequivocal condemnations of these provocations They've called on Rod Korea to halt these launches and halt its development of nuclear weapons President moon came in to office on a platform of taking a more conciliatory approach to North Korea you said that he would you know not just rely on sanctions but try to have meetings and perhaps for Vida aid to North Korea and try to induce better behavior that way but as North Korea keeps going ahead with these launches and they're not making anything easier on Mr Moon and it's going to ratchet up the tension in the region yet again. That's right and you know it's not just South Korea that the player here we saw today u.s. And Japan coming out with some strong condemnations of what's going on here this is the 2nd missile of late that's landed in or near Japanese waters so Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abhi and his staff are taking a real interest in this and they're pledging to take some kind of action so as of now tension seem to be staying fairly high and we'll have to monitor the situation and see where it goes it is the same story again and again a missile launch more condemnation more potential for action in the future we haven't got there yet but people must be aware that this could be cooking. Well and I can speak best to the reaction here in Seoul and it's almost a cliche among people who us journalists who cover this for a living that it's almost a Groundhog Day kind of situation where the as you alluded the same situation kind of plays itself over and over again but at least I'm Koreans are not too ruffled by the tensions are a fact of life here and people seem to you know even when there are tensions and even when there are strongly worded exchanges of rhetoric from both sides people tend to go on with their day it's a beautiful early summer day here in Seoul and life is continuing unabated Stephen thank you Stephen Borowitz journalist in the South Korean capital Seoul. British Airways passengers are being advised to check the status of best flight before heading to Heathrow all got ports in London the airlines canceling to deal with the fallout of its computer class was going to sound the flights being canceled or delayed over the weekend in a statement be a says customers travelling from Heathrow all still experiencing extended delays but Gatwick flights are expected to be back to normal as the don't just even write an aviation lecturer at the University of Leeds who's also what the several airlines including the a in the past Good morning to you Stephen when when be a says it's computer system has been affected by a power supply issue what does that mean what are things going wrong on Good Morning Well I'm not really sure. The reason very Is that. These guys you know a lot of the i.t. Systems a hosted. Professional sign that can handle the sheer volume the computer clusters and so on and so forth. These sorts of organizations would typically have backup power supplies generators batteries and so on so I'm not entirely sure what happened and why. Architecture is failed her catastrophic claims it's not the entire system went down I think you know like you're saying it's bizarre isn't it because people expect the system to be more resilient. For not sorry what I can say is I worked at. London Gatwick a wholly owned subsidiary of the British Airways group we had Marty system engineering and the deal was this overnight if. The the office burned to the ground the next morning we would be told You don't work you're working in this blank office over here and we had a service contract. With him bring in own you computers and then we would run yesterday's copy of the computer software. So I just can't call you know because there I'm on my mind why a system like this is catastrophic why the group you know this is all on national carrier is filed in such a manner well guess the technology doesn't always right but it's not always resilient as we think it should be yeah I think as well just to interrupt I think that also another problem is that you've got a lot of historical system and the only systems are rolled into one whereas in the older days. Certainly when I was working at the airport you would have a lot of different independent system and it seems that the advantage of that is that you then can follow you can 2nd guy different systems so even if one goes down it doesn't necessarily bring the whole shooting match them which which could have occurred in this event I'm probably going to kind of like ask you to make a comment about your former employer but the customer service has been criticized lots of passages inside the airport saying we didn't have any information to several hours the messages out on social media sites just what do you think about. Purposely trying trying to communicate to reach out to their customers. But. Again it still cost policy they're trying their best. But you know this is the busiest time of year a bank holiday coupled with a heart attack and. People to communicate effectively with all the passengers on the front line now whether this is because there just aren't enough staff or not I'm not sure. Rather a large around the world and most anti can hear when there's been a crisis. Action then sent. A memo around literally immediately and said if you're not for such a critical role we're going to go to the airport as a try pattern is a flip chart and you're going to do this he says of actually had to do that in previous organization but I do not a British Airways on this occasion Good to talk to you Stephen thank you that's Dr Steven Reiss an aviation that at the University of Leeds also worked previously for British Airways and if you are heading out this morning the advice is to check the status of your flight before you go to Heathrow or got to eat apples in London you're listening to news day from the b.b.c. World Service with no man a bell and Alex Ritson the main headline the British Security Service m I 5 is to investigate how it dealt with repeated warnings that the man just a suicide bomber posed a potential threat sports news now Kirsten Webster you know 4 people died and 15 were injured following a stampede an overcrowded 100 stadium hosting a championship football match on Saturday hundreds of fans hoping to see the sold out match between Mattel glass and hundreds progress they tried to force their way into a gate at the 35000 c. Nationals Stadium it appears that something went terribly wrong spokesman spokesperson from the hospital said many of the injuries happened after the police . Fired tear gas into the crowd. Just go talk to his play the 786 m. Final game frame up to 25 years with the club he came on as a substitute during right mystery to win a general which secured 2nd place in the city at table women's top seed tennis player and like purposes she can't wave the side of the grass court season now that she had a shock loss in the 1st round on clay at the French Open in Paris she was beaten straight sets by Russia's Catarina Makarova Fernando Alonso humus the Monaco Grand Prix to take part in the Indianapolis 500 was forced to retire with engine failure 21 laps from the end but to chemo Saturday another Formula One Grand Prix drive that became the 1st Japanese driver to win that race. Thank you Kirsten now it seems only a matter of time for the so-called Islamic state full to its military enemies on the ground in the Middle East but is it still determines who create a global caliphate following the fatal bombings in Manchester in England last week and also enough Afghanistan the start of Ramadan the extremist group is showing no signs of letting up but other predominantly young people who carry out these attacks motivated by the same things Jason back is the author of the new threat from Islamic militancy and spoke to us earlier from South Africa I think one of these is very interesting is that when we're talking about global jihad we hear a lot about global jihad we hear it from analysts journalists politicians and so forth in the West we also hear it clearly from the Islamic militant ideologues themselves who want to project this image of one so Jihad which makes no concession to local differences what we actually see is something much more complicated on the ground across the world you see many different types of organizations all claiming to be part of the same global jihad there's a lot of local specificity so groups in Pakistan are all different from Groups in in Afghanistan alone further afield in Iraq Syria all those groups are rather different from what's happening in the West the threats in the West is a very different threat from that say in North Africa so all of these various elements are very different and they are often Iranians in my view all described as global jihad we need to look at it closely the details of each one of going to see how things are going to evolve in a post ISIS world which is something that we may see relatively soon so in terms of the Islamic militancy coming from the the British that go off in and join us is that sort of a work in progress what as a Each of these various localities produces a particular type of particular strand if you like of. The practice of global jihad in ideology is global in practice is local so you'd expect British jihad is to practice jihad is a in a British type of way French in a French started way us militants in America and that's what we're seeing developing at the moment so there are elements which are very specific to the u.k. For example the use of firearms which we've seen a lot of in the us and in France and Belgium we haven't seen here we haven't seen automatic weapons being used because largely there are very many around a better stronger gun control laws with seeing less of a role for prisons here in France for example so that these quite specific details which tell us a little bit about the kinds of jabbing we have here where they're being radicalized and what kind of threat they're posing going forward and just as Miles was adjacent I mentioned that you know it's probably a matter of time before I f. Fulls to it's not its enemies on the on the ground in the Middle East but if it does fall apart and bearing in mind is all these different kind of elements within it people of different backgrounds what does that mean for the security forces who are trying to keep tabs on them is very difficult because it's an extremely dynamic situation for the u.k. For example there are supposed to be going around to aid Snowden 100 people who've left the u.k. British citizens to go to Syria and Iraq and fight with lawyers runs $300.00 of those are meant to be dead about $300.00 come back about 300 are simply missing and as a sailor most European countries of those statistics themselves Morticia the security says his find out where those missing people are are they on their way back are they going to a 3rd country we had similar situations to this before or after the war in Afghanistan in the 1980 s. After the fall of the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2001 but we never had anything that's been quite as close to Europe or has had courts and many foreign fighters from all over the Middle East all over the Islamic world. Slicing with a shoe as you say. Good to talk to Jason thank you that's Jason Burke the author of The New threats from Islamic militancy it's being called Angle America's beer tent speech back home in Bavaria the German chancellor took stock of 2 difficult meetings which included Donald Trump at NATO headquarters in Brussels and at the g. 7 meeting in Italy Mrs Merkel suggested that a new era had dawned an era of European self-reliance with good science. And in the arms of the times in which we could completely rely on others a more or less over that's what I've experienced the last few days and therefore I can only say we Europeans have to take our own destiny into our own hands not to lose in front of the divide of course in friendship with the u.s. In friendship with Great Britain with good neighborly relations wherever that's possible also with Russia and with other countries but we have to know that we have to fight for our own future as Europeans for our destiny and that's what I would like to do together with you Miles and Jackie Davis is senior adviser to the European Policy Center in Brussels I asked her whether I'm going to Merkel felt she didn't have anything to lose by being so frank. Famous for her diplomatic approach and I think it shows just tell fundamentally the ground is shifting I mean essentially we are seeing a sort of resetting of the world order that has dominated since the 2nd World War that strong alliance between Europe and the United States that has shaped its national relations for so long is crumbling and that is what we saw at the NATO meetings and the meetings with the heads of the u.n. Situations and then again the g. 7 so I think it is very profound on the other side of course there is Brecht's it once again the signal we the. Of the e.u. Must remain united we must be more coherent than in the past because 2 of our traditional one as a member of one is a strong ally can no longer be relied on so I think it is quite profound and particularly coming out of the mouth of the German chancellor So is this a call by the German chancellor for the organize its own defense it's an idea before there are moves within the European Union to strengthen their defense it's seen as one of the ways the e.u. Can demonstrate its relevance and it increasingly insecure world but mostly you members do not want anything to rival or to undermine NATO they would say NATO is still the underpinning of the security system and must remain so but it certainly will strengthen the hand of those who say Ok yes but in addition to NATO we must do our own thing because we can't rely on others but I think it goes much more broadly that just defense they disagreed about pretty much everything they disagreed. The president you disagreed about climate change they just disagreed about trade that was not much could be said to you not that we saw the most extraordinary sight of the u.s. President pushing past prime minister Montenegro without even looking at him to get to the center of the family photographs the mood music was terrible and I think it will affect relations in all sorts of areas but obviously defense very central particularly at a time of such heightened concerns about internal as well as external security Jackie Davis senior adviser to the European Policy Center in Brussels. So let's talk about tourism in the u.s. In a so-called Trump slump top right as in Hollywood are complaining that tourism is suffering because President Trump's travel ban talk is scaring away holiday make his the u.s. Justice Department says it wants is the premier court to rule on the controversial travel ban which can send 6 mainly Muslim countries after an appeal court upheld the suspension colleague Ragen Morris has been testing the new you did of course popular with 70 tourists so he will not be on the money he signed off the front seat of my Seems at least as good so far as for us. The surprise was a massive welcome sign freed by hundreds of volunteers near the runway at Ellie's International Airport. And the spelled out welcome in English Spanish and the Chinese and these tourism board organize the event to address concerns that President Trump is talk of travel bans and border wall is that for business downscale with at least tourism board helped create the welcome campaign we're trying to stay a political although it's hard to divorce the political climate from the business problem or having We stand to lose over the next 3 years 840000 international visitors to Los Angeles in this coming year could be as many as a quarter of a 1000000 when we translate that into dollars at almost a $1000.00 per visitor you're looking at a quarter $1000000000.00 of losses this year we have to mitigate that but I think that it is the perception by markets around the world that we're dealing with them when their ideas executive orders and his travel bans it is that people coming out of our largest countries Mexico Australia u.k. Canada those are the ones that are really being impacted because they're saying it just doesn't look as appealing to go to the United States but is there really a trump slump a growing collection of data shows that the sector is slowing but the strong dollar could easily be to blame and travelers tend to book months or even a year in advance so if people are boycotting the u.s. We won't really know maybe until the summer. Some Canadian school districts have Van travelled to the United States out of fear that Muslim students or teachers even could be turned back at the border even if they have the correct paperwork. Tony Hoover has a booth set up selling tours of Hollywood and Disneyland he worries that other school districts might also boycott the u.s. If you have a school where there are any children who are of the Muslim faith who might be from any of these countries potentially then the whole class can't travel so why would a school discriminate it doesn't look good restricting travel entirely seems to be the only real measure to deal with the problem. On the streets of Hollywood Some are already feeling the pain of a drop in tourism in. The cod trying John Gabin friends luxury cars to tourists for just over $100.00 you can drive a Ferrari or a Lamborghini through the Hollywood Hills just like a star so we give them that. $400000.00 John also rents luxury cars long term to many clients from the Middle East his Gulf clients tend to come for months at a time and they don't mind spending tens of thousands of dollars on just the right mental car wreck yeah they can they rent for 5 a form on their own Rolls Royce big 3 law big houses and this is coming we're going to party so we're going to maybe saw all Central pay you know he says his business is down about 20 percent compared with last year a lot of people have money. If you don't feel appreciate somewhere you go somewhere else you know that's John gabbin speaking out to the B.B.C.'s Reg Morris in a fan's leads and sticking with the u.s. In about 90 minutes time done Damon will be here indeed that's one of the stories we're going to be covering which I'm sure you've been following with rapt attention over the past few days this idea that the Donald Trump advisor and son in law Jared cushion or so to create a secret back channel communications with the Kremlin the White House apparently split on whether these are acceptable communications or not back channels after all have been a part of diplomacy for a long time the Democrats though they think that this is warranting an investigation of potential collusion between the truck campaign and Russia and they want to review of Jericho security clearance also the world's 1st wind farm powered by giant kites it's going to be put up in Britain 20 kites flying higher than Britain's tallest building the Shard will work in pairs to generate electricity they're flying in loops at more than 100 miles per hour well that's 160 kilometers per hour and the movement will put on a tether rapping I'm just reading this I know I think yeah but I will because I'll be doing the interview there is I'm intrigued with a tether is wrapped around a rotating drum on the ground linked to a generator the kites take it in turns to fly out and back ensuring that the power supply is constant you have to find out how they're going to stop for the kite strings getting caught up if yes exactly like they always do when I try exactly that is higher than the shot Yes Well it was it's got to be otherwise they wouldn't stay off yet still fantastic and it's always one of the things the many delights on world up there but coming up in 90 minutes time I thank you for listening to news day Alex Ritson and with you will continue with our top story about North Korea here on b.b.c. Well that is have a good morning. Distribution of the b.b.c. World Service of the us is made possible by American Public Media producer and distributor of award winning public radio contact a.p.m. American Public Media with support from home advisors matching homeowners with background checks professionals for home projects for minor repairs to major remodels see homeowner reviews compare prices and book appointments at Home Advisor dot com. Hello I'm Molly Chesterton and into days crowd science on the b.b.c. World Service we explore not one but 3 brilliant questions from listeners around the world why is your face different from most of us could melting sea ice make warm ocean currents shut down and why does salt taste well salty trigger warning that last one involved a lot of gargling by yours truly So join me for crab science the show that tackles your questions about life and the universe coming up after the news. B.b.c. News with Jonathan Izod the British Security Service m I 5 is to review the way it handles information from the public following the suicide bombing in Manchester last Monday which killed 22 people an inquiry will be launched into how m I 5 missed the threat posed by someone a baby despite at least 3 warnings that he held dangerous extremist views North Korea has fired a short range ballistic missile the 3rd apparently successful test in as many weeks the Scud flew about 450 kilometers before landing in Japanese waters prompting Japan to lodge a protest the Philippine Army says it's winning the battle with Islamist insurgents who took over the southern city of Murali a week ago according to the military the insurgents now control any small pockets within the city despite that fighting has continued with helicopters and planes bombing rebel positions the French President Emanuel micro will hold talks with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin near Paris later today in their 1st meeting since Mr Micawber's election earlier this month during the French election campaign Mr Putin hosted France's far right leader Marine Le Pen hundreds of demonstrators have blocked the main streets in the center of the Moroccan capital rabbet in support of the protests taking place in the north of the country against rising youth unemployment protesters chanted against the government calling it corrupt a stampede at a football match in the national stadium in Honduras has left at least 4 people dead and many more injured the police said hundreds of fans tried to force their way in to see the match a police spokesman said too many tickets have been sold the mayor of Paris and his Dargo has called for a black feminist festival in the city to be banned because it discriminates against white people organize of organizers of the Indian supper festival say that 80 percent of the venue will be kept for black women and an Australian fisherman has had a close encounter with a great white shark which leapt into his more boat north of Sydney Terry Selwood suffered deep cuts before radioing for help and scrambling clear b.b.c. News. Hello I'm Molly Justin and this is crowd science on the b.b.c. World Service the show that takes the thing you've always wondered about life death tiny subatomic particles to massive multi verses and gets you the answers think of us as an audio Google search I mean much much better today we're answering not one but 3 of your questions gathered from as far afield as Texas via Peru and Austria to were Dongre in Australia to Burton on Trent in the u.k. Later of the on the west coast of Scotland finding out why the water is so not as cold as it supposed to be and in a moment I'll be taking my taste buds to some unpleasant places for science that is that is not a good face I know or don't want to put this in my mouth I can write right bottoms up and why do humans faces all look so different we'll be probing the advantages of off facial uniqueness if you have a double going out there and you're actually a hotshot you might lose out meetings based on the fact that you have some lookalike running around stealing your opportunities but 1st up we have a matter of taste for several 1000 years everything we've tasted has fallen into 4 categories sweet salty sour or bitter then more recently we've identified a 5th text Mommy which is a kind of yumminess which is found in certain foods like tomato cheese and meats yummy may sound unscientific but the chemistry underlying it is solid turns out we have taste buds on our tongue that specifically pick up the a mommy the molecule they identify is l. Glutamate. Why am I telling you this because of a question about saltiness from listener helmet how the crowd science My name is helmet I'm an Austrian raised in Peru that lives in Texas I'm a question for us what do we taste when we'd sold thanks Helmut so so so dim chloride is made of a sodium atom and chloride atom so which one does our tongue taste salty like many of the questions we get here at crowd science the also is never as simple as it seems we need a chemistry lab and a chemist who might let us safely taste the contents of various bottles Fortunately we found a guy at University College London Professor Andrea Sella helmet's question is one that I asked myself when I was a high school student at a level in Nairobi just to add to the sort of international mix of the question here nice what I did was I surveyed the tastes of all the salts that I could seem to get in a lab from a certain chloride of course being that's the one we know as salt that's right it consists of sodium Plus we call that the cat on and chloride minus the n. I am and what is an ion so when I It is very simply a charge out of or a charge molecule the moment you have a charge on a chemical entity we call that and I'm Ok so you've made these solutions what are they we might start perhaps with just plain old common or garden sodium chloride right that's what I think of as salt so absolutely so I'm giving you a spoonful Ok our parish but. So so salty Yes not Cecil t. So this is really interesting I mean in our mouths we have a whole pile of different perceptive and amongst those receptors or some really crucial ones which are actually specialized your sodium and they're called ion channels and ion channels are a really beautiful protein structures that have evolved to very selectively allow certain ions to pos through you can think of almost like a sieve you know they will only let through the sodium line because it's the right size but not the potassium on the sodium receptors that we have on our tons or one of the things that contributes to that salty sensation Now the interesting thing is that there's a lot of concern about having too much salt in the diet and so one of things you can buy and I've got a jar of it here is what's called low salt which is depleted in sodium but you have to make it up with something else and that's something else turns out to be potassium chloride and I'm going to give you a little shot. On spit. That tasted different I could taste it more sides of my tongue it didn't taste Solti it tasted bitter I was and this is something which has been reported before and that is that if in fact you you change the size of the eye and then actually you do alter you reduce to some extent the saltiness and the bitterness comes on let's just try the next one down I'm going to give you a little drop of rubidium chloride So the iron is going to get that little bit bigger. That's. How would you describe it is distinctly bitter but I think it also has a bit of a tang to it yes something faintly metallic a little bit like if you put a piece of brass in your mouth and so we can see here that changing right the size of that eye and the size of that charged atom makes a difference well in this one we can take a look at cesium So this is cesium chloride which we know cesium from the cesium is an extremely important element because for one thing it underpins some of our atomic clocks but the other thing is cesium is a radioactive fallout sort of daughter product of nuclear explosions and also you get nuclear reactors now of course what we've got here is perfectly stable cesium right is there's nothing nuclear about it this is just chemistry let's just have a go. Right. And that is that you know it could face I know I don't want to put this in my mouth I don't want bottoms up. You know the professor and I oh that's winning and spitting because that was not nice so it's interesting the bitterness really really comes on and what I think we should do is go and take a look at Lithium now lift him is apparently able to get through some of those sodium or sectors maybe this one will restore the saltiness a bit. That salty in quite a pleasant way I said that's like drinking sea water the bitternesses has really completely gone it's sort of felt a little bit fatter in the mouth then the sodium chloride and the other ones did not course the striking thing so far is that we have noticed salty taste and a bitter taste which seems to depend on the size of the arm and there is one more salt that you may or may not be prepared to taste and that's this one cannot just describe the bottle it's a brown bottle with one of those old fashioned labels that says lead acetate City home full if taken internally do I do I want to try this well I mean this is really very poisonous. I think it's a dance a maybe it's a completely inoffensive looking white powder which is what you get if you actually take a lead and you store it in a vinegar jar the lead dissolves out and so you get lead acetate in solution have a go I take a look. At rinse I'm enjoying it rinse well. And again I can't stress this enough do not believe this time and again. And again I. Can't taste it anymore so what did it taste. It tasted sweet it tasted really sweet yeah distinctly sweet right and that seems to be down to the lead on so and lead is not the only salt which gives a sweet response the other one the even more toxic element Brylin and beryllium until it was renamed actually all those compounds through the 19th century it was referred to as goose and I'm the same root as glucose because all that salts are sweet to go back to helmets question most of the saltiness that he was wondering about comes from the cat saw in the Lithium the sodium parts of the site encourage does the chloride play any part the chloride unquestionably plays a role although it seems to be subsidiary when you go out to bromide again you start to see that bit in the coming and that bitter response you know where does that come from on an evolutionary level many bitter compounds turn out to be actually poisonous in one way or the other bitterness is a protective response for us I think helmets question is is completely fascinating and what it does is it really raises more questions than we can actually answer and if you go and look at the at the literature on this it turns out there are lots and lots of papers and one of the reasons why this turns out to be such an important question. It's because of dietary issues and we know that for several 1000 years we have added salt or diet we are one of the very few organisms that add salt to change the flavor of things for us it's become more of a kind of pleasure thing and we have to balance that pleasure against health and how do we do it and that turns out to be a huge driver for research how can we actually get people to accept things which are either less salty or find ways to make things seem salty without however having the soda a tastefully presented masterclass by Must a chemist and dress Ella or as we will now refer to him salt cellar I think with Andre as how we managed to cover helmets question basically it's mainly the sodium but it's also the chloride Either way it's got to be a smooth and that gives you the saltiness if you get too big an ion it becomes bitter and then there are some salts that a sweet didn't see that one coming. You were listening to crowd science on the b.b.c. World Service we're giving you a bump episode today answering 3 of your questions the 2nd of which is this crowd science arm Roderick Allen from what don't get in a stride and my question is why do humans look so different from one another Thanks road before we send the report to Jeff Moss off to find out since tell us what inspired this query Well when spectacular King parrots come to our bird feeder they look identical to one another the same street from Magpies kangaroos snakes a kid miss even cockroaches but the postman looks nothing like anybody else I know I mentioned parrots look different to each other through their own eyes but I don't think that's the answer why a human's so diverse Yeah I mean I think it's a great question it's kind of shocking right you look at around a people and they all look really different and we're great at remembering differences and you know I couldn't tell apart one squirrel in my yard from another . Why is that that's Professor Michael Sheehan in the department of neurobiology behavior at Cornell University Mike has some interesting things to say about faces but bizarrely enough it all started because Mike is totally obsessed with wasps. Yeah so the reason why I got really interested in a particular species of paper was that's found here in eastern North America is that they have remarkably variable facial patterns even if you've never looked at a wall space before be pretty clear that one wasp is very different from another not surprisingly these wasps can also use this facial variation to tell each other apart as well and they've been a really great system for beginning to understand why at least in some species some individuals are really distinctive whereas in other species that's not the case so back to our very distinctive species Mark showed that face is indeed highly distinctive compared to the other parts of a body but he was also in the hunt for evidence of selection in the genes responsible for shaping our faces if distinctiveness had been selected for then we'd expect a higher diversity in these face shaping regions. Compared to the other areas of the genome and that's exactly what we found on average regions associated with facial variation show much greater genetic diversity and why then what is it about being recognized that gives us as humans an advantage So one possibility is that being recognizable allows you to avoid punishment that is actually meant for others so there are a number of species actually the paper wasps that I've studied for example where we've been able to show when you make individuals exist in more diverse groups they actually have less aggression they fight amongst each other less often because individuals direct their aggression just to the particular individual next to them in the hierarchy rather than everyone around them another possibility is that there rather than avoiding punishment is that there are benefits that individuals might receive some sort of reward so to speak that might actually accidentally go to someone else rather than the individual who actually deserves them and there are examples of species where it seems that individuality is actually a major part of meeting rituals and individuals really pay attention to who's who and so if you have a doppelganger out there and you're actually a hotshot you might lose out meetings based on the fact that you have some lookalike running around stealing your opportunities. Well if I do I have only one thing to say to my doppelganger and that is I will find you and I will kill you but recognizability is only half of the equation there's no use having such distinctive faces if onlookers don't have the computing power to tease us apart I was keen to explore this other side of the equation so I caught the train to York in the north of England to meet a psychologist who agreed to assess my face spotting powers on her computer using a common facial recognition test but for a bit of fun I thought I'd 1st devise my own test to see just how good she was at facial recognition. So I just put your train station on put myself in the biggest crowd I can find. And we're going to see if psychologist Alice Tala can find me based on the mug shot that I sent her yesterday. But she has actually been to school personally without noticing me. But of course I wasn't really there to test Alice's powers of recognition I wanted to see how I compared to the population never want to forget a face I was hoping that I might be above average there is quite a lot of variation actually what we see some people form really really well they can recognise someone who they maybe saw on a bus 5 years ago but then there's also people at the opposite end of the spectrum and some of them have a condition called prosopagnosia which means they have a lot of difficulty recognizing people who they perhaps should be able to recognise sometimes to the extent that they can't recognise their wives or even themselves in photographs so I'm going to do this test you're going to find out how good a recognizer could I be I've heard people say the term super recognizer before could I be a super recognizer you could be so super recognizer is just a term that some people use to describe people at the top end of the spectrum with really high abilities so should I just sit here so you. Are quite nervous now. I never knew how much. Cared about this but I really want to be a super recognize what we are. So what you're going to see are 2 faces on the screen and they'll be pixellated to that quite difficult to recognize and these will be photos of familiar people say Barack Obama or one of the pictures will be of Barack Obama and the other one will be of someone who looks quite similar to drop a bomb but it's quite a difficult test because these images have been pixilated. Definitely both Elton John. Kerry styles. Who are swift. Personally both over Swift's. Place so minutes later the results were in. 340 I'm sort of out of this my parents they're just and I got 18 wrong out of 6070 percent sorry compared to undergraduate students here we usually use in our research you performed about the same so they on average get about 69 percent correct and when I go 70 or 73 on par take Birch students unfortunately I don't think you're a super recognized. So listener Rod said you know humans have the most diverse faces out of all of the animals you could spawn as Australian garden do you agree with Rod's initial kind of observation that that's the reason why he spots these differences in the post man and not in the King parrots Well not necessarily a lot of what we know about recognition is that it's a lot about our experiences and our need in the environment so if Broad had a need to discriminate between different parrots he probably would be able to do that it's so much to do with experience we know that even within humans there's an effect called the other a suspect so growing up in a predominately white area that person might have trouble recognizing Asian faces or black faces. But if that person was to then travel to Japan or live there for a little while very quickly they would become able to discriminate between different people here's what Mike had to say to the same question yeah I think partly he's right but other species are probably a bit better at telling each other apart but also it's probably in many cases some species just don't care about who's who and so it has been selected for with thanks to Mike Sheahan Cor now and Alice Tyler York University and thank you Jeff and hey well done Jeff for being one point above average recognizing I've done the test too and scored way below average but I already knew I was terrible with faces what about you listener think you might be a super recognizer or face blind Well we've put a test on the crowd science page search for crowd science on the b.b.c. Home page and follow the links finally we have a question from Mark Simpson about ocean currents the oceans of the world don't just sit there like massive static puddles of water they're invisible channels within them called currents pushing and pulling streams of water in particular directions there's a big one in the North Atlantic which in winter brings warmer water across from the Americas to Northern Europe but changing the climate affects these currents and mark in the u.k. Wants to know how close are we now to the shutdown of the Atlantic Conveyor as this current is known. So I drive through the wilds of the Scottish Highlands to a small fishing pool called I've been home to the Scottish Association of Marine Science where they study all sorts of aspects of the ocean including ancient currents. Mornings Mark and professor of oceanography so I research the oceans I also teach oceanography to undergraduates and postgraduate students Ok And can you describe to our listeners where we are we're on the shores for about 10 meters from the sea shore were about to slip on some slide the sea weight in fact we are slipping heat it's an Ice Cube Sats many fine so yeah we're on west coast of Scotland where um. And we can see yachts and boats and grey clouds whizzing past it's not exactly a warm sunny day but I have swum in the waters around here because we used to go here for holidays all the time and I'm just wondering if they slack to chewed is that kind of how it should be so by comparison to other places at the same latitude I mean if we look at the eastern side of the United States of course would be very much colder you wouldn't be sitting in the sea there even in summer maybe in very shallow coastal waters that are sort of sheltered and get warmed up by the sun but not in the ocean proper How come it's warmer here than it is that well the main reason is warmer on this side of Atlantico than the other side Atlantic at the same latitude is that there's a wide current of warm water which comes from originally the Gulf of Mexico moves a little way up the Eastern Seaboard of the u.s. And then it crosses that line tick in a broad stream of warm relatively warm water and comes over to the side Atlantic to the eastern side Atlantic the west coast off of Europe that heats the atmosphere from below us actually so that's why we get lots of cloud and lots of rain because the atmosphere is heated from below by this warm current that comes across the North Atlantic Ocean. You know we've had a question from listener Mark Simpson he clearly knows a lot more about these than I do because he calls it the Atlantic Conveyor is that the name for this current so the current as it leaves the Gulf of Mexico is quite Now it's only a few tens of kilometers wide and we would call it the gulf stream there it travels up the Eastern Seaboard of the u.s. But when it leaves the same seed that border the u.s. It becomes more broad and more of a diffuse stream crossing the ocean and then we call it the North Atlantic Current But the conveyor tries to put across the idea that the whole ocean is moving heat from the tropics to the poles at the surface and then cold waters are turning up depth from the poles but the tropics and Mark's really interested he said it's bothered him for 20 years now how close are we to shutting down that current of warm water. Well that is a very difficult question to answer but it's a good question to ask there are 2 things that we notice one is that there is evidence that this current is slowing down so that the conveyor is slowing down however we do know that the conveyor will have been stronger and weaker various times in the past thousands and tens of thousands of years. So there is good reason to suspect it varies in a natural sense but there's also good reason to worry that if we are melting the ice caps particular Greenland there are several kilometers of ice which are melting now at a rate more rapidly than they ever have done before in our observational record if you put that freshwater into the ocean as melted places and melted ice from Greenland there is a good physical argument as to why that my father slowed down or slowed down this Atlantic Conveyor But will it ever stop there is evidence that it has stopped in the past so the last place almost. Cinemas 22000 years ago that's when the ice sheets were at that moment but this landscape we see now to be completely covered in ice would have been 2 kilometers under ice he was standing at the moment 202-203-4000 years ago that was the last place he'll maximum about 11000 years ago there was a huge lake in the eastern side of the u.s. And this was held up by an ice dam and as the climate was warming we were coming out of the place he'll period this ice down collapsed and a massive volume freshwater made its way into the North Atlantic coast called a Heinrich event with a name and we see after that for the conveyor belt almost completely shut down but then started up again so there is evidence that this putting fresh water on to the top of the ocean can affect the conveyor belt Well I should add that even though we see that the Greenland ice sheet is melting faster than ever before it's still not the same sort of catastrophic collapse of a dam break that we saw with the Heinrich event and so the analogy is there but it's not a perfect analogy for what's happening in the present day so that's really why we can't be so clear about what will happen if we put water fresh water more slowly on top of the Atlantic Ocean you know trying to pinpoint what's actually happening how do you find out and when are we going to know yes we are and we know a little bit more every day at the moment and for the last few years we've had an array of instruments in the ocean all the way from Scotland across to the u.s. Across the Greenland and then down to Canada and part of that is we use what's called ocean gliders and these are robots little robots only about 2 metres long and we send them out from here actually from the listeners won't see this but there's a boat just next to us and we use a small boat with these little robots we take them out and off they go as far as Iceland they go down to 1000 meters at that and they pop up to this. Yes every 6 hours or so and they send that data back to us telling us the temperature of the saltiness the water and a few other products as well so essentially we are continually gathering more information about how much heat and how fast that heat is moving and before that something that you'd have to do with some scientists in bites Yes previous to that unlike just wants a lucky students and and well this laboratory here used to have a boat that went out 4 times a year to Iceland even in the winter trying to make measurements in the North Atlantic is one of the. Least Clement places in the world in the winter when people say the robots are coming for jobs that's one that they can just keep they can have my job cherish and hope for. So Mark an army of robot oceanographers are out there monitoring changes in the Atlantic Conveyor and whilst they can't yet tell you which precise often in the Atlantic Current much shutdown we all getting a better picture of how the current is changing. Its days crowd science if we've sparked a question from you please send it in to us a crowd science at b.b.c. Don't see I don't you can it just remains to say that this program was produced by Laura Hyde with additional production by Jen wintery and Geoff Marsh on Mani Chesterton next week we'll be trying to find the oldest living thing on the planet is it a bird is a Plane Tree join us next time a crab science to find out. This is Aspen Public Radio broadcasting on k. A.j. X. Aspect.