Simply to overturn it is a it is not realistic to think. What what's clear is that on the side of the protesters and the legal representatives they are trying to use every avenue that's possible in terms of the judicial process here in Hong Kong is a very judicial process than the one of the Chinese mainland but they using that to try and push back against what they believe is unconstitutional illegal moves by Perry Lamb's government to try to give the place as many how as as possible Robin thanks very much indeed for joining us live from Hong Kong that was the B.B.C.'s Robyn Brown to not brings us to an end of this edition of News Hour from a James Kim Asami and the rest of the team here in London thanks very much for listening. You're listening to the b.b.c. World news on k. Or c c To southern Colorado's n.p.r. Station broadcast sun 91.5 f.m. From our studios in Colorado Springs Colorado you can also hear cares you see in the following communities 88.5 f.m. 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World Service where the son Sam is about to take you to interesting spaces around the world crown songs listen and Rico loves to get into the countryside I think that in these kind of places make us more attentive and fock is the nature of the listening something different from our daily routine which is quite stressful sometimes but does the silence but that impression that's what our songs will seek to answer in half an hour before that on science and action what could be more stressful for the bibliophile than a library of hundreds of ancient scrolls all turned to charcoal by a volcanic eruption all of recorded Shakespeare the number of words could be superceded by the a number of words in this collection from circulating and if we were able to extract all the text I joined the team hoping to peer through the charred remains using x. Rays Well find out whether they succeeded or not on some connection coming up. Hello I'm Julie Candler with the b.b.c. News Pope Francis has likened the fires that recently devastated large areas of the Amazon region to the greed of a new form of colonialism the pope opened a 3 week sin out on the Amazon at the Vatican is tiny a bit hard Pope Francis's long spoken out in defense of the Amazon and its native peoples but this intervention has pointed the pope said the recent Amazon fires were worldly phenomenon he said they were fueled by profit and by those who sought to promote only their own ideas attempting to wipe out difference he implied they devoured peoples and cultures words that would have resonated with them as an indigenous representatives gathered for the Synod many will see his words as a rebuke of the Brazilian president. A climate change skeptic who's promoted economic development over environmental or indigenous rights Hong Kong police have used baton charges in tear gas to break up peaceful demonstrations by thousands of masked pro-democracy protesters opposition legislated failed in their latest legal attempt to overturn a government ban on face coverings Robin brand is in Hong Kong. That a man was to make their contempt for the emergency law banning face masks they marched in their tens of thousands almost all of them wearing something to cover their face police watched as protesters meet peacefully chanting Hong Kong resist as they walked through the heart of the city but after a few hours of disruption officers needed to end it and take gas canisters were fired on the crowd from police a walkway bridges above video showing small groups being targeted by charging offices on the ground as Iraqis in Baghdad hold funerals for the latest protesters killed in clashes with the security forces the government has issued a series of planned reforms intended to diffuse the growing crisis promising land distribution and increased welfare pain. The poor families Jeremy Bowen reports the prime minister idle idle Marty has so far offered little more than vague promises and an appeal for calm perhaps it's surprising that it's taken so long for demonstrators to go onto the streets Iraq has the world's 4th biggest oil reserves it should be rich but it's also one of the most corrupt countries in the world decades of war have inflicted terrible damage on Iraq and its people are employment is high the World Bank estimated that 22 percent of Iraqis lived on less than 2 u.s. Dollars a day North Korea has cast further doubt on the future of its denuclearization talks with u.s. Officials the Americans had proposed a further meeting in 2 weeks' time but the foreign ministry n.p.r. News said it didn't expect Washington to come up with satisfactory proposals by then world news from the b.b.c. Officials in central Afghanistan say Taliban militants have released more than 40 civilians abducted in Gaza a province they said the villages were released after the local tribal elders negotiated with the insurgents reports said local people had clashed with the Taliban when the militants want them not to vote in the presidential poll late last month police in Kansas City say 4 people have been killed in a shooting in a bar in the early hours of Sunday morning 5 others are reported to have been injured their condition is described as stable reports suggest that had only been one gunman. You know 4 which is in the Indian state of money poor have imposed a temporary ban on air guns in a district to protect move folk and which migrate through the region thousands of birds are either trapped or killed every year and sold in local markets is under a sun in Toronto residents in the district of coming long in money port state have been ordered not to shoot the birds would spend several weeks in North East India feeding on termites before continuing their long journey between Siberia and Africa the ban on agonise will remain in force till the end of November from North East India the Falcons fly nonstop for 5 to 6 days to the next stop over in Somalia in recent years local governments have initiated a number of steps on Falcon conservation in Nagaland state a weeklong festival is organized in November every year to celebrate the arrival of the birds which attract tourists the British drama and co-founder of the rock band cream Ginger Baker has died at the age of 80 nicknamed Ginger for his flaming red hair the musician was born Peter Edward Baker in south London in the 1960 s. He began his career in the city's burgeoning blues scene cream the band he formed with Jack Bruce and Eric Clapton became one of rock's 1st super groups they fused blues and psychedelia b.b.c. News. Welcome to Science in action from the b.b.c. World Service with me Roland p.s. Pieces Villa he's no relation in got torched by the eruption that engulfed Pompei and this week I met the scientists trying to read his for luminous but charted library using x. Rays if you add that up from her killing him all those letters could form a corpus of text as large as for example all of Shakespeare all of recorded Shakespeare the number of words could be superceded by the a number of words in this collection from regularly and if we were able to extract all the text and talking of precious relics we've the Cretaceous pterosaur that looks like it was a right Globetrotter these guys could fly pretty well they could just best cross the actions without any real issues it just demonstrates that they were cosmopolitan during the Met and that they lived in a lot of different areas including England and Australia and we're also worrying a lot about water so let's begin in India where the late start of the monsoon earlier this year led to deadly heat waves in the drawing up of the water reservoir supplying the vast city of Chennai Well the monsoon did eventually arrive but now it won't stop leading to widespread deadly flooding especially in the northern states crops I've been reading are being ruined in the field the moment or of the Indian Institute of Technology has been tracking the way that flood and drought are responding to global warming so we called him for some insights into the current events this year's month is a little bit friend previous few years 1st one in hot months was under deficit it was not reading that much until made up to lie in July was also below normal and after August it picked up and then it rained quite a bit and then and then September it caused flooding in almost 15 years to itself in sort of. Unprecedented people are often saying that this is to do with global warming that that's your impression exactly as it seemed when Fall is that it. Was happening so that must be quite old and cup as it increases as the local watering increases cross and in the global warming scenarios the flood frequency as well as the intensity else floods is projected to rise quite significant you know bottoming climate is becoming one of the hardest parts globally and jumps off flooding every monsoon season even if the monsoon deficit is you cannot deny that flirty rains because whatever then is up to being. That is coming undone suffix streams and fall events the irony is the we're talking about 16 flooding right now just a day or 2 after used succeed in publishing a paper saying that drought is going to increase as well in India because of global warming even if there is an increase slight increase doing the monsoon season that one be enough to nullify the increase in temperature which is going to be massive it's beyond the monsoon season when you need water from October to meet period if the temperature rises through the sense he has then you watch her demand didn't go up and because of that this 2 to 5 percent price models and the farming climate want to be sufficient to take care of that higher demand and there are chances that that would be deficit or drought and the farm and climate in the region and what kind of impact could that have on the people in South Asia the biggest challenge when we talk about the drought. Is that it meaning food products and as well as through art how relevant in my last year. Very bad. RINGBACK These kind of events more frequent. Music problems. And also drinking water availability. On a line from the water and climate lab of the i i t in canned enigma the events in India are a reminder of our uneasy relationship with water we can't live without it but keeping the supply constant takes a lot of engineering much of the time we turn to underground reserves to supplement what the rainfall can give us but stories abound of these aquifers drying up as well because of our wants and use a paper in Nature this week reminds us that rivers and streams also need these aquifers and it tries to redefine sustainability in terms of how they are affected when we tap into the groundwater reserves the graph that the study irrigation is by far the biggest you sure it's up to 70 percent round the world we have especially lot of irrigation with ground water for the dry regions of the real pickle strange not enough surface water available so we use groundwater it's often more next me comes in by the rain decide to regions where especially this is starting to problems like going to depletion we were really interested to see like if we compare this situation with bumping with the natural situation when we're in the moment be that we come below the threshold that the ecosystems cannot survive anymore that stand a limit to ground where the pumping How would you define that when it is it sort of when we're taking more out of an aquifer of the rivers are or is it when we're taking out water too fast for it to replenish or no it's something totally different actually what we call an enviro mental flow limits is the moment in time getting around with the discharge flowing into the stream get below the trash old which is required to maintain healthy ecosystems in the. River shore in the lakes for example and this threshold we estimated wouldn't natural situation and then we use a lot of statistics by using distraction we could say Ok so if we look at the human impacted run now and job below destruction old for a certain amount of time then reached a limit because it means states there's not enough water in the rivers anymore for the ecosystems to shelf life or for the fish in the plants to survive and that presumably varies a huge amount from place to place in the world Yes exactly yes for sure so if you look at to current situation already we see these negative impact of ground one of pumping on river flow for example in the center Midwest of the u.s. So we had a high plains in the Central Valley for example but also for it in this in the gunman's river India and Pakistan if we look at the future we see negative impacts for South and Eastern Europe and North Africa and also for Australia if something will continue like we pump groundwater now and that being said with Climate Change's this whole process or this problem will only be accelerated part of this equation is that rainfall I'm so on does replenish these aquifers are we seeing these limits being approached because of reduced rainfall because of increased drying or is it because simply that we're pumping the stuff out too fast it's a little bit a combination of both it's definitely mostly driven by it affected people more groundwater then actually comes in and we just use too much but on the other end for the drier climates there's just a little lot and reached for so in a drier climate is to problems are bigger because there is hardly any recovery of your ground when the system the temptation of course may be like with other mines when when one mine runs site you go to more extreme efforts to find other ones that people will just keep on looking for as yet untapped water resources Yeah and I think that's going to groundwater that's the same risk because the. We have the money and as long as we have that technique to drill wells deeper I think people will drill their wells deeper and deeper if you Julia real deeper and you know you get more and more ground out or it will impact your stream flow as well and this connection I think is really important to realize that just drilling deeper and deeper and deeper is not a solution and get a graph from the University of Freiburg The Her killer any in library is perhaps the most remarkable collection of texts from the Roman era discovered 2 centuries ago in the village of Julius Caesar's father in law piece so many of the proposed risk rolls that bear the writings of the house philosopher the Demus are those are thought to be the works of the philosophers and poets he admired I say thought because the big drawback is the village was buried in the eruption that engulfed Pompei and Herculaneum and the heat from the volcanic ash turned them all to charcoal indeed large numbers were thrown away before their value was even realized to make life even more difficult the ink the scribes used was also made of carbon reading is a bit like black on black. But all is not lost if a team from the University of Kentucky succeeds in their ambition to decipher the texts using x. Rays last weekend they were allowed to scan to complete scrolls and some fragments learned by the past a 2 to false at the Diamond synchrotron in Oxford this was something I had to see but my trip also took me to the Christ Church College rooms of Oxford properly just obeying an expert on the scrolls and their remarkable preservation it was just a freak circumstance that they were exactly the right distance from the volcano and the pirate plastic flow was exactly the right temperature at that point to carbonized them without fully incinerating them because we know there were lots and lots of wooden furniture liveness material other libraries other scrolls at Herculaneum but almost all of them were burned up by the heat of the pirate plastic flow from the volcano but this one place is not a trace it was just exactly the right distance exactly the right angle that the heat carbonized them flash fry them but without incinerating but in a strange way if the c.v.s. Hadn't better do this villa we wouldn't have them when they're frozen in time as it were just as they are frozen in this carbon a state that we can't quite yet get to but that's what the effort this week at Diamond hopes to change how the team about to scan a flake of black and pirates in its intense x. Right is a sound that's a brain I probably but thanks so much for letting me share it you want to see some arguing I think until the idea. If the 1900 scrolls retrieved about 500 have long since been pulled apart and sometimes yet still destructive efforts to decipher the contents as well as the 2 intact scrolls the attitude of France had lent a handful of the resulting flakes with. Visible letters to calibrate the x. Ray scanner This is from school number 2 pregnant number 143 you can go and take a look at this side of the sample is the side that has visible text Ok that goes into a a no and I should say only Crump is a pioneer and there's a number of letter forms that are visible in the columns that you would only see. One reason the as if you were prepared to allow the scrolls out of their vault is that Brant seals and his team recently managed to reveal the text on another ancient chart scroll from the Dead Sea area but as the team made ready to do that scan team member Christy Chapman explained the ink on that and gave the scroll was better suited to x. Rays than the. The get a scroll 1st of all as a parchment scroll so it was on animal skin which is very smooth and the ink had metal in it so therefore when you x. Ray it it's self is very apparent in the x. Rays Ok this is carbon ink carbon based ink it's written on a carbon based substrate which is Paris which is not smooth and it's all been carbonized So you have carbon e. On a carbon surface all of which is being cooked in carbon basically so it doesn't really appear so that's why we're developing this machine learning tool using the open fragments which you saw you can teach a network that the tomography data looks like this when there's a present hillocks like this when there's no ink present you can tell it that over and over and over and over until it learns the difference then you can launch that tool where you have no idea and he can distinguish those places that match the data that says there's a change and do that you know over and over and over and eventually the pattern of the ink will appear and it's not a people often get confusing think that we're looking for a letter states we're not looking for states that are you could use this on a drawing because with you're looking for is the actual ink itself not a particular shape that makes sense really reading expose letters on a flattened Flake was one thing the additional challenge for Brant SEALs was seeing through the lens of Charlton can talk to the pirates in the scrolls learned by the Absa to defrost but a sort of the 1st scans no lettering it to be discovered gave me a sense of the scale of brands these are early images so scratch reconstruction so we can get a sense of what we're capturing with the data of lots of projections all of them kind of in a raw state and they need process Nevertheless the virtual sites into the scroll was extraordinary. This thing is full of tortured chaos which is basically the many rules of piracy all viewed that's so clear when looking down as it were the roll as if you could look at the end yeah in cross-section and then as I move this you'll be moving through the volume you see that it's unbelievably looks like Firstly there are hundreds of ways on the rest that's right as recently so if you just hold it so each of those would be a layer of the original one that's right and you also see these dense little specks those likely are grains of sand that were trapped in the fibers of the players during manufacturing or even when they wrote the manuscript I mean there's one thing that really strikes me and that's why I want to see these We're headed to some idea of a virtual long road. I imagined in the clear old piece of good point us but this thing has been Oxley distorted Also here is that it's crunched this way so it was. Chaotic right it's almost an impossible problem you really have to think about this is a 3 dimensional mapping problem where there are tightly wrapped so the thickness of a layer is about 100 or 200 microns It's about a 10th of a millimeter So with all those last have you any idea what the total Andrea written area of the school would be sure we've calculated the distance to be between $10.12 beaters who truly tis long it would have been a region you could have that much surface area on which the writing could occur and if you had that up from Hercules him all those letters could form a corpus of taxed as large as for example all of Shakespeare all of recorded Shakespeare the number of words could be superceded by the a number of words in this collection from circulating and if we were able to extract all the text there is months of computer processing ahead just to recognise the let's let alone interpret the prose but back at Oxford proper will just obey it . Happy to wait and to speculate it could revolutionize the study of the ancient world in ancient literature just because we don't actually know what's there there's probably some from famous poet to us from the island of was a bonus probably could tell us is there the poems of catalyst that don't survive in medieval manuscripts and historical works Antony wrote a book called Dirty sewer a totally on his own drunkenness because he was accused of people like Cicero of being constantly drunk so he wrote work defending himself on my own drunkenness that's a work that I'd like to have and it would feel when some of the gaps about the arguments between Cicero and his compatriots and before were so to leave Caesar. And I'm waiting on tenterhooks here walked the x. Rays revealed finally to Queensland Australia and the discovery of the fossil pterosaur from nearly 100000000 years ago more remains from the Cretaceous But these bones reveal new story about evolution at the time as Adel Pentland explained to me it is the most complete terrorists a fossil have been found and Australia it's not a fully complete specimen by any stretch of the imagination but again within Australia this is pretty exciting stuff it's a fossil that was found in a very unusual area a lot of the Tarasoff also is that have been found before and Australia was found in inland say deposit whereas this one was found in a setting around a lake or river in terms of the size we think this chair so had a wing span of about 4 made it is it would have walked around on all fours and it what it then at that half the height of an average person and in terms of it. It's approximately 96000000 years olds that sort of about 30. 1000000 years before the end of the age of the dinosaurs is that date so for an important one for you so this terrace all belongs to a clade cold the ng hang Wario and some terrorists or researches have suggests that these guys went extinct in the mid Cretaceous after the sentiment any in whereas this one might actually be after that cutoff point one of the comments you make in the paper is that the nearest looking Tarasov that you know of comes from England if this is long before Captain Cook was taking pets over to Australia Well yeah very dry car this new species is mice closely related to another Australian tariffs on the fungus so that's not a big surprise but when we look outside of the a struggling pterosaurs I initially thought that maybe the Australian pterosaurs would be more closely related to species that have been found in South America because we sort of see this similar pattern definitely with the store cards the long necked honest stores and all the dinosaurs but the fact that the Australian terraces and more closely related to those from England just sort of tells us these guys could fly pretty well they could just miss cross the options without any real issues it just demonstrates that they were cosmopolitan during the mid just in that they lived in a lot of different areas of really love the idea of these terrorist sources international travel as you said to their own many terrorists in the fossil record in Australia and this one shows up was Australia different at the time or is it just a matter of preservation it's a combination of bias definitely pterosaurs are quite rare in the fossil record anywhere really because there burns a hollow and yet a barn normally has a. Ignace of about one millimeter So as you can imagine they could get broken very easily and looking specifically at a Strat we have very few rock outcrops that are either Jurassic or Triassic in age all of the pterosaurs that we know about surface. Cretaceous Anyway I'm sure you've been there and you've dug around to find a if there's any more of this remarkable creature and also I presume you'd gly you'd want to know something about the setting maybe the other things that were living alongside it all up we were spent about 5 weeks in the field trying to find as much as we could from this terrorists or and we also saved just about all of the dirt that we went through and then we what saved it and then we was sorting through trying to it's in pieces of iron so we definitely had a red hot go at it it's a very challenging side because it's located in a crate I mean that crate because dry at the moment but when it floods it'll run water and we know that at least one of the barns was actually kicked away from the main concentration by shape it was in a she had it was a side unlike any we've really dug at for. Most of oh it's a great name explained the main place I did agonize over the name for quite a while and we actually decided on a nickname for and we had decided in 2017 that her so would be nicknamed Butch after the former mare of the Winton Shiela which Lenten I wanted to include his surname Lenten in the scientific name as well and I just little is fitting that we should call it lengthens I am dragon. The terrorists buying up preserved and uncensored are actually quite solid despite the fact that when that animal was alive or soon after it died. It's just a remarkable specimen and I wanted to include something in there about the Einstein I'd love the chance to bestow a name like that but I'm in the wrong business Adele Pentland isn't most She's a paleontologist at Swinburne University and at the Winton age of dinosaurs museum where you can now see Butch it is a bit of a trick to get there however which makes quite a nice link to crab songs after the break and in jackets he has been out and about to study the health benefits of green spaces but that has brought us to our journey's end here on song selection from pretty succeeding Siddle and the run in peace Well glad you came along. Distribution of the b.b.c. World Service in the us is made possible by American Public Media producer and distributor of award winning public radio contest a.p.m. American Public Media with support from new offering a personalized weight loss program that uses psychology and small goals to help lose weight and keep it off for good learn more at Newman n o m dot com. Support for 91.5 k. R.c.c. Comes from our listeners and from local organizations who want to read to discerning audience that values quality through marketing on 91.5 k. R.c.c. Underwriters reach the people most likely to shop in their businesses support their non-profits and buy tickets to their shows to learn more about corporate support call Jeanette at 719-473-4801. You know with the b.b.c. World Service where crab sauce is about to head into the comfort of the countryside I think that in this kind of places that make us more attentive or in fact is that nature on the listening South thing different from our daily routine which is quite stressful sided dice listen and rigor wants to know the science behind that feeling of well being the benefits of green spaces explored after the news b.b.c. News or Julie Candler Pope Francis has opened his sin out on the Amazon and its communities with an attack on the interests that have started fires in the region he also urged the Roman Catholic Church not to be bound by the status quo when considering proposals that include setting aside rules on priestly celibacy to address a shortage of clerics in remote communities police in Hong Kong have made their 1st arrests under new emergency laws banning face coverings there again been some violent clashes as demonstrators took to the streets in defiance of the ban offices used baton charges and tear gas to break up the protests the future of the faltering talks between North Korea and the United States on Pyongyang's nuclear program is uncertain after breaking up negotiations in Sweden on Saturday North Korea said it didn't expect fresh proposals to have been tabled before the next general drowned in 2 weeks' time. A prominent political party in Indian administered Kashmir has said mainstream political leaders must be released of any political progress is to begin the call came after a delegation from the National Conference was allowed to meet 2 of its top officials who've been in detention for 2 months police in Kansas City say 4 people have been killed in a shooting in a bar on Sunday details of the incident in the American city are still sketchy and no arrests have been made. Police in Iran have arrested a young woman whose cosmetic surgery won her a big following on social media Sun hard target altered her appearance to look like a zombie version of the film star Angelina Jolie Ginger Baker the drama behind the 1st rock supergroup cream has died at the age of 80 the British musician is considered one of the most innovative and influential drummers of the sixty's b.b.c. News. Wow. It's hard to miss isn't a. Thing I've ever seen in. Picture this your in Milan the fashion and financial capital of Italy driving through the business district and suddenly you see a forest. There are hundreds of trees some of them ripe with fruit thousands of shrubs countless flowers and even some wildlife. But the thing that makes this for a spectacular is that it rises up out of the ground over 100 meters into the air because it's growing all over the sides of to residential tower blocks this is Bosco vertical Milan's vertical forest. Imagine how different cities would look if all skyscrapers the. Tall buildings just were covered in. Your listening to crowd science from the b.b.c. World Service and our jackets here and we're here in Italy to visit this amazing building because we want to find out how green spaces can affect our lives and our health it's all thanks to a question from one of our listeners she lives a 2 hour train ride away in a small village that couldn't be more different from the hectic metropolis of Milan 8. Hi I'm in recruiting 3 d. What is all or any telling my question for a crowd science is a new green spaces make us healthier. I love to stop here or to stop in these kind of places and observe the landscape. It's like stop in the time freeze in the moment and I can enjoy it for the rest of the day in my memory of course at t.g. Come here quite often. Every day yeah. Yeah yes like. In the corner here. By day and Reka is an art teacher and like many of us she finds it relaxing to be outdoors in green spaces this riverbank is a way for her to unwind after a hard day's work. But aside from making us feel less stressed all the other measurable health benefits to being in nature we. Will be returning to Italy very soon but 1st we need to speak to someone who can tell us more about how exactly green environments might impact our health and it's trickier than you might think even though landscapes like enrÃquez riverbank a Carmen serene there's still a lot for our senses to take in. Different colors shapes sounds of water birds insects and the smells and aromas coming from the plants and the river. Plus there's the fact that you're actually outdoors getting fresh air sunshine and some exercise teasing out the potential health benefits of all these things isn't easy natural space is a wild a messy very unlike an ordered laboratory where everything can be controlled and measured Nevertheless this is a field of research that's absolutely booming right now and to help us make sense of it is Professor Kathy Willis I'm happy Willis I'm the principal of set up and whole University of Oxford I'm also a professor in biodiversity here in Oxford Cathy is also former director of science at the Royal Botanic Gardens queue in the u.k. She's also currently writing a book about green health so what does the research tell us about green spaces might they improve our health increasingly the evidence is coming through such jested is the plants themselves that have these very very positive benefits for physical and mental wellbeing and those studies about 10 years ago a very interesting set of that looked at recovery rates in hospitals when people looked out of window and if they don't have a window into another brick wall their recovery rates are one level if they looked out on to trees 3 times faster by looking out on to vegetation really and that's controlling for the fact that hospitals that have nice views might be better equipped and that sort of says throwing all statistics no into. Humankind and they still found the same finding there's more more work that's been going on using these massive by bank data sets which are effectively you know millions of people all the medical records put into these by bank data sets and you know where the people live that geo located and because the jailer Kati's you can then link the people to the environmental variables where they live and a very nice study carried out and published last year in one of our top medical journals launce it showed that those people that lived in green areas had much better mental wellbeing outcomes this certainly sounds intriguing like perhaps our health is intertwined with the health of the plants around us but hang on a minute surely people living near to nice green spaces I'm thinking tree lined golf courses are going to be wealthier and so they'll have better access to education and health care can we separate those factors out a huge amount of what's been done by the statisticians on this very point because it can't just be that actually you're wealthier therefore you ever have plants and taking away all of those additional variables it still has a very strong signal but interestingly the impact of grain is greater on people of a lower socio economic status and on women and on people less than 60 years in age so those 3 factors if we are going to improve artista future those 3 themselves suggest this could have really really significant outcomes for those groups it seems like listener and reader is on to something green spaces do seem to do us some good but how exactly do they have this positive effect on us gradually more and more work is being done by the medical sciences to look at the or psychological and physiological responses to different aspects of vegetation and Color is a really important one so when they wired up the brain to effect to look at actually responses within the brain and the blood flow to the brain which is a very good way of looking at your motion response and also then how that. Sure blood pressure and your general wellbeing The found that when people look at green or white colors of leaves they will more relaxed they were happier and their blood pressure was lower when they look at red colors actually that does often invoke anger which does make you wonder about having poinsettias you know this red plants on your table at Christmas time and why there are so many rouse at Christmas time so color is a really important one but it's more than just color there's another nice study where they looked at pansies and they got a group of students and they measured their blood pressure and they showed them pansies Yellow Pants is their blood pressure and they were happier when they showed them the same of a box of pansies but they didn't tell them they're actually they were polyester you know those sort of cross type pants a cycle and they had no reaction so there actually has to be a real even though they couldn't tell even though the cave so closely when it leads on to Ok water all those other factors in plants that might evoke and lead to physiological and psychological benefits and so another one that's a really interesting one is do with smell he walked across the grass and a freshly caught my own lawn there is a fantastic smell isn't there you sort of breathe that and always feel really good at that smell I mean what happens when are you guys I mean. So yeah it's hard but certainly some trees all some plants but particularly trees have these organic volatile compounds that they admit and they admitted for different reasons and attracting as a defense mechanism but some of those smells a really really important for our physical mental wellbeing and one of the most interesting ones is the Japanese cypress the hen Ok Cyprus and there was a lovely study done where they had 30 individuals who were in hotel rooms for 3 nights and they defused this oil in the bedroom and in the air. And they measured their blood pressure the match their urine and they measured their blood and after the 3rd night they had statistically significant decrease in the adrenaline hormone so it's of karma they had lower pressure but also they had a really big increase in natural killer cells in their blood now not to kill or cells of the ones that attack viruses and also attack cancer I think this is fascinating that the color green itself might be soothing to us some plans like an Okie emit a cloud of health promoting chemicals. But what if the landscape the you live in doesn't have an Okie trees in it or what if it isn't even Green What if you go walking in beautiful mountains where the landscape is more brown or gray the work just hasn't been done when you look at the number of species that have been investigated you know because the question really ought to be what plants and where and we just don't know if I added up the number of species that I know people have done this sort of work on it's probably 40150 we heard you know there are 420000 species of vascular plants so it's a massive area of research but it can have a huge impact going forward because this is what we need if we're going to design the way our cities and our landscapes the future the outcomes that you get the mental and physical wellbeing outcomes often I mean that this is why the medics are so interested they're off to more powerful than taking drugs really yes you know this is why this is such a great listener question. You're listening to crowd science from the b.b.c. World Service and today we're answering listener and Rekers question do green spaces make us healthier so far we've heard that there is something about plants themselves the Seems to be good for our physical and mental health or though Cathy Willis points out that the research has only just scratched the surface given the more and more of us moving away from green spaces and into built up cities should we be bringing more of the natural world into our urban areas by 2030 an estimated 60 percent of us will live in cities and a 3rd of us will live in cities with a population of over a 1000000 and that will take its toll on our bodies and our brains more air pollution noise pollution in traffic less opportunity for physical exercise and fewer of the natural landscapes that we evolved in so could more green or natural spaces help and if so how we going. To go about including them. Let's head back to Milan a city that's currently grappling with this question. Home to 2 world famous soccer clubs part of Italy's industrial heartland for decades Milan has been more about fashion factories and football than green spaces and clean air so how is it possible to add more green to a city like Milan where space is already at a premium. Well one way is to plant vertically upwards rather than your usual horizontal park or garden that's exactly what they've done here Bosco over to Kali literally translated as the vertical forest trees and shrubs have been planted so that they completely cover the surface of a block of flats if you want to see just how spectacular This place looks we've made a video that will be online soon head to this week's program page at b.b.c. World Service dot com slash crowd science to watch it and if you haven't already do subscribe to our podcast whilst you were there as we've answered a lot of questions about how city life is changing from how we can fight unwanted noise to weather all cars could be electric. I mean you. See. On the inside Bosco vertical is almost as impressive as on the outside these 2 tower blocks house 21000 plants along with the people who live here to Simona was the very 1st person to move into the vertical forest and needless to say I'm incredibly envious of her stunning apartment unlike my sad collection of dying pop plants Simonas balcony has actual pomegranates growing on it we step outside and I ask what it's like to live somewhere like this it may have evaded my. I feel privileged living here because I'm surrounded 24 hours by plants and trees living inside the green for sure it's a good thing everybody cannot live in the countryside since it's fascinating but at the same time like the city offers a lot of services and infrastructure and so many things that we decided to do in the city but for sure the presence of the green the flowers and the plants and the trees they're making our psychological condition much better and according to these also the physical health or. When sunk if he could so the residents of Bosco votes a call a feel like the forest is good for them but is there any research on just how the plants have impacted the local environment or people's lives Laura Gatti is one of the 2 Co designers of the project she's a landscape consultant and her business is trees Well actually she says that for the past 25 years they've been her mission I started to be involved in projects and reach of the greening is integrated to the building giving the opportunity to people to approach in a tour every single moment of our life not just doing we can do over about every day when people maybe think of a landscaper who works with trees they probably think of the trees being flattened horizontal not to go up in the air so just look at this building and the ones running it's incredible just how many trees there are on the sides of the building in terms of the effect of the impact that the project has had so it's been around for 7 years now do you have any data on how the plants have impacted the local microenvironment or the local climate or how they've impacted people that are living in the buildings from the point of view of the. Climate what we measure the time. Of the building it could be $35.00 degree low. If using full sun that you can measure are $65.00 degrees and if you move just one meter and you move under the shadow of your trees or you can realize that the temperature of the core Sadie's are dropping is toast 30 up to 35 degrees yes as centigrade of our height centigrade. That is that's incredible Yes you can imagine all this heat is not coming back to where. During all my fault that it would spell baking here to help just to keep the city cool air this sounds promising although of course in tree and building life cycle times is days I'll be interested to see more published research about this project as it matures further. There do seem to be other environmental bonuses to busk over to college to as architects and 2nd co-designer Stephano Berry told me people here doesn't use condition that we have means that's an amazing contribution to reduce the cost of energy consumption and then again we have the several servers piece a burst of time lasting here so I like very much of this is kind of at the center of biodiversity in the center of a very dense and polluted city so I think it's a state it's possible to this is possible to do better let's do it. Yes Or Speaking of let's do it I mean there are plans to build more radical forests in Milan and also elsewhere and well it is true we are now working in many many many different countries we are working in China we are developing several critical for us and also is more for a city China we are war Yeah so how many how many hours basically it's a city for $30000.00 people in China another one we are going to build in Cancun Mexico is better I'm approving of the people and then we have also tried to do that in h. . Stephanos vision is both about retrofitting existing cities and building entire new ones with trees and plants integrated from the start which could improve air quality and lower temperatures both important factors for health and more buildings like this in different locations using a range of local plant species will provide more data for research as to assess just how helpful they might be but Pasco vertical is a 1st a statement venture with a price tag to match could these kinds of projects ever really be affordable enough for most people to benefit from the cost of the building was mirroring a little bit this 1st person. Search phase. For what we're doing just to give you an example one told them we're used prophetic ation we have you know more than off maintenance so is building for everybody low cost in China we are building many buildings in such a house so I absolutely believe that this state plan could become a popular state and aside from planting trees on buildings to foreigners also involved in a project to get them on the ground the other big idea in Milan is to plant 3000000 trees in the city by 2030 basically is for every person watching in 10 years not so much no not so much as possible and they will cut drastically the pollution of the land it will also reduce to 30 the c o 2 producer by the city so it would be amazing to help bring this grand green plan to life ill be working with the deputy mayor for been planning in the next decade the mañana will have 20 new parks are in the inner city Jessica Moran was born in Milan and he's now a city councilor in charge of green areas and urban planning I met him at a building site but it's probably the most picturesque buildings I've ever been to city life is a vast modern office and living space combining everything from children's playgrounds and fountains to parks and skyscrapers is the kind of place that Melanie's residents have only recently started to expect in the eighty's in the ninety's and we said that something that makes them special was the fact that was a one hour far from the sea and one hour far from the mountain so people go away during the weekend and they don't expect quality of life inside the city I thought is something else changed or lucky saw where the people expected to have quality inside the city desperate to have green areas afford themselves for their kids and so these new parks. Path of destruction and. The testimony and for the new areas that we are emerging it's not surprising that people in cities like Milan want to cleaner more pleasant and a healthier environment to live in but projects like city life don't come cheap How do Milan city planners know if they're investing wisely and in the best possible way for people's health time to meet our lost expert here in Milan we came from different countries and I was here for a real different background multi-lane a perfectly is a researcher in public health urban health climate change and city resilience Polytechnic 0 to Milan 0 she contributed to a World Health Organization report about urban greenspace interventions and health it was made with a whole bunch of experts from cities all over Europe where people have different priorities and problems as Madeleine found out for example or I try to explain that that you need telly during summer so many people go to the park or to take some fresh air because only if you leave. Early or Greece or Spain you can understand his ethic these very important them because now we have so much death during the hot days off some years it's just the next sample and so greening more green space and might potentially be able to help reduce those deaths yes yes a lot because here we have got a lot of people especially old people that are heaven and it can be shown that there are some days that the temperature here is 40 degrees and coming to degree. The temperature toward it is. 5 or 8 maybe in some of these so also more. Think of the Us So yes I'm fasting for hours so actually. To green spaces could literally be the difference between life and death for some people living in cities it's hard to think of a more dramatic impact on our health but what about some of the other benefits the parks and green areas could have we have several benefits some of them are chair time and some of them are more on Chatterton we know for stud that we haven't got the improved outdoor air quality. From Vermont pollution that can have a direct impact on communicable disease by the her hand there the green spaces serve 5 or a physical activity and feel. Very important to have faith there because in this city we know that there is a big percent of people that don't make physical activity daily so we have some effect of that are important but we have to quantify how we can improve these activities can you summarize then I know this is a quite a big report but can you kind of summarize what you found was some of the most effective green interventions projects that involve people or at the beginning of the project or have more benefit from health or saw involving people I think that is the 1st think that we have to do when the want to approach a New Yorker bunkered in project the then they're the new park Parker obviously are the best solution so urban parks in cities like Milan have a lot of potential they could cool the city and reduce heat deaths lower pollution and lead to people doing more exercise but of course that's only going to happen if they're thoughtfully designed in the 1st place for the needs of residents. We started the show with Enrico's question can green spaces make us healthier and we've heard from all. Experts that they are all good for us physically and mentally . There's still a lot of research to be done to work out how exactly plants have this wonderful effect on us through their colors and smells maybe even through their shapes and sounds but given the potentially huge benefits it seems like Milan's approach for plants to take root throughout the city does make sense for those of us who are lucky enough to live out in the countryside whether that's building more parks or planting more trees it's exciting to think that maybe the urban jungles of the future will look a lot different to the urban jungles of today. Before we leave it to me we've got time for one last drink with our listener and Rica we're sitting by the canal in the center of Milan and Rica you've come out to join us thank you so much how are you I'm fine thank you I had a good 3 by 2 Melana was nicer to see you again and have a tat Yeah and it's definitely very different atmosphere here to the peaceful countryside that walking around who joins us that delay this is. Really a very elaborate happy what didn't Reka make of all wrongs or to her question and of Milan's quest to build lots more green spaces this should be a time when cities and governors turn their way to see people's lives not just as productive but as enjoying life and making their lives better not just their encounter Well look pretty and thank you so much of inviting us to Italy and showing us around and for your amazing question Are you happy with the answers that we've dug up. I'm happy I'm definitely happy it's just you know when you understand that they're feeling that you. Are shared from many people you kind of feel a huge community and you feel like yours. Just the same human kind. The bond with nature is not going rotten he's just being crazy. For this edition of crap science from the b.b.c. World Service. To this question was for me in that anything the programme was presented by and tickets and produced by John Winton if you have a question that science might be able to answer please send it to grad science at b.b.c. Field c.e.o. Don't you k. Thanks for listening to our. You're listening to the b.b.c. World news on to Southern Colorado's n.p.r. Station broadcast sun 91.5 f.m. From our studios in Colorado Springs Colorado you can also hear cares you see in the following communities 88.5 f.m. In West Cliff and Gardner 89 point one f.m. In La Hunter 89.9 f.m. In Lyman 90 point one f.m. In Manitou Springs 91.7 f.m. 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