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Episode details

World Service,05 Oct 2023,50 mins

Complete shutdown

Unexpected Elements

Available for over a year

How would it feel wake up years later? After the US narrowly avoided a government shutdown, we look at how complicated systems - such as living things - can just press pause. Could humans ever hibernate like bears and squirrels? Or even like simpler animals that can be revived after 46,000 years. Also, which way does antimatter fall under gravity? And how might IVF save a functionally extinct species of rhino? Presenter: Caroline Steel, with Chhavi Sachdev and Philistiah Mwatee. Producer: Alex Mansfield, with Margaret Sessa-Hawkins, Ben Motley and Sophie Ormiston

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