30 Animals That Made Us Smarter

Pick of the podcasts

Animals, it turns out, are much more useful than potential food sources or fodder for Sir David Attenborough documentaries.

It turns out helpful fauna have helped construct the world we use around us.

That’s the premise of a new podcast from the BBC World Service, presented by one of the rising stars of natural history programmes, Patrick Aryee.

He’s with the BBC’S Natural History Unit and, over the years, he’s been free-diving with sperm whales and has had (BBC Sounds) close encounters with Komodo dragons and cheetahs.

Patrick also studied biology and has presented TV series about the biggest animals on earth.

Each episode of 30 Animals That Made Us Smarter tells the story of a technological or scientific breakthrough that has come about as a result of humans learning from animals.

In episode one, Patrick explains how the designers of the bullet train took inspiration from a bird. When the bullet trains were introduced,

passengers would complain about the feeling of the train being compressed when it whizzed into a tunnel.

Engineers discovered the shape of the front of the train was to blame.

They looked to the way the kingfisher bird sliced through water to hunt fish – now superfast trains come with that distinctive nose shape.

Patrick also explains how the energy efficient construction of termite mounds inspired the ventilation systems in buildings in Harare and Melbourne.