DiscoverScience on Player FMChicken, with a side order of science - Unexpected Elements
Chicken, with a side order of science - Unexpected Elements

Chicken, with a side order of science - Unexpected Elements

Update: 2025-12-12
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Over the Christmas season, it is estimated that some 3.6 million families in Japan will tuck into KFC over Christmas (other fried chicken is available), which inspired the Unexpected Elements team to chew over all things chicken!

First up, we discover that chicken may never have become domesticated if it wasn’t for rice farming. We also ponder whether the chicken or the egg came first (are you Team Chicken or Team Egg)? Next, we find out that humans are surprisingly smart at translating chicken chatter.

We’re then joined down the line by Dr Jingmai O’Connor, associate curator of fossil reptiles at the Field Museum of Natural History, who reveals more about the links between dinosaurs and birds.

Plus, how Brazil became a poultry superpower, and what happens to chickens in tornadoes.

All that, plus many more Unexpected Elements.

Presenter: Marnie Chesterton, with Camilla Mota and Godfred Boafo
Producers: Alice Lipscombe-Southwell, with Sophie Ormiston, Ella Hubber and Robbie Wojciechowski

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Chicken, with a side order of science - Unexpected Elements

Chicken, with a side order of science - Unexpected Elements