Superpowers Wild & Weird

# Luminous fish killers Convoys of caterpillars

-# Super-clever brainless slime

-Ugh!

# Bunny-rabbit swarms Whizzing storms

# And pigs that swim at dinnertime!

# Tornadoes of fire Starfish going haywire

-# Algae balls from space!

-What?!

# Prairie dogs that chat Birds going splat

# And fish slapping in your face!

# They're wild and weird Wild and weird

# Really, really wild And really, really weird

# They're wild and weird Wild and weird

# They're really, really wild

# They're really, really wild and weird. #

Coming up on today's show,

some superpowered strangeness.

A death-defying deepfreeze squirrel.

A real-life Batman on a bike.

And a heroic rodent risking it all on the front line.

MUSIC: Superman Movie Theme

Ha-ha! Madam, are you in need of assistance?

-No, not really.

-MUSIC CUTS

Just watching some telly.

You haven't seen the remote control anywhere, have you?

MUSIC RESUMES Yes, a missing remote!

-This sounds like a job for...

-Here it is.

MUSIC CUTS

I hope all this weird behaviour's

not just another excuse to dress up as...

Wonder Man.

No. It's my name, actually.

W, Warwood, so...

You don't have to make up superheroes, Tim.

There are plenty of animals with real-life superpowers, you know?

-Really?

-Mmm-hmm. Here, I'll show you.

Life in the wild can be tough,

so sometimes animals need superpowers just to stay alive.

Take this mighty hero of cold-weather survival,

the Arctic ground squirrel.

A squirrel? Squirrels don't have superpowers.

Not like...

Wonder Man!

That's where you're wrong,

because this super squirrel can survive freezing temperatures

that could turn Wonder Man into a popsicle.

And it does it by heading underground.

Underground? To a secret base filled with hi-tech military prototypes?

No. To a den, filled with straw, where they curl up and...

..go to sleep.

Aw, come on, Naomi.

Sleeping's not a superpower.

Everyone can sleep.

I'm so good at sleeping I often find myself just the drifting off mid...

HE SNORES

..sentence.

But the Arctic ground squirrel

doesn't go to sleep for just one night -

it sleeps for a whopping eight months.

Whoa, talk about a lie in!

Here's Arctic biologist Brian Barnes.

One day in early August, they'll retreat into their burrow,

pull their tail over their head, and they fall asleep.

But what's unusual about the Arctic ground squirrel, in fact unique,

is that it can drop to the lowest body temperature

of any mammal on Earth.

-3 degrees Celsius.

It should be frozen, but isn't.

That's right. Despite having a body made of up to 70% water,

this squirrel doesn't freeze

when its temperature drops below freezing.

But isn't that impossible?

Not if you've got superpowers!

So how does he do it?

Well, to explain that, we're going to need some weird science.

That's my favourite type of science.

Let's pretend our squirrel is a raspberry or cucumber.

Random, but OK.

They both contain the same amount of water as a squirrel

and, when they freeze, ice crystals form inside them,

puncturing their cell walls

so that when they thaw out again they collapse and turn into mush.

So why doesn't the squirrel turn to mush as well?

It's all down to a process called supercooling.

Cool.

No, cooling.

No, I mean, cool as in cool.

Oh. Cool.

No, cooling.

Supercooling is when a liquid drops below freezing, but doesn't freeze,

and this is the squirrel's special superpower.

Once their blood drops below the freezing point, it should freeze.

But, in fact, liquids don't, unless they are in the presence

of what's called an ice nucleator.

Look out, bad guys,

cos big Timmy here has got himself an ice nucleator.

Ch-chkk!

Pyow! Pyow!

Pyyffff....

So, what's an ice nucleator?

Ice nucleators are tiny impurities in the liquid, like dust or bubbles.

Without them, ice can't form, so the water in the bottle stays a liquid.

But introduce an air bubble and...

Kapow! Instant ice.

Cool.

No, cool-ing.

Don't start that again.

What these Arctic ground squirrel seem to do

is cleanse their bodies and their blood

of would-be ice nucleators,

and that allows them to reach this supercooled state,

this lowest temperature that no other animal does.

And this means our super squirrel

can sleep on through the Arctic winter,

without having to worry about waking up as a Slush Puppie.

Hey, do you want to see the ice blaster

that I made to help Wonder Man fight crime?

Yes, please.

Ta-da!

It's melted.

You know, your squirrel - it's very impressive,

but us humans have superpowers too.

Tim, for the last time, you are not a superhero.

No, no, no. Not me.

This guy.

Meet Daniel Kish.

He seems like an average man, out for average bike ride.

But Daniel is totally blind.

I lost my first eye at the age of seven months

and the second at 13 months.

I have no recollection of ever having seen.

Now, of course, being blind

shouldn't stop anyone from doing anything, but riding a bike

isn't generally recommended for people with no vision at all.

Especially not in a forest.

Exactly. So how does Daniel avoid colliding with the nearest tree?

I am a man who uses the techniques

of a bat to navigate.

That's right, Daniel has learned to find his way around

using echolocation.

And you can probably guess what nickname

these bat-like abilities have landed him with.

The Great Soundini.

Corre... What? No, That's not right.

Erm...

The Sonar Kid.

No. Think animal.

Ooh! Echo Bunnyman.

What? No.

Superhero name with the words bat and man.

Manbat!

What? Ugh...

I seem to be known the world over as the real-life Batman.

Many species of bat use echolocation.

They generate a noise, sending out sound waves.

When a sound wave hits an object,

it rebounds back to the bat and the bat interpret these signals,

building up a very accurate picture of its surroundings,

even in total darkness.

And, remarkably, Daniel can do exactly the same thing.

HE CLICKS HIS TONGUE

Here we've got a stairway.

Amazingly, Daniel has never been to this park before.

So we have a structure here that has a roof.

A pavilion.

And it's got places to sit underneath.

That is incredible.

Isn't it just?

I had no idea humans could echolocate.

We must start practising immediately.

SHE CLICKS

This tree is a total oddball

in terms of its shape.

It's a highly irregular structure here.

It swings out a little bit and then it curves around.

So we've got a soft, cushiony shape here.

Ooh. Ooh! But there's an irregular, oddball shape here.

It's kind of lumpy and carbuncular.

A bit like a gargoyle.

In fact, Daniel's echolocation skills are so accurate

that neurobiologist Professor Lutz Wiegrebe

decided to scan Daniel's brain to find out just how he does it.

And the results of Daniel's brain scan were astonishing.

He can really see with his ears.

And it's not only that he can process spatial information

acquired with his auditory system,

but he can also recruit parts of his visual cortex to do this task.

To put that more simply, Daniel is using the part of the brain

usually used for vision to help him see with sound.

I think I'm getting the hang of this.

I'm off for a bike ride. See you later.

That's not such a good idea.

Oh...

So it seems that Daniel's blindness may have allowed his brain

to develop sonar skills at a superhuman level.

And while potentially anyone can learn to echolocate,

the next time you fancy a bike ride...

Aargh!

..you might want to leave your blindfold at home.

You know, I just thought of another story of superheroism

from the animal kingdom. Would you like to hear it?

Ha! Is the sky blue?

Well, that depends on the time of day, weather,

atmospheric conditions...

Just say yes.

Yes.

We're off to East Africa,

to the foothills of Tanzania and Mozambique,

where it's possible to meet a very unusual superhero.

The mild-mannered giant African pouched rat.

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Rats can't be superheroes.

-Why not?

-Well, they're supervillains, aren't they?

The live in sewers, they spread disease.

That is classic supervillain stuff.

Not these guys.

Just look at them! They're so cute.

How could that face possibly belong to a supervillain?

What is it with you and cuddly animals?

OK. Why are they superheroes then?

Because they save lives.

You see, this part of East Africa has had a troubled past.

Years of war and conflict has left behind a deadly legacy.

Whoa!

It's estimated around 100 million landmines

still lie hidden in the ground,

turning the simple task of farming

into one of the most dangerous jobs on the planet.

So how to clear the landmines safely?

Well, that's where our remarkable rodents come in.

-Ooh, OK, let's just stop it there then.

-Why?

This is the BBC.

We can't do stories about blowing up rats.

It's not about blowing up rats.

-Oh, isn't it?

-No.

-Oh, carry on, then.

Now, giant pouched rats may seem unlikely candidates

for a bomb-disposal squad,

but they're actually more qualified than you might imagine.

Take smell, for instance.

In that department, rats can rival our canine friends the dogs.

I know exactly what you mean.

Because Tinsel - he's my nan's dog - he reeks.

No, I mean sense of smell.

Rats and dogs have a great sense of smell.

Ah, yeah.

In fact, the African giant pouched rat has a sense of smell so good

it can sniff out an infinitesimally small amount of TNT

from a metre away, even when it's buried deep underground.

But clearing minefields is a serious business,

so before they enter the fray,

our rats require some serious training.

With a little incentive, in the form of a banana,

they can be taught to sniff out a buried object,

scratch to mark the spot

and then come running back to the sound of a clicker.

Clever rats.

Ha! You say they're clever, but they can't be that smart

if they fall for the old banana-and-clicker routine.

I mean, a more advanced brain - take mine for example -

would never fall for a little bit of cognitive manipulation like that.

No way.

Ooh, banana. Thank you.

Once fully trained, it's time to head for the front line.

The rats are now sniffing out real, live landmines,

designed to explode when trodden on.

Oh! I can't watch!

And now the rat's final mine-busting secret weapon comes to the fore.

Not laser eyes?

-No. Not laser eyes.

-Aw, that's a shame.

The rat's secret weapon is its size.

They may be called giant rats, but they only weigh around 1kg,

which is much too light to set off a landmine.

So these resourceful rodents can sniff out the mines

without suddenly entering orbit.

And once they've found them, their human colleagues can set to work

putting the mines out of action once and for all.

And remember, kids, never go back to a landmine once you've lit it.

The rats are so good at their job

that in just 20 minutes they can cover the same amount of land

that humans would take five days to search.

To date, they've cleared over 13,000 mines,

which means the farmers can get on with their job

without having to worry about where they tread.

And if that doesn't qualify the African giant pouched rat

for superhero status, I don't know what does.

Agreed.

-DISTANT:

-'Help! Help!'

Tim! That sounds like someone in distress.

Quick, this is your big chance to be a superhero.

Yes, it is. Ha...

-Come on, what are you waiting for?

-All right.

Well... I... I haven't got my pants on the outside of my trousers,

-so I can't, really.

-I'll just do it myself then, won't I?

-What?

See you later, Wonder Boy.

Oh!

It's Wonder Man, actually.

# They're wild and weird Wild and weird

# Really, really wild And really, really weird

# They're wild and weird Wild and weird

# They're really, really wild

# They're really, really wild and weird

# Wild and weird! #