The Happy Pod: An island of strangers saved our wedding

This BBC Podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. So, quick summer recap. Heat waves, data leaks, AI hacks, holding phones, and a viral spinally challenge record. Yeah, I think that covers it, right? I'm Thomas Germain. I'm Jess Maddox, and the interface is back from its summer break. New season, new co-host, same deep dives into the tech that's shaping our world in our lives. So before AI wipes out all of humanity? Allegedly. Join us for the interface. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcast. This is The Happy Pod from the BBC World Service. I'm Holly Gibbs, and in this edition. It was a joke at first. I was like, "Why don't we just invite the entire island?" And then everybody actually really liked the idea. We went to bed Thursday night, and we didn't have a venue. We didn't have anything planned. Friday morning, we wake up, and there's an entire wedding plan for us. Find out how one island and hundreds of strangers saved their wedding day. Also on this podcast, the Labrador that's been crowned animal of the year. I'm completely an actually proud of her. She does deserve actually getting rewarded for the work that she does, because she's an amazing dog. Plus, could archaeologists have found the world's oldest shipwreck? And. You have a lot of patients from home when they lost their hair. They describe it as losing a limb. So the idea that you have an option to give a good number of these patients their hair back is incredibly exciting. The drug trial, which could bring hope to people living with alopecia. When a storm washed out the only road connecting North Carolina's outer banks, one couple thought their dream wedding on Hatteris Island had been ruined. Kimberly and Jaden Sink were left without suppliers, guests and even a wedding cake. That was until they appealed to the local community for help. To their amazement, the island rallied together to put on their special day. And in the end, the couple estimated that between 500 and 800 strangers attended their wedding. The happy pod's Riley Farrell has been speaking to Kimberly and Jaden about how it all started. Back when we first heard that we needed to get to the island a little bit early, just because the road was going possibly be closed. We kind of expected it just to be closed for a day, which would have been Thursday. So by the time Friday rolled around, we thought that all of our family and stuff would be able to make it over. But when we got there and really saw the conditions, I believe there was like winds that were 45 miles per hour. The waves, they were like absolutely just leading the sand dunes the back of our Airbnb where we were staying and planned to have our wedding originally. It honestly looked like the waves at any minute. We're going to come over the dunes and flood the backyard. It was very upsetting to kind of see everything piece by piece fall apart. But at the same time, I knew that Jaden did everything that he could in order to put my dream wedding together. He worked hard all year. So you tried to stay positive about everything. And even if we didn't get to celebrate our wedding, we could have at least made a vacation out of it. But he was definitely more upset than I was. Oh yeah, I mean, imagine you put aside $30,000. It felt really defeating. Like all my work that could have went to progressing us further in life, went to this thing that isn't even going to come to fruition. You know, the wedding we wanted was supposed to be intimate. We wanted to be a little bit of a celebration. You know, we were okay with 45 people, but we felt like 45 people was a lot. So the five to 800 people that showed up, that was eight blood. Oh my god. I wouldn't have had it any other way, honestly at this point. And Kim, how did the idea go of, you know, let's invite the whole island that maybe started as like an idea or Joe? When did that become a plan? Take me to that moment. Thursday night, we were all sitting outside on the porch. She's kind of talking about how everything was kind of a bummer and how we were kind of discouraged and everything. But then I made, it was a joke at first. I was like, why don't we just invite the entire island and see how it goes. And then everybody actually really liked the idea. So Jaden went ahead told his friend Brandon and Brady and then Brandon's girlfriend Lexi too. She started posting all over the internet, trying to find a different venue for us. And what was your reaction on the internet? You know, hundreds of strangers started responding to y'all online. Tell me what you thought about that. I was absolutely astonished. I did not expect the post to get as much traction as it did. And I didn't expect so many people wanting to, you know, go to a stranger's wedding either. But I guess everybody was getting a little stir crazy. So being stuck in the house and on the island as well. Was there a moment where you first thought, okay, this actually might be awesome. Our wedding might be saved. Yeah, that was the first thing Friday morning. We went to bed Thursday night and we didn't have a venue. We had people that were interested. We had a lot of people that were interested in coming to our wedding. But we didn't have a venue. So we had nothing basically. Friday morning, we wake up and there's an entire wedding plan for us at Frisco Woods Campus. And so by the powers invested by Almighty God, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, the state of North Carolina, and the universal life church, I now pronounce you. What did you learn about people from this wedding experience? There are good people out there. I absolutely never seen a community come together like this and just for complete strangers at that just to celebrate them and spending the rest of our lives together. Yeah, absolutely. Definitely restored my faith and humanity a little bit. We changed the way I think about community and what a community supposed to be and what kind of community do I want to be a part of. That's definitely something I've been reflecting over. Yeah, it was absolutely unbelievable. We got stranded on the island and our plans were ruined. But then the island came together to save our day and celebrate us. It was amazing. I've never seen or had anything like this happen. Kimberly and Jaden Sink speaking to Riley Farrell. Here in the UK, a black Labrador has just been named as "Animal of the Year". Six-year-old Skier sniffs out an invasive marine creature called the Carpet Sea Squirt. Dr. Texas Sim is a marine mammal ecologist and Skier's handler. I caught up with her and started by asking her why this species is so dangerous. The problem with the species like this is that when it arrives in places that it shouldn't, which is essentially why it's invasive, it can cause big problems with the native ecosystem and often also comes hand in hand with economic issues faced by marine space users. So the species grows very fast. If it gets apart, it can regrow and it will smother infrastructure and it will smother the seabed as well if it gets out of control. So these things do make it essentially a bit of a threat to places that shouldn't be. And you've trained Skier to smell this out yourself, haven't you? Yeah, so I first started working in the fields of ecology detection dogs quite a number of years ago and realized that this was an incredible thing to do with dogs. In 2024, I started my own little microbusiness called conservation detection dogs. When the species is something that we want to train on, there is a very rigorous training and testing kind of protocol that we go through to ensure that the dogs are trained to the highest standards and they can actually do what we want them to do. Could you tell me a bit about Skier? Skier is a fiercely independent dog. I would say she's quite sassy, but that independence allows her to think for herself, which is quite important for this kind of work. And also for mountain rescue as well, which is the other job she has. How proud are you of Skier that she's been named animal of the year? Oh, I mean, yeah, I can't really believe it. I think it hasn't really sunk in until obviously really now. And I'm completely an actually proud of her. And there's a lot of people out there that would say, "This is a story about acute dogs sniffing out something bad." What would you say to that? Why is this actually important? Ecology dogs are used in all sorts of different ways. And this is just one kind of piece of an entire field of people using professional dogs to locate species of all different types in different places to help with conservation. And while dogs are, they're often a tool in the toolbox. So they're not usually the solution to many things, but they allow a much more flexible way of locating certain species in difficult terrain where humans struggle to work as easily. And they can do it with such precision and accuracy. What's next for you and skier? Well, once we've finished with the war ceremony and we'll probably have some decompression time, I think. But for project-wise, we've got quite a lot in the pipeline. I mean, there's the carpets you squirt project and what we can offer with it is definitely developing. And then there's other species in the pipeline. We are also working on the American Slipper Lumpet, which is another marine invasive species which has recently kind of popped up in Scottish waters. And Skie is kind of sealing the limelight here, but this is also an award for you. I came into this field. I'm obviously from Mountain Rescue initially working with dogs, so I had to learn an entire new skill set to take this on seriously and really learn from some incredible handlers. It's amazing to be kind of recognised, but my plan, I'm never finished learning and I will continue to strive to be the best dog handler that I can be, so there's lots of learning and knowledge sharing still that I will be really happy and excited to be doing. Yeah, it's just it's amazing. That was Dr. Texas Sim. As you might have heard in the Global News podcast, archaeologists have found what they believe to be the world's oldest shipwreck. It's just off the coast of Turkey and it's thought to be 4,500 years old, although the ship's wooden structure has not survived, some of the contents are still lying on the seabed. Dr. Karen Sawada from Macquarie University in Australia examined the ceramic jugs and other objects that were recovered. She told my colleague Sarah Montacue that they gave a good indication of how old the wreck was. It's possible to see the date through the cargo that has been deposited on the ocean floor, and so which is essentially anchors and ceramic pots and ceramic pots are like plastic. They are virtually indestructible and just collapse into smaller and smaller pieces. But this wreck has quite a lot of material still visible embedded in the barnacles of the rocks on the on the ocean floor. How significant is the find overall do you think? I think this is a very significant find. This does fill in a missing link in the trade relations of the third millennium VC. It's we now know that and as indeed we have expected for a long time that these trade networks continued from the Middle East across southern Turkey and into the EGN region. I mean the ceramic pots, there's no carbon here so you can't carbon date it. So how do you tell the age? If one thinks of coke bottles they have been manufactured for decades and the shape of coke bottles has changed over time in accordance with materials, the marketing plans of companies, and the same is with ceramics. Ceramics changed over time according to preferences, personal taste, and the needs of the consumer. And so the analysis of pottery, the shape, the method of manufacturing in particular all helps to actually identify the date of the pottery. When you saw them did you know immediately that we're talking about something that's that old? I did because that's why I was invited to the mission because I'm a specialist in transport amphora of the third millennium. I was pretty confident that this was material from the third millennium. It was a case of trying to identify which part of the third millennium do these vessels come from given that the shapes of transport amphora change over that long period of time. The fact that we had these these transport amphoras that had contents inside them at one point as well enabled us to see that we were looking at a trading vessel and the direction in which it was going was a little bit hard to see from simply having the on the bottom of the sea, but certainly a trading vessel that was applying its trade along that eastward route below Turkey. Okay, so there's you must have been excited when they came up when you saw them. Oh, absolutely. And many of them were intact. Having a look inside, there were actually remains of contents sticking to the wall. I mean, I was absolutely shocked when I saw that. After four and a half thousand years underwater, there's still the still the contents can be seen. Oh, gee, I was so surprised. What can you explain that? I mean, as you say, they've been underwater for so long. Why is that not been washed away? Well, that was my first reaction. And then when I took a torch looked inside it and could see that these were these were glossy black residues. They all look almost look sticky, although they weren't, but they were adhering to parts of the interior of the vessel. So I could see them on the base, I could see them on the walls, the sides of the vessel. And I thought, well, it's straight away, that gives me a clue as to what the material might have been. I mean, it's obviously not olive oil, but it is something else that is perhaps something with bitumen or something that's very, very sticky and has impregnated the clay and hardened in a way that meant it has not actually dissolved after four and a half thousand years underwater. Dr Karen Sawada speaking to Sarah Montague. Coming up on the happy part. I got loads of messages after we'd say it in that people were supporting and then there was people down the road and they're like, oh, you're supporting Ethan as well? It's honestly, it was the whole way around it. It's such a pick in me up as well. The marathon runner who had quite the shock when strangers turned up to support him. So a quick summer recap. Heat waves, data leaks, AI hacks, holding phones and a viral spinally challenge record. Yeah, I think that that covers it, right? I'm Thomas Germain. I'm Jess Maddox and the Interface is back from its summer break. New season, new co-host, same deep dives into the tech that's shaping our world and our lives. So, before AI wipes out all of humanity. Allegedly. You're listening to The HappyPod. An ongoing drug trial has suggested that a common arthritis medicine could help people with alopecia regrow their hair. It was discovered when a patient with hair loss was being treated for arthritis and their hair unexpectedly grew back. Dermatologist Arash Mostogini is the lead author on the paper. I caught up with him and started by asking him about the medication. This is a study for a medication called a patisidinib. A patisidinib is a medication that's in the family of medications called jack inhibitors. It's a daily pill that impacts the immune system and is used for a lot of different inflammatory conditions. In this study, we were studying the impact of a patisidinib to regrow hair in patients with alopecia ariata, which is an autoimmune disease of hair loss. Prior to 2022, there were no FDA approved or European approved medications for alopecia ariata. So, those are the first drugs that really worked well came at that time. All of these drugs have been in this same family of medications called jack inhibitors. What this study showed was that the patisidinib worked incredibly well for patients with alopecia ariata, particularly those with severe hair loss, those with who have lost over 50% of their hair, which is the group of patients that was included in the study. And not only did it regrow hair, but seemed to do so much better than the existing drugs on the market. So, it's really a major step forward for patients with this condition. What has the feedback been from the people who have taken part in the trial? One of the most joyful things that you can do as a dermatologist who runs clinical trials, which is something that I'm fortunate to be, is to be with people who have regrown their hair in a study or from a medication that you've given them. And hair is such an important part of who we are. And losing hair is really associated with a lot of psychosocial challenges. So, you have a lot of patients from home when they lost their hair, they describe it as losing a limb. So, the idea that you have an option to give a good number of these patients their hair back is incredibly exciting. Why did you want to research this? My story is a personal one. My my daughter who is now 17, amazingly, when she was five, she lost all of her hair. She developed alopecia ariata. And when you lose all your hair on your scalp and your body, so this includes eyebrows, eyelashes, the rest of your body hair. That's called alopecia universalis. And, you know, my work is at Harvard Medical School where I see patients. And I also do research. And I felt that as a dermatologist who was in an academic center, I had skills in health services outcomes and clinical trials research that I could apply to this setting. It just happened at the timing that I was doing this coincided with those development of the new medications in alopecia ariata, which was a really exciting time to enter the field. It's been really joyful from both a personal standpoint and also really wonderful to see the progress we've made in the field to help patients. Well, that leads me onto my next question, which is how does it feel to be part of research that is going to help people with a really serious health condition? It's incredibly affirming and exciting. You know, what's funny is you have these individual moments, like the publication of this study, which are exciting and celebratory moments. And what people don't see is the, you know, thousands of people who did, you know, tens of thousands of hours of work. Sometimes we're very mundane, basic things to make sure that we have the quality of effort and execution and understanding to know how to construct these trials so we can really come up with answers for patients. It all sounds very, very promising and hopeful for people with alopecia. What is next? So next, hopefully, we get approval for this medication in the United States. And then if this drug is approved, we'll have four medications for alopecia ariata approved. All of them are in the same category. And it's so wonderful to have medication. But this is a little bit like going to an ice cream shop and they say we have you know six flavors and all of them are vanilla You know, so there may be slight variations or differences between them But the theme is very similar But the next step is really as we begin to understand better the biology of alopecia Riyada to move towards making drugs that are more Specific toward the inflammation alopecia Riyada and don't and leave the rest of the immune system intact That was a rash moster gamey now to the fastest sport in the world That's top-fuel drag racing Unlike most motor sports women are dominating at the highest level men and women race head-to-head and female drivers have won seven of the past nine European championships Sweden, Suzanne, Kallen has been the driver to beat taking the title for the past two years The happy pods Helena books spoke to Suzanne about why women are thriving in this high octane sport Drag racing is the quickest accelerating sport on earth so we're basically just trying to go as quick as we can On a quite short distance like on a straight distance And how does it feel to be sitting in the car as it's accelerating to over 300 miles an hour? These are very you know rushing you know like the adrenaline is definitely flowing When we sit in the car and I have about around five geez positive geez in the start maybe four to five But the big thing is that on the other end of the track when we're going to try to break these 300 miles per hour Because we don't have any actually breaks as such So we do have these parachutes that come out and it takes a long time to slow down And how did you get into top-fuel drag racing because obviously it's quite a niche sport Yes, so I think there's not many people actually girls that sort of wake up out the blue in like one day like I want to do drag racing But it's very common that it is generational things are my family, my dad and my uncle and my cousin raised And I was always at a race track from my very very little so I always used to come with them and just you know hang out and love it When you were younger and starting out in the sport was there a lot of female representation in the sport even then I know is that a more recent thing I think female representation has been there and even though drag racing has done you know such an amazing job and it took a long time before even realized that drag racing is different in the whole gender equality But even if you look at it, it's still the majority, it's still by far men So there's no getting around that You know when I was a little girl I mean I started racing, I'm Swedish, I grew up in Sweden and then they were women doing even top-fuel then or other classes So they've always been around, they've always been role models and they've all done their jobs It's not really a big deal when I started because it's always sort of always been the case I've seen drag racing being described as the most gender equal mode of sport of all of them, would you say you agree with that do you feel that women are welcomed and respected in the sport? Yes, I would totally agree that it's the most gender equal and when I started I did not think of it that much It's only now growing up and realising and having a look at other sports to actually think like oh hang on this isn't the case everywhere And even more recently part of this whole more than equal study and everything, just realising what the case is in go-cutting and growing in all this whole formula one and women And then I said drag racing should be extremely proud and everyone is but it's also we don't make that much of a big deal about it It is normal, it's how it's always been and it's just how we do it And what would you advice be to women and girls who are wanting to get into a sport? I think I'd advise to be, I mean I can't really speak for the other motorsports but when it comes to drag racing it's just to come to an event Come and see what it's all about, come and talk to people and I can absolutely guarantee you that people are going to help you I think I can always go into it, it's something you're a member for life You've won the Top Fuel European Championship for the past two years in a row now Can you talk me through what it was like when you realised you'd won the title? We worked so hard and all my team and all the guys and so we were super happy so we're super proud and then then a two in a row and maybe even three sounds even better Helena Burke speaking to Suzanne Callan We end in Chicago with a tale of strangers coming together Ethan Woodhead travelled there to compete in the city's marathon He went alone with nobody to support him Or so he thought Sarah Lewis has this report Imagine running a marathon, thousands of miles from home thinking nobody knows you only to find strangers cheering your name Ethan Woodhead travelled across the pond alone to compete in the Chicago marathon I didn't expect one person that you know I travelled out here on my own I don't know anyone here I don't know anyone that lives here I fully expected to come here, run the marathon, go home and that'd be that It really has been the whole of Chicago It's wonderful, it's social media put to the correct usage I mean I had more support here than I did in Guernsey and that's saying something that's my home marathon But here it was it was it's wonderful really I can't really put it into words, you know I had confetti, I had people screaming my name I had homemade banners, I mean it's like you can't really write it I'm just I'm lost for words, this whole thing has just been such a special experience Ethan's uncle Phil Woodhead just wanted to do something nice for his nephew So he posted an appeal on Facebook asking people to cheer him on He says he had no idea how far that post would reach What they've done for him has just been beyond what I was hoping for I was hoping for one or two signs, I was hoping for him to have a surprise cheer He's gone 5,000 miles away and you know I was hoping someone might hold up a sign with his name And for him to be shocked as he ran past, you know that's how I envisaged it in my mind I really wanted Ethan to have some level of support over there when his friends and family rapsent On Friday evening I was at home and I thought you know what why don't I ask people go and spectate the marathon without anyone to cheer for Why don't I ask can see if someone can cheer for Ethan on my behalf I found the most prominent Facebook group for the Chicago marathon And I just put a very simple post And I just said my nephew's flying over so low he's running the marathon without friends or families there on his own I said if you're going and you have no one to support please consider cheering for my nephew on my behalf That was on Friday evening and it very quickly picks up traction So I woke up on Saturday morning and I think two and a half thousand people had liked the post Did you ever even expect the post to get that much attention? Of course not, no I mean look I'm an old man I don't know how social media works I genuinely thought that maybe if I could get one or two people to cheer his name and like I said surprise him I'd have been incredibly happy We had a commitment from so so many people It blew me away, it became incredibly overwhelming in the most wonderful, wonderful way Ethan says the support made a huge difference I got loads of messages after we're saying that people were supporting and then there's people down the road And they're like are you supporting Ethan as well? Honestly it was the whole way around it, it's such a pick me up as well I mean marathon's not an easy thing so to have that kind of support I mean it really just gets you around the course so much easier What's actually going through your mind like when you're in the middle of a marathon You're trying to get a really good time and you've got all these strangers holding signs and cheering for you Saying go go Ethan like supporting you back from Chicago to help your uncle Stuff like that, like how did that make you feel? Oh it's wonderful, I'm very happy with my time I did two hours thirty one thirty one seconds Which is a big PB from my current PB which I did in all my last PB Which I did in Guernsey this year To be honest you kind of forget that you're racing I mean I did anyway I was so overwhelmed and taken back from all of these kind people on the side of the roads I mean they don't know me they didn't have to do that You know I took it all in I soaked it all in you know I was allowing people kisses You know it's high five and people you know kind of the most exciting thing that has ever happened to me So I was mixed emotions but I'm just so grateful it's been the best experience Ethan Woodhead ending that report by Sarah Lewis And that's all from the happy pod for now We'd love to hear from you as ever the address is global podcast at bbc.co.uk The editor of this edition is Karen Martin I'm Holly Gibbs until next time goodbye So quick summer recap Heat waves, data leaks, AI hacks, holding phones and a viral spinally challenge record Yeah I think that that covers it right I'm Thomas Germain I'm Jess Maddix and the interface is back from its summer break New season, new co-host, same deep dives into the tech that's shaping our world and our lives So before AI wipes out all of humanity Allegedly Join us for the interface Listen on bbc.com or wherever you get your podcasts (upbeat music)