Global News Podcast The Happy Pod: Beers, braids and bonding
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Mar 21, 2026 
Lawrence Price, fatherhood advocate and co-creator of Pints and Ponytails, and Matthew Lewis-Carter, fellow co-creator, talk about dads learning braids, bonding with daughters and opening up about parenting and mental health. BBC reporter Lucy Atchison also explores turning plastic waste into Parkinson’s medicine. Plus rhinos return to Uganda, healthy ageing gets a boost, and a Moroccan souvenir rock stuns scientists.
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Pints And Ponytails Turns Hair Braiding Into Bonding
- Pints and Ponytails uses hair-braiding as a social tool to help fathers connect with daughters and talk more openly with each other.
- Matthew Lewis-Carter and Lawrence Price saw nervous dads relax in a pub, then discuss parenting, mental health, and sharing more of the invisible load at home.
Plastic Waste Became A Parkinsons Drug
- University of Edinburgh researchers converted PET packaging plastic into levodopa, the main Parkinson's treatment, using engineered E. coli at room temperature in about 24 hours.
- The method reframes plastic waste as carbon feedstock and could cut fossil-fuel use if bio-upcycling works at commercial scale.
Uganda Returned Rhinos To Kedepo After 43 Years
- Rhinos returned to Uganda's Kedepo National Park for the first time since the species was wiped out there in 1983.
- Dr James Misenguzi said Uganda grew a seed population from six to 61, then moved two of eight planned southern white rhinos into the wild with community support.