B1 · Finding your flow
Polly's weekly adventures and real-world stories.
- A corrida em que o queijo sempre vence Once a year in England, people chase a wheel of cheese down a dangerously steep hill, and the cheese almost... Audio
- Dois animais novíssimos, cada um do tamanho de uma unha Scientists in Montenegro just described two snail species new to science, found on limestone cliffs in a... Audio
- O dia em que um bicho de verdade quebrou um computador In nineteen forty-seven, engineers found an actual moth stuck inside a giant computer, taped it into their... Audio
- O camarão com um sol dentro da garra A small ocean shrimp snaps its claw so fast that it creates a flash of heat nearly as hot as the surface of... Audio
- A casa dividida entre dois países In a small town on the Belgian-Dutch border, some houses sit in two countries at once, and the front door... Audio
- O exército que perdeu para pássaros In nineteen thirty-two the Australian military was sent against emus eating the wheat crop in Western... Audio
- Chimpanzés têm sotaques A new study of more than eleven thousand recorded calls found that young chimpanzees in different parts of... Audio
- A internet fica debaixo d'água Almost all international internet traffic travels along cables lying on the sea floor, which break... Audio
- O animal que faz cubos Wombats are the only known animal to produce cube shaped droppings, and the corners are formed by uneven... Audio
- A cidade que vive dentro de um único prédio Almost every resident of Whittier, Alaska lives inside a single fourteen storey building reached through a... Audio
- Esse pássaro dorme enquanto voa Frigatebirds stay in the air for days over open ocean, and researchers put recorders on their heads to find... Audio
- O almoço que um país inteiro come In the Dominican Republic the main meal lands at midday, it is almost always the same three things, and the... Audio
- Seu mapa estaria errado antes do almoço Satellite clocks tick faster than clocks on the ground, and if nobody corrected for it your phone would... Audio
- Você brilha. Ninguém consegue ver. Human skin gives off a faint light all day long, and a Japanese team photographed it in a sealed dark room. Audio
- Esse azul existe em um único lugar A stony beach in the Dominican southwest, one pebble that is blue all the way through, and the single... Audio
- Um café, dois países In one small town, the border between Belgium and the Netherlands runs straight through streets, houses and... Audio
- Suas mensagens viajam debaixo d'água Almost everything you send across an ocean travels through cables lying on the sea floor, not through... Audio
- A praia que brilha azul à noite On some warm coasts, the sea lights up electric blue when you touch it. The light comes from billions of... Audio
- O hotel que se move enquanto você dorme On a European night train, you fall asleep in one country and wake up in another, with the Alps outside... Audio
- O jantar cozido por um vulcão On a green island in the Azores, cooks lower a pot into a hot hole in the ground and let the earth slowly... Audio
- O castelo em que o rei quase não morou A Bavarian king built a fairy-tale castle on an alpine crag, slept there only a handful of nights, and left... Audio
- Caminhando pelo fundo do mar Twice a day the North Sea pulls back for kilometres, and people walk barefoot across the bare seabed before... Audio
- Por que o celular morre no frio Your phone shows forty percent battery, then dies in the snow. The battery is not empty. It is cold, and... Audio
- A cidade que desenterrou um rio For fifty years, Seoul hid a river under an elevated highway. Then the city tore the highway down, and the... Audio
- Dez quilômetros de altura Passenger planes cruise about ten kilometres above the ground. That number is not random: it is where the... Audio
- O último trem In Tokyo, the trains stop around midnight. Tomas learns this five minutes too late, and discovers where the... Audio
- Humanos antigos prosperaram na floresta tropical Scientists once thought ancient humans avoided rainforests. New evidence from West Africa says they thrived... Audio
- Por que o mel de três mil anos atrás ainda é comestível Honey jars from Egyptian tombs three thousand years old are still edible. The chemistry behind a food that... Audio
- A partida de tênis que durou três dias The longest tennis match ever played: Isner vs. Mahut, Wimbledon 2010, eleven hours, three days, a final... Audio
- O polvo que abriu a fechadura An octopus called Inky escaped his aquarium tank at night through a drain pipe, and what it reveals about... Audio
- Um Braço Que Prova o Que Toca Octopus suckers contain special receptors that let an arm taste whatever it touches, even in total darkness. Audio
- O Maior Prémio de Sempre no Atletismo A brand new athletics championship this month paid its winners more than the sport has ever offered before. Audio
- Ensinar um Computador a Falar Baleia Researchers are using artificial intelligence to search for real structure inside the clicking patterns of... Audio
- O Batimento Lento das Árvores Laser scans at night revealed that trees pulse gently every few hours, possibly pumping water through their... Audio
- Flores às Três da Manhã At three in the morning, Bangkok's biggest flower market is more awake than midday, and it never really... Audio
- O Círculo e o Barco da Manhã The Ring of Brodgar at dusk, then the small practical business of leaving an island, done in four sentences... Audio
- O Cereal de Noventa Dias In a bar in Kirkwall, a flat dark bannock turns out to be the reason the islands were farmable at all. Audio
- O Ajuntamento nos Rochedos Grey seals are hauling out on the low rocks before the pupping season, and the questions Polly has been... Audio
- Feita Com o Que Tinham On Lamb Holm, two army huts hold a chapel that prisoners of war made out of scrap, and the only honest... Audio
- A Aldeia Debaixo da Tempestade At the Bay of Skaill, a guide with a carrying voice explains a village that a storm returned to the light... Audio
- A Cadeira Junto à Lareira A guesthouse above the harbour, an argument about what counts as a quiet room, and a chair whose whole... Audio
- O Barco Chega Polly lands at Stromness off the morning boat and works out, one question at a time, how a place with no... Audio
- Dez Mil Atletas, Uma Noite de Abertura The 2026 Asian Games, hosted jointly by Aichi and Nagoya, Japan, bring together roughly ten thousand... Audio
- O Banco Que Só Aceita Queijo An Italian bank keeps a vault holding more than half a million wheels of Parmigiano Reggiano, accepted as... Audio
- A Percentagem da Bateria É um Palpite A phone's battery percentage is not a direct measurement, but an estimate calculated from voltage and... Audio
- Esta Praia É Feita de Lixo A sparkling beach in Northern California is made entirely of old dumped glass, smoothed into colorful... Audio
- Não Há Quarto Andar em Lado Nenhum In much of East Asia, elevators skip the number four entirely, because it sounds exactly like the word for... Audio
- A Névoa Fecha-se Atrás Dela On her last afternoon, Polly flies high over the island one more time before fog rolls in and hides it... Audio
- Uma Aldeia Ligada a um Vulcão Polly finds the same underground heat that cooked lunch also fills a giant public pool and warms homes,... Audio
- Jantar Enterrado ao Amanhecer Polly watches a cook lower sealed pots into holes heated only by the volcano below, where dinner cooks for... Audio
- Uma Cratera, Duas Cores Polly finds one huge old crater holding two lakes side by side, one blue and one green, joined underneath... Audio
- A Ave Dada Como Perdida Duas Vezes Polly searches an old laurel forest for the priolo, a tiny grey and pink bird found only here, once thought... Audio
- Os Dois Últimos Jardins da Europa Polly finds one of only two working tea plantations left in Europe, started after disease wiped out the... Audio
- Nove Ilhas, Três Placas Polly arrives over São Miguel, the largest of the nine Azores islands, and learns that three tectonic... Audio
- Polly apanha o autocarro Polly boards the bus downtown for the first time, with a patient capybara at the wheel and one nervous... Audio
- Polly pergunta o caminho Polly gets lost looking for the library and learns that asking is faster than wandering. Audio
- Polly pede um café Polly finds a corner cafe, orders a coffee with milk, discovers churros, and stays for a while by the window. Audio
- Polly no mercado Berta shows Polly the neighborhood market. Polly asks about an unfamiliar fruit, buys apples, and learns... Audio
- Polly conhece alguém Polly arrives on a new street, meets Berta the bear over the garden fence, and they agree to meet again at... Audio
- Vladivostok Polly arrives in Vladivostok at the end of the 9,289-kilometre Trans-Siberian, stretches her wings, and... Audio
- O Amur Polly reaches Khabarovsk on the sixth day of the Trans-Siberian, sees the Amur River bordering China, and... Audio
- Lago Baikal Polly spends the fifth day of the Trans-Siberian running along Lake Baikal, the deepest and oldest lake on... Audio
- Fusos Horários Polly explores the dining car on the fourth day, learning that the whole train runs on Moscow time across... Audio
- Cruzando os Urais Polly crosses the Ural Mountains, the dividing line between Europe and Asia, on the third day of the... Audio
- As Florestas de Bétulas Polly wakes up on the second morning of the Trans-Siberian, watching the birch forests of European Russia.... Audio
- Estação Yaroslavsky Polly boards the Rossiya at Moscow's Yaroslavsky Station to begin the 9,289-kilometre, seven-day... Audio
- Adeus à Pasta Polly says goodbye to Pasta the octopus and flies out of Naples toward her next destination. Audio
- A Editora de Si Mesma Polly learns that octopuses edit their own RNA in real time, building a brain that is different in each... Audio
- Pizza e o Longo Almoço Polly has the long Italian lunch with Chiara at a Neapolitan pizzeria, learning the protected rules of... Audio
- A Pele que Vê Polly watches Pasta find food under a coloured plate even though octopuses are colour-blind through their... Audio
- O Corpo que Pensa Polly watches Pasta solve a maze with two arms working independently. She learns that two thirds of an... Audio
- O Pote Polly watches Pasta open a screw-top jar to catch a crab, learning that octopus arms taste what they touch... Audio
- A Baía de Nápoles Polly arrives in Naples and is welcomed into the world's oldest marine biology institute, where she meets a... Audio
- Deixando o Vale Polly says goodbye to Ranger Tomas and flies west out of Yosemite, watching a peregrine hunt swifts on her... Audio
- A Via Láctea Sobre Glacier Point Polly watches sunset from Glacier Point and stays for the Milky Way, looking through a park astronomer's... Audio
- Meia Cúpula Polly rides thermals up the 1,500-metre north face of Half Dome with a flock of swifts, reaches the summit,... Audio
- O Falcão Mergulhador Polly tries to copy a peregrine falcon's dive from El Capitan, learning how the falcon's third eyelid and... Audio
- A Sequoia Polly visits Mariposa Grove and perches on the Grizzly Giant, a giant sequoia nearly 3,000 years old,... Audio
- Passeio com o Guarda Tomas Polly spends a morning in Ranger Tomas's truck, learning how he tracks bear feeding in wildflower meadows... Audio
- Acima do Vale Polly arrives at Yosemite Valley from the air, takes in its U-shaped glacial geology, watches climbers on... Audio
- A caneca vazia First day at a new office, a small lesson about asking before assuming. Audio
- Número quarenta e sete A small injury, an old magazine, and a waiting room that teaches patience. Audio
- O comboio para Granada An overheard phone call on the train turns a long trip into a kind of company. Audio
- A livraria errada A simple coffee order leads to a strange conversation about a bookshop that doesn't exist anymore. Audio
- Perdida em Lisboa A wrong turn on a steep street becomes the best part of the trip. Audio
- O quarto 304 tem vista A late check-in turns into a small gift when the hotel runs out of rooms on the lower floors. Audio
- Uma mesa para uma A traveler eats alone in Madrid and discovers the waiter is the real star of the meal. Audio