Rob Newman tells the story of a species we've lost forever, and explores our role in their extinction.

Miss Waldron's Red Colobus was a black and russet-coloured West African monkey.

It was living in the treetops in large, sociable troops, when human activity began to encroach on their land, and their way of life.

Produced at BBC Bristol by Emily Knight.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in November 2019.

Since the human genome was first sequenced nearly 20 years ago, around a million people have had theirs decoded, giving us new insights into the links between genes, ancestry and disease. But most of the genomes studied have been in people of European descent. Now a decade-long collaboration between scientists in the UK and in Uganda has created the largest African genome dataset to date. Dr Deepti Gurdasani discusses her research with Gaia Vince.

After 7 years of orbiting the Earth and sending us important information about space weather, NASA’s Van Allen Probes are retiring. Professor Lucie Green from UCL explains how the sun can spit out superhot plasma and streams of high energy particles in our direction. We are mostly protected by the Earth’s magnetic field - but not always. The worst-case scenario is that the radiation could disrupt navigation satellites and bring down electrical power supplies. Professor Green will be keeping an eye on space weather with a new spacecraft.

Growing evidence shows that repeatedly getting your head knocked around during competitive sports can lead to long-term serious consequences. The head doesn’t necessarily need to be the target of the blow – a hard tackle can ricochet through your body giving your head a jolt. Roland Pease speaks with sports scientist Liz Williams of Swansea University about a new device to measure these impacts.

Presenter: Gaia Vince Producers: Jen Whyntie and Louisa Field

Redzi Bernard is this year's winner of the 'Journey of a Lifetime' travel bursary where the RGS -in conjunction with Radio 4 - awards £5000 to someone with a brilliant idea for a radio adventure.

Redzi recreates a journey her mother made in 1968 through the Ethiopian mountains to the holy city of Lalibela, often referred to as the 8th Wonder of the World.

She begins in the capital Addis Ababa where her parents met and after night of Ethiopian jazz she hits the road north, avoiding ethnic clashes along the way. With guides and mules Redzi embarks on an arduous trek into the mountains to find a vertiginous landscape, gelada baboons and children - who've never seen foreigners before - fleeing on sight.

Her destination, Lalibela, is a complex of Ethiopian Orthodox churches all hewn out of a single piece of rock below ground level. She arrives to find a scene of pilgrimage and devotion unchanged for centuries. Redzi reflects on her own pilgrimage and struggle as well as that of her mother, who is suffering from cancer.

Producer Neil McCarthy

The arts are flourishing in Rwanda. This richness in theatre, literature, dance, film and photography has been made possible by exiled Rwandan artists who moved back home after the 1994 Genocide Against the Tutsi. Many of them were born overseas. Their parents fled the start of ethnic violence that began 60 years ago in 1959. They came back to build a new home: both literally and creatively.

Dr Zoe Norridge speaks to returnee artists who grew up in Uganda, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Belgium, the UK and France to discover what it was that drew and continues to draw those in the diaspora back. Why did they leave the places where they grew up for a country with such a difficult history? And what contribution have these artists made to rebuilding both the arts and the nation?

Choreographer Wesley Ruzibiza, writer and musician Gaël Faye, theatre director Hope Azeda and actor and artist Natacha Muziramakenga, among others, explain how returnee artists drew on their international upbringing to question what it means to be Rwandan, generate new ideas and rebuild both the arts and their home.

Dr Zoe Norridge is a Senior Lecturer in African and Comparative Literature at King’s College London. She recently translated Yolande Mukagasana’s survivor testimony Not My Time to Die and is Chair of the Ishami Foundation.

Produced by Philippa Geering An Overtone production for BBC Radio 4

Was your A-level grade correct?

Teenagers around the country have been getting their exam results in recent weeks but do they know whether the grades they receive are really accurate? The Times doesn’t think so. They ran a headline earlier this month that said that 48% of A Level results were wrong. Where did they get that number from and is it true? Ben Carter talks to Dennis Sherwood who’s been looking at the data.

The chances of giving birth

Charlotte, the producer of the show, is due to have a baby in mid-October. What are the chances she will give birth before the end of the series on October 4? Emily Oster, author of Cribsheet and Expecting Better crunches the numbers to find out how worried Tim Harford and the editor should be.

Chernobyl disaster deaths

The recent TV miniseries ‘Chernobyl’ has stirred up debate online about the accuracy of its portrayal of the explosion at a nuclear power plant in the former Soviet state of Ukraine. We fact-check the programme and try and explain why it so hard to say how many people will die because of the Chernobyl disaster.

Ethiopian trees – a world record?

In Ethiopia, the government says 350 million tree seedlings were planted in one day recently, claiming it broke the world record. It’s part of a wider plan to plant four billion this year. There’s been a lot of praise for the country’s efforts, but many have raised concerns about the numbers.

Betty Bigombe spent much of her career trying to negotiate peace with the notorious warlord Joseph Kony. She was born in northern Uganda as one of 11 children. Betty focused on her education from an early age. She won a fellowship at Harvard where she received an MA in Public Administration. On returning to Uganda, she was asked by the newly-installed president to go back to the north of the country, where she grew, up to try and stop the war raging there. The only way to do that was to convince Joseph Kony to engage in peace talks.

Ivan Larenjeira takes us on a Road Trip through Mafala in Maputo Mozambique.

Boko Haram is ranked as one of the world’s deadliest terrorist groups. It’s shock tactics include the mass kidnapping of schoolgirls and the use of female suicide bombers. In the city of Maiduguri in North East Nigeria Stacey Dooley meets Falmata. She was kidnapped by Boko Haram at the age of 13, forced to marry three times and finally strapped to a suicide belt and sent out on a bombing mission. Astonishingly Falmata managed to escape to tell her painful story. But not all women in Boko have been forced to join. Some are there through choice. Ammabua believed in Boko Haram’s ideology. She volunteered for a suicide-bombing mission, which she thought would send her to paradise. Fate intervened and she survived. Now separated from Boko Haram, she is trying to reintegrate into a society of people she was once willing to kill.

Everyone knows how China is changing Africa but what is less well known is how Africa is changing China. Linda Yueh uncovers the growing number of African’s who are moving to work and live in China. She investigates problems some African’s are having obtaining Chinese visas, and instances of perceived racism. She also hears success stories of African businessman now employing local Chinese workers and reasons why Africans prefer China over western countries to make their life. But are the Chinese willing to accept living side by side with a new African community keen to explore opportunities in their homeland?

Ihlan Omar is the 37-year-old Somali-born US congresswoman - one of only two Muslim women ever elected to Congress - who's become a thorn in President Trump’s side and on the receiving end of his temper. Omar was one of four congresswomen Trump told to “go back” to where they came from. So who is Ilhan Omar, why has she got the President’s back up - and what's he really up to in targeting her? Mark Coles has been finding out.

Thank you to Norah Shapiro for use of clips from her documentary 'Time for Ilhan'.

Researchers: Khadidja Ndiaye and Kirsteen Knight Producer: Phoebe Keane

With the rise in ethical consumerism, Assignment explores the hidden suffering of tea workers in Africa. Attacked because of their tribal identity, reporter Anna Cavell hears harrowing stories of murder, rape and violence and asks whether more could, or should, have been done to protect them when trouble broke out.

Producer: Nicola Dowling Reporter: Anna Cavell Editors: Gail Champion & Andrew Smith

(Photo: Freshly plucked tea leaves. Credit: Getty Creative Stock)

Jérôme Galabert, manager of Sakifo Records, reports from the small volcanic island of Réunion in the Indian Ocean; home to traditional Maloya and Sega music

In February 2018, British Art Historian and broadcast Dr Gus Casely-Hayford started his dream job as Director of the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art.

Located in Washington DC, on the National Mall, it’s home to one of the world's finest collections African art, both ancient and modern.

The challenges are huge, and it’s all going marvellously well - until political events threaten to derail their upcoming exhibition and ability to fundraise. So the race is on to make up for lost time.

We follow Gus’s action-packed first year in office. He has ambitious plans for the museum - remodelling its physical spaces, increasing its digital reach and education programs. But he’s also striving to broker new partnerships with US and African institutions, creating a more equitable and collaborative museum sector. We follow Gus to Yale University which has been leading the way for higher education with their Africa Initiative.

Narrated by Noma Dumezweni Produced by Victoria Ferran A Just Radio production for BBC Radio 4

Bill Odidi reports on the varied musical traditions of Tanzania; from the Chaga communities on the slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro, to the taarab music of Zanzibar

A mountain welcome dance and processional wedding music of the Kabyle people; dancer Amel Tafsout introduces the amazingly varied and rich musical traditions of Algeria

As Libya edges towards civil war, Becky Milligan looks at the life of the man behind the most recent conflict, which began with his military assault on the city of Tripoli.

Known as "The Strongman", Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar comes from a family of soldiers and as a young man admired his fellow army student Muammar Gaddafi, who would later denounce him after their disastrous defeat in a war in Chad.

He was given refuge by the Americans and ended up living for twenty years in Langley, Virginia, home of the CIA, before returning to Libya, with the self-proclaimed aim of saving the country from extremists.

Producers Smita Patel & Tural Ahmedzade Editor Andrew Smith

James Isabiyre reports from Uganda, and explores musical traditions from indigenous communities before the country's political upheaval in the late 1960's

Traditional benga music to Afro-fusion, plus legend Ayub Ogada plays the nyatiti (Kenyan harp); broadcaster Bill Odidi reports from Nairobi in this week's road trip

Neil MacGregor visits different countries to talk to leading political, business and cultural figures to find out how they, as individuals and as members of their broader communities, see Britain. Neil visits Nigeria to meet Nobel Laureate for Literature, Wole Soyinka; Yeni Kuti, dancer, singer and eldest child of Afrobeat pioneer Fela Kuti; and Muhammadu Sanusi II, the Emir of Kano.