this is bbc news, the headlines: the us and chinese presidents are to speak on the phone as tensions soar between the two countries. beijing has warned washington it will bear the consequences if house speaker nancy pelosi visits taiwan. the us says it has made a offer to russia to release basketballer brittney griner and former marine paul whelan. secretary of state antony blinken says he'll push his russian counterpart for a response in talks scheduled for the coming days. a new coordination centre has begun work in turkey — part of a complex deal to re—start blockaded grain exports from ukraine.

it's an effort to ease the global food crisis, that is affecting millions of people around the world. now on bbc news, it's time for click. we've got a tasty programme for you this week. when is chocolate not chocolate? when it's made of... kinky salts! don't knock it till you've tried it! right. lj's feeling out of this world as she explores the new ways to tidy up high—speed space trash. we're going to be bathed in lights and sounds, and apart from that, i have no idea what to expect.

and spencer takes a trip to an inner world. yeah, i'm looking at the inside of my own brain. 0h, did you find it? how dare you! 0k, what's this one? oh, that's nice. that's 70% dark, isn't it? good. you know your stuff. mm—hm. and this one? oh, that's very bitter. i'd go 90%. yeah? yeah, you're doing well. now for the big one. there you go. oh, gosh! 0h! oh, that's 100% chocolate, isn't it? oh, that is awful. you did volunteer to be the one to eat the chocolate. tastes like tarmac. cocoa is, of course, the main ingredient of chocolate, and it does have its impact on the environment as well as the communities that harvest it. so my question to you is, do you think it's possible to create something that tasted like that chocolate without the cocoa? well, you could probably create something that's brown, sweet stuff. but if it doesn't have cocoa in, it's not chocolate, right?

well, i've been to see a man who lives on a boat who's been stirring the pot. material scientist drjohnny drain likes to wonder what things could be made of, whether it's a smartphone screen, the michelin—star restaurant dishes he's created or wanting to figure out how to replace cocoa. this is the lab on the boat where the chocolate story begins. oh, wow. come on board. thank you. what's this?! so this is some of the ingredients that we started developing the chocolate with. kinky salt. kinky salts. that's various funky salts from different places all over the world on my travels. dried shrimp. that's not in the chocolate, is it? that is not. and there's some raw cacao, which we were trying to imitate at the very start. but of all the things we try to find replacements for, cocoa may not be

an obvious one. what most people don't realise about cocoa and chocolate is that about 70% of it is produced in just two countries in west africa, ghana and ivory coast, in a way that involves outsized water consumption, so about 20,000 litres of water per kilo, and that's way more than beef or soy or avocados. and there are issues with labour in those parts of the world. at a conservative estimate, it's thought that 1.5 million children are on these cacao farms, working with their families, predominantly. is this, however, not taking away income from countries that really need it? those countries do need that income and those hardworking farmers need to be supported. but the state of the current cacao and chocolate industry is such that those people are working on a dollar or less a day, and it's not an equitable trade. so, this isjohnny�*s story. i grew up in birmingham near the cadbury�*s chocolate factory, so sometimes we could smell the roasting beans, and it was delicious. so i've always eaten a lot of chocolate. and i started thinking, "why does chocolate taste like chocolate? " and, you know, if you put

your scientist hat on, it's just a bunch of compounds. and it's quite complex, but essentially it's just a bunch of compounds. and then thinking, well, can you make that flavour profile starting from something that's not cacao beans? could you start with potatoes or rice? and what is it made from? well, we can't tell you the secrets of exactly what we do, but our hero ingredients are barley, which has this rich tradition of being used to make whisky and beer, and also carob. and we found using this combination of fermentation and roasting, which is what you do to turn cacao into chocolate, we've taken that principle, that philosophy, and turned these ingredients into our alt—choc. and that magic of mixing now happens in the lab. talk me through the process. where does it all start? melt the fat if it needs melting and then just mix it all in the melanger. so, it keeps grinding for 48 hours. and after that, yeah, we just proceed to temper

the chocolate and mould it. so this machine's got to keep going for 48 hours. yeah, that's correct. it looks like it's pretty well mixed now after about 20 seconds. but that's not mixed? no, it's not, because it's all about the particle size. so you want to have, like, the smallest size as possible so you get a nice mouthfeel in your mouth and you don't feel the different grains of the different ingredients. wow, that's quite a process. does normal chocolate go through something like that, as well? yeah, usually it's around that time — a bit less, a bit more. it depends on the type of chocolate that you're having. something i never knew about chocolate. no, it's very scientific, actually. yeah. that's science resulting in a mixture containing 15% less sugar than its chocolate equivalent. and it's full of antioxidants and flavonoids. but how does it taste?

ok, that is looking particularly appetising, so i'll go for this first. right, eating on camera is always very messy. mm! absolutely delicious, but i genuinely wouldn't know that that wasn't cocoa. amazing. it tastes... i would think that was about 60—70% cocoa. that's what we're aiming at with these ones, yeah. yeah. and that is the chocolate that i like. so, my daughter, who loves a kind of cadbury�*s or galaxy milk chocolate, i'm not sure how she'd feel about it. but for someone who is into dark chocolate, wow, i genuinely can't tell the difference. what's your price point going to be like? initially, we'll go in at that level of luxury premium dark chocolate. but within two years we aim to have price parity with mass—produced milk—chocolate prices. and are you going to produce something which is more like the milk chocolate? we'll do both, and we might even do a white chocolate, ultimately.

there are another couple of companies in this space too. but wnwn's bars will go on sale later this year. and they're not only for humans to enjoy. with no theobromine in it, unlike regular chocolate, you can give a piece to your dog... ..if you can bear to part with it. mm! lovely. right, be honest. how many takes did you need for that? they only let me have one of each. i believe you! we believe her, don't we, boys and girls? right, i've got a question for you now. have you ever used a dating app? i've been married since before i even had a smartphone. wow. how about you ? don't ask, actually. 0k. tinder�*s the big one, though, isn't it? it is. and would you believe that tinder is now ten years old? wow. a decade of people swiping left and right. exactly. and for the first time now, the company is being run by a woman.

but the question is, how does having a female boss affect something like a dating app? shiona mccallum's gained exclusive access to find out. let's put a bit of texture in. now relax. they laugh my name is renate nyborg. i'm the ceo of tinder, and i have the honour of allowing people all over the world to experience the magic of human connection. i actually met my future husband on tinder. i was on tinder six - years ago until i found my boyfriend in 2017. as the first female ceo of tinder, do you feel more of a responsibility towards women on the app? i felt like we could do more to specifically focus on the experiences women were having. we increased the number of women on the product team, so the people designing the experiences...the technologies on the app by 30%. does more need to be done to increase the awareness of the safety features on tinder?

since i became ceo, we've started making trust and safety the heart of some of our marketing campaigns. i think the safety features could be a bit better. i personally didn't have any. negative safety experiences. ifeel like i have to be extra cautious about my safety. i mean, being a south african woman, south africa is not the safest country for a minority. 0n tinder, we encourage everyone to be verified. and just in the months that it's been live, we've seen that almost half of our members will self—select to verify themselves. ultimately, i don't think it'sj tinder's100% responsibility to look after us. i think we have to put some personal measures in place| to keep ourselves safe. before i go on a date, there are all these funny measures i take. you know, i'll have to tell, like two friends, i'll have to have a code word. i have to have live location on whatsapp. it's a whole lot of admin. i would make sure that i facetimed with these guys before i met them. i wouldn't just go out with them, not having actually seen that their photo matched

the person that they were. we have a feature called does this bother you?, i which makes it really easy to report something - that you may not feel - entirely comfortable with. we've seen an increase of 50% in people reporting things - that they may not like. there's been an increase of crimes like sexual violence reported starting on dating apps. how does tinder plan to tackle this for women? we're partnering with a uk ngo called no more, whose mission it is to end domestic violence and assault. the way that you interact with someone literally from the very first message may set the tone for the relationships that you have. what's your future vision for tinder? i believe that from the next decade onwards, most new connections, most new relationships will start online, and so we see it as our responsibility to really ensure that those connections that start on tinder, that start with that first swipe, are positive relationships. i've had the most adventurous romantic encounters from

partners i've met on tinder. it is a good wayl to meet people. so i recommend it, - but with some safety caveats that you take yourself- and obviously the features that tinder's introduced. tinder used to be the sort of, like, hookup app, but i've been hearing more and more success stories of couples staying together. and so if we can, you know... ..if your app can create those sorts of relationships by saying, "hey, we're going to make it really safe "for you guys," people might stay in touch a lot longer, feel more comfortable going out and meeting people they normally never would. people will come up to me and tell me all kinds of stories. sometimes they found their best friend on tinder, sometimes they found their business partner. but, most of the time, it's the romantic stories that they have to tell. hello, time for a look at this week's tech news. first up, snapchat is coming to computers. a new snapchat for the web will let users send snaps and make phone calls from their pcs. the tool is being launched in some english—speaking

countries first and will be rolled out worldwide later. twitchcon has taken place in amsterdam. the convention is a gathering place for streamers and a celebration of all things twitch streaming, and it's run by the company itself. but flight cancellations that schiphol airport have left some users annoyed — and you don't want to upset a twitch streamer. that they didn't send a single member of staff to see if we were 0k is absolutely disgraceful. so myself and god knows how many other people were left stranded last night, and probably the next few nights, in amsterdam with no... we were literally left there after waiting at an airport for 10 or 11 hours. lab—grown meat company meatable has unveiled its first cultivated pork sausage. it has been working on the product since 2018 and hopes to start selling it to consumers by 2025. and microsoft has launched a flight simulator for drones.

dubbed project airsim, the tool is intended to train the artificial intelligence systems of autonomous aircraft. space, the filthy frontier. humans successfully put their first object into space in 1957, the sputnik satellite. and, after 75 years of spacecraft being sent into orbit, it's a lot easier to go for launch, but a lot messier once you're up there. governments now have to share space with private companies, and without much in the way of regulation, it's starting to get so congested we don't know exactly what's up there any more — some estimates say around 5,000 satellites in orbit with fewer than half actually working. and when a satellite stops functioning, it

still keeps orbiting, which is a problem for the useful ones. satellites, when they die on these orbital highways, theyjust keep on going at these very fast speeds. some of the relative speeds between satellites that are crisscrossing each other is like 15 times the speed of a bullet. so that's pretty gnarly to think about. and, yeah, every once in a while, two of these things find each other in space at these very high speeds, collide and break up into very smaller pieces and that sort of stuff. and most of the things that could damage a satellite that's providing a service or a capability that we care about, most of those things are not trackable because they're too small. moriba's co—founder of privateer, which tracks space debris. it aims to collect information from many different origins, like telescopes and radars, physical sensors, even news articles, and turn it into usable data for developers. imagine a massive machine—readable spreadsheet where all the data is lined up so the column headings make sense. it's one of many companies

and space agencies taking part in the summit for space sustainability at london's science museum. these are the people hoping to clean up up there. and it's harder than you think, because you can't exactly use a vacuum cleaner in a vacuum. one solution is on—orbit servicing, removing old satellites and refuelling others — yes, a robot mechanic and tow truck in space. another outfit, clearspace�*s, concept shows four arms to catch and hug a dead satellite before cruelly pulling it into the atmosphere to burn it up! sounds complicated ? well, it is rocket science. it is hard, technically. so, going up to space and removing a satellite with some claws, robotic arm or some nets, it's hard to do, right, because operating a robot from hundreds of miles away is tough to do. but it's also tough politically and economically, and with regulations, because there's no real rules that govern how we work in outer space.

like me and the attendees, you'll have worked out why we want to keep things clean in orbit. we use satellites to check the weather, find our way around, even for financial transactions. and a quick look at nasa's interactive website, eyes on the earth, shows there's so much more we can do from space to help with earthbound challenges like climate change. so what sort of things can be measured from space that we might not know about? so, space data and measurements give us notjust beautiful pictures of the earth but also information about weather changes, the climate data, population density and other things that all can be integrated into the solutions that we really need. and here i'm talking about giving farmers, for example, real—time data about when�*s the best time to plant their harvests and when is the best time to harvest their fields. so we depend on space every day. check. and it needs to be tidied up.

check. so how do we help humans think as one big tribe? i mean, we allshare this planet, right? it's not going to be any one thing. governments are going to have to have more regulation. companies are going to have to engage in shared best practices. companies are going to have to exchange information. academia is going to have to continue to study this and give us the data so we can make decisions. most interestingly, these solutions come from companies that compete and cooperate with each other at the same time, an incredibly effective business model, sharing data and ideas to accelerate progress for everyone, because speed is of the essence when it comes to cleaning up after ourselves, then we can keep those orbital highways open for the next generation and beyond. that was lj cleaning up her space. 0k, your turn to close your eyes now. 0k. alright. i'm going to do this. now, what can you see? erm, patterns?

yeah. so, when people look at flickering lights through closed eyelids, different people see different things. it's like when you're on a train and the light�*s shining behind the trees and it comes and goes. exactly. and this is a phenomenon that's been known... you can open your eyes now, by the way. this is a phenomena that's been known about for quite a while. but now there is an experience which is part science, part art, part music and part light that's trying to find out more about how your brain works. and it's pretty trippy. in this building... ..in this room... ..i'm about to have an experience. what kind of experience? possibly this kind of experience. what i saw was like a deep sea. so it's like a sea, and i'm walking down the stairs into the water, and the water is very blue. and i step in the water to feel the atmosphere. and ifelt calm.

we've all been given blankets. we've been told that we've got to sit back and close our eyes and then we're going to be bathed in lights and sounds. and apart from that, i have no idea what to expect. so...here goes nothing. with this project, we wanted to give people a kind of experience where they for themselves recognise the power of their brain in generating everything they experience. i'm in the dreamachine, a 30—minute sound and light show which you experience with your eyes closed. sounds weird, i know, and i think it's going to be. and, apparently, even though we're all under the same lights, our brains will do different things. some people see shapes and colours. some people are, like, just dreaming or having images of, i don't know, the sunshine or nature or the ocean or colours

and rainbows and travelling through space and dimensions. the lights go down, the music comes up and the dreamachine begins. now, the full experience uses strobe lighting, which we can't show you on tv and which means that those who are sensitive to flashing lights will need to do the more gentle version. but what i felt and what i saw, even though my eyes were closed, was really unexpected. even though the strobes are only white light, through my eyelids i saw a kaleidoscope of colours. this is my best attempt to show you the kind of things that i experienced. and along with intricate, swirling and sparkling patterns, there was even something that looked a bit like i was flying through clouds. my brain seemed to take its best guess at what was going on based on the light

signals that it was getting. your brain is always trying to figure out what's going on, and we project patterns into things. and in the dreamachine this is happening, i think to a large extent because the brain is not actually getting any structured visual input. it's just white light, it's just flickering white light. the brain is trying to make sense of it somehow, and it's very hard for it to make sense of what's going on so it makes up a lot of stuff. it makes up stuff that is, i think, very closely related to the underlying wiring of the brain. after the experience, we're invited to try and record what we saw by drawing or using particle simulators. but it was talking about it with my producer romana where we could best record our different experiences. i think the thing that was most amazing immediately was all the colours that i saw. i had loads of colours, whereas you... just the blues and reds. yeah.

no, i really enjoyed it, because i usually don't switch off easily, and here i am very much switched off. do you think you have no choice because your senses are being overwhelmed ? so for people who can't do it in calm situations, if you do the opposite and overwhelm people's senses, they have no choice but to go into almost a defensive meditative state. i think, yeah, because it's really hard for me to enter that stage where i don't have mental chatter, where my mental chatter was gone. but then i was also not "sleeping" sleeping. so it was, i guess, what they say with different brain wavelengths. i'd love to see, actually — which one was i on? and it turns out that romana was spot—on. we use a number of different frequencies in the dreamachine of the flashing light, but the frequencies that are most effective are ones that are around 10 hertz, ten cycles per second, because that's a similar frequency to what we call the alpha rhythm in the brain. one of the things that's

happening in the dreamachine is that your brain is synching to the frequency of the light. the dreamachine was, for me, calming but fascinating. and through thousands of drawings from participants, plus an accompanying online perception census, anil is hoping to learn more about how and why each of us experiences the world differently. the patterns that people see, the colours that people see, the movement that people see, that's very, very tightly linked to the organisation, the wiring, if you like, of the visual cortex in the brain. and it seems that what's happening is that by the strobe light activating the visual cortex in a situation where it's not expecting to be activated because your eyes are closed, deep—seated aspects of the wiring of the brain itself kind of surface into our experience. we see reflections and shadows of the brain looking at itself.

you felt like you were flying. did you really feel weightless? not really. i think my brain was just trying to take its best guess at what was going on based on the signals that it was getting. and everyone has a different experience. they do. and that's why they're trying to get as many people involved as possible, so the dreamachine is leaving london this weekend and then it's going on to belfast and to edinburgh. anyway, that's it from us. i'm going to make lara try and feel like she's flying now. 0k. and i'm going to feed spencer some more chocolate. who needs dating apps, eh? see you. bye— bye! hello there. the weather story's looking pretty benign for the next few days. we'll have very little wind around to move the weather along. but one thing you will notice over the next few days is that it'll be warming up,

particularly across england and wales. most places will be dry, but there will be some showers around — increasingly so across the north and the west of the country as we move into the weekend. so, we've got this weak area of high pressure just to the east of the uk, rather cloudy high, drawing up some warmer airfrom the near continent. but there is a lot of cloud trapped underneath it, so a rather grey day, i think on thursday. showery bursts of rain continuing to affect parts of northern ireland, northern england, southern scotland, certainly through the morning, it'll tend to ease down into the afternoon. could see a few showers developing across western areas, most places will be dry. despite the cloud amounts, it'll feel warmer — 22—24 celsius in the south. we could see 20 celsius or so in the central belt of scotland. so, it looks like it should be a dry affair for the commonwealth games�* opening ceremony in birmingham, temperatures at around 19—20 celsius, so feeling quite mild. now, as we head through thursday night, it looks like most places will hold onto the cloud — again, the cloud will be thickest across parts of northern england, southern scotland, where we could see some splashes of rain. but for most places,

it will be dry, and a milder night to come, lows of 12—14 celsius. so for friday, we start to see this area of low pressure pushing into the far northwest of the country. the breeze will be picking up here later in the day, but much of the uk will be under the influence of high pressure once again. so, we'll start off with quite a bit of cloud around friday morning across northern england, southern scotland. that should tend to fizzle away, and we could see the cloud melt away, as well. so, i think there's a greater chance of seeing the sunshine on friday. the odd shower will develop again into the afternoon, but most places will be dry, 25—28 celsius across england and wales, the low 20s across the north — so feeling a lot warmer. saturday's another warm, muggy day, but we will have more cloud around outbreaks of rain affecting the north and the west of the country, as that weather front continues to push its way eastwards. very little getting into the southeast, the areas where we really do need the rainfall. again, it'll be another warm day — low 20s in the north, up to around 25—26 celsius across the southeast. it stays warm into sunday and monday.

there's always the chance of rain in the north and the west, but tending to stay dry in the south and the east.

this is bbc news. our top stories: the us and chinese presidents are to talk on the phone as bejing warns washington it will bear the consequences if house speaker nancy pelosi visits taiwan. the united states says it's offered russia a deal aimed at freeing the american basketball player, brittney griner. trying to avert a globalfood crisis — the first ships carrying crucial grain supplies prepare to leave ports in ukraine. he's credited with inspiring the global green movement — tributes are paid to the environmentalist, james lovelock, who has died at the age of 103.