Recent episodes

by Laura Martin-Coll and Siamak Redhai

“With the strange feeling that my ancestors were roaming free in Africa, all of a sudden, I was born in a plastic bottle containing banana paste, closed with ...

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by Lidunka Vocadlo

Standing on the Earth, you’d probably think it’s made of rock. And you’d be right – mostly. In fact, what you’re standing on is the ...

by Joanna Haigh

All the energy in the Earth’s climate system comes from the Sun. The distribution of solar radiation across the globe drives the weather patterns, winds, ...

by Heather Graven

In 2016, the atmospheric carbon dioxide or CO2 concentration was 404 parts per million, approximately 40% higher than it was before the start of the ...

by Philip Pogge von Strandmann

When we consider ancient life on Earth, our minds conjure images of plains populated by land animals, like gentle-giant dinosaurs. However, land animals are a ...

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by Mary Wellesley

In 1930, the chief librarian of the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York, Belle da Costa Greene, was approached about a rare medieval panel painting by the Spanish master Jorge Inglés. The painting was to be offered to the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s board of trustees by its purchasing agent, ...

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by Luke Fenton-Glynn

In the cult film Dude, Where’s My Car?, Jesse and Chester wake up in their house, after a night of partying, and are unable to ...

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by Emily Mayhew

Paris, 1917. A neuroscientist, Augusta Dejerine-Klumpke, arrived for work. A wind from the east carried the sound of artillery and gunfire up and down the ...

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by Adam Smith

In December 1955, at the Holt Street Baptist Church, Martin Luther King, Jr., made a speech that he intended, he later said, to “be militant ...

by Luke Fenton-Glynn

In the cult film Dude, Where’s My Car?, Jesse and Chester wake up in their house, after a night of partying, and are unable to ...

by Hillel Steiner

One of the more rarely encountered phenomena in this world is agreement between people on opposing sides of the left-right political spectrum. And yet there ...

by Miguel Dos Santos

Once upon a time there was an emperor who was so fond of dressing up that he cared about doing little else. One day, a ...

by John Mullan

In this podcast, Dickens expert John Mullan takes us on a journey through this great writer's mind, touching on his relationship to London, dreams, Bedlam, and more.

by Katy Clough

For any theoretical physicist, there is a moment when you know you have “made it”, and that moment is when you receive your first letter from someone who claims to ...