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 Oscar Williams

How can the behaviour of a single atom provide insights into our energy demands? How do we know that atoms actually exist? And what on ...

by Matthew Dyson

What do all the electronic gadgets you own have in common? Aside from using electricity, they are always solid, box-like objects, regardless of whether they ...

by Euan McLean

What if I told you that humans have been simulating tiny universes on computers? They're not quite the size of our universe, or even of ...

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 ...

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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 Henrike Lähnemann

Opening a book unfolds a new world. In the case of the pocket-sized prayer-book Oxford, Bodleian Library MS. Lat. liturg. f. 4, it ...

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, ...

by Philip Horne

I’ve spent most of my career working on Henry James, the great American novelist, born in New York City in 1843, who came to Europe ...

by Emma Pauncefort

Taking a ‘year out’ upon leaving school has become pretty commonplace for the English private school girl or boy. Even more commonplace is the decision ...

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 ...