Recent episodes

Flying high with the fruit fly

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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Journey to the centre of the Earth – the core of our planet

by Lidunka Vocadlo

Connecting rainforest hunter-gatherers with wildlife conservation? There’s an app for that!

by Simon Hoyte

Medicines in Chains: Reducing side effects with polymers

by Christina Picken

Chemistry
Medicines in Chains: Reducing side effects with polymers

by Christina Picken

Have you ever taken an ibuprofen or a paracetamol for something like a headache and wondered how it knows where to get to? To a ...

Indigo: from blue jean dyes to next generation medicine

by Dennis Chung-Yang Huang

Are you wearing blue jeans today? If so, then you’re carrying around one of the most ancient dyes known in human history: indigo.

With its ...

VIDEO EPISODES
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The woman who unmasked the forger

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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Dude, where's my car? (How philosophy might help you find it!)

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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The invisible killer of World War I: Blast injury

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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Why Martin Luther King had the US Constitution on his side

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 ...

History
The woman who unmasked the forger

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 ...

The Muslim veil

by Katarzyna Falęcka

May 1958, Algeria.

Large crowds gathered on the main squares of Algiers and Constantine, chanting “Long live French Algeria” and “Long live de Gaulle”. While ...

Young travels of self-discovery: Past and present

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 ...

The invisible killer of World War I: Blast injury

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 ...

AUDIO episodes
Walking through Dickensian London

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.

Am I crazy or is it physics

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 ...