Month: April 2016

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More or Less: Behind the Stats - WS More or Less: The life expectancy of a Pope

Life expectancy of a Pope

In 2014 Pope Francis alluded to the fact he didn?t expect to live more than another two or three years. A group of statisticians have taken a look at the life expectancy of popes over the centuries and decided that he may have been rather pessimistic.

The curse of the London Olympics

In a similar vein, is there an unusually high death count among athletes who took part in the London Olympics in 2012? The French press seem to think there is. Currently news reports estimate that 18 people have so far died since taking part in the sports event. The athletes come from teams around the world and have died from all sorts of causes ? from cancer to drowning, murder, suicide, a helicopter crash among other things. But is there really a link between taking part in the London Olympics and the chances of dying? Or is it to be expected, statistically speaking, that 18 people have died over the last four years?

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Start the Week - Reporting War and Conflict

On Start the Week Tom Sutcliffe discusses the writing of war and conflict. The journalist Patrick Cockburn looks back at his years covering crises in the Middle East, especially the rise of the so-called Islamic state. The Turkish writer Ece Temelkuran looks at the difficulty of reporting in a country where press freedoms are severely curtailed and asks whether fiction and poetry are a way of telling a more truthful story. The legendary American investigative reporter Seymour Hersh first gained recognition in the 1960s for exposing the My Lai massacre and its cover-up during the Vietnam War and has spent his career uncovering wrong-doing at the highest level. But reporting is changing and the academic Charlie Beckett celebrates the rise of citizen journalism. Producer: Katy Hickman.

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African Tech Roundup - A Year Of Great African Tech Conversations

And so our First Birthday Celebration continues… Over the past year, our sister podcast, African Tech Conversations, has featured relaxed in-depth chats with leading entrepreneurs, innovators and thought-leaders from Africa’s tech scene. In place of this week’s discussion on the African Tech Round-up, we’re sharing memorable moments from the series. In this episode, you can look forward to hearing candid bits and insights courtesy of Mteto Nyathi, Alan Knott-Craig Jr, Matsi Modise, Ashley Veasey, Justin Spratt and Trevor Wolfe. We obviously couldn’t share snippets from every conversation we had, but you’re welcome to listen to every single one of them in their entirety at conversations.africantechroundup.com Music Credits: Music by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Music licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
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Serious Inquiries Only - AS233: The Gender Wage Gap

In the spirit of Equal Pay Day which happened recently, I’ve got Miss Bea Haven from Promoting Secular Feminism on to talk about gender inequality in income. Is the 79 cents figure a myth? well… sort of but also sort of not… You’d better listen to see what I mean! If you enjoyed Miss Bea, … Continue reading AS233: The Gender Wage Gap →

The post AS233: The Gender Wage Gap appeared first on Atheistically Speaking.

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The Allusionist - 34. Continental

‘Continent’, as in a land mass, is much more complicated semantically than the bodily function control sense of ‘continent’.

Plus: more ‘please’, and how ‘thank you’ is not necessarily an expression of gratitude.

TL;DR: trust nothing.

There’s more about this episode at http://theallusionist.org/continental. Visit me at http://twitter.com/allusionistshow and http://facebook.com/allusionistshow.

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Amicus With Dahlia Lithwick | Law, justice, and the courts - Contra Obama

Dahlia previews United States v. Texas – this week’s big immigration case – with Brianne Gorod of the Constitutional Accountability Center. She also hears from Sen. Al Franken about the latest in the standoff over Obama’s SCOTUS nominee, Merrick Garland.

You can listen to past episodes of Amicus here. Transcripts of Amicus are available to Slate Plus members. Consider signing up today! Members get bonus segments, exclusive member-only podcasts, and more. Sign up for a free trial today here. 

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Amicus is sponsored by The Great Courses Plus, a new video service with thousands of lectures on dozens of topics. For a limited time, Amicus listeners can stream The Modern Political Tradition: Hobbes to Habermas—and hundreds of other courses—for free. Just visit TheGreatCoursesPlus.com/amicus. And by “Confirmation,” the new HBO film that details the explosive 1991 Supreme Court nomination hearings of Clarence Thomas. Confirmation premieres at 8 p.m. tonight, April 16th, on HBO. 

Podcast production by Tony Field.

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The Gist - Billboard Hits From 1986

On The Gist, we travel back to the year our host and music writer Chris Molanphy were in their music-listening prime. We’ll count down the Billboard hits from 1986 that marked a significant pivot in music history. Chris writes Slate’s Why Is That Song No. 1 column. For the Spiel, favorite moments from Thursday night’s Democratic debate in Brooklyn, New York.

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