Month: February 2014

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More or Less: Behind the Stats - Rising drug overdose deaths

In the US, more people are dying from drug overdoses than from road traffic accidents and firearms. As headlines are filled with the news that actor Philip Seymour Hoffman died from an overdose recently, the team takes a look at the number of deaths from drug overdoses of both illegal and prescription drugs in the US and the rest of the world. This programme was first broadcast on the BBC World Service.

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Start the Week - Irving Finkel on the Ark Tablet

Tom Sutcliffe looks at the role of the expert. The curator Irving Finkel decodes the symbols on a 4,000 year old clay tablet and discovers the instructions for the building of an ark. Harry Collins asks why attitudes towards scientific expertise have changed and looks to reassert the special status of science. Colin Blakemore is an expert in neuroscience and vision and he reflects on his part in the documentary, Tim's Vermeer, which explores the relationship between art and science. The playwright Hattie Naylor tells the story of an astronomer going blind who learns to see the wonder of the universe in a different way.

Producer: Katy Hickman.

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TLDR - #13.5 – I’m Matthew Mills

A special mini-episode of TLDR to get your mouth watering for tomorrow's non-mini episode!

This week, a man named Matthew Mills interrupted the post-Super Bowl MVP press conference to let the world know that 9/11 was perpetrated by the US Government. News outlets pounced at the chance to interview him, flocking to the internet to locate his web presence. A few ended up contacting a different Matthew Mills, who gamely played along. PJ talks to the non-conspiracy minded Matthew Mills about his run-ins with the news media.