On Christmas Day, 2020, Reginald Foster passed away at the age of 81 in a nursing home facility in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He had been diagnosed with COVID-19 a few days before.
This episode is not necessarily about his passing however, it is about his life, and in particular how he had one of the most unique jobs in the world.
Learn more about Reginald Foster, the world’s foremost Latinist, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
In the waning days of the 19th century, a passenger steamer crossing the Pacific Ocean en route from Australia to Canada did a particular thing, at a particular place, at a particular time.
If it wasn’t for a last-second decision of the captain of the ship, we wouldn’t be talking about the ship today and it would have been forgotten in history.
Learn more about the SS Warrimoo, and how it and its spontaneous captain made history on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
In our first programme of the year, we gathered a group of scientific experts directly involved in analysing the structure and impact of the SARS- Cov-2 coronavirus. There were concerns over the emergence of two new variants, Alfa and Beta, especially whether these variants might spread more quickly or outmanoeuvre the suite of new vaccines that were about to be rolled out.
And now with Omicron, the same questions are being asked about this variant’s ability to spread and overcome our defences.
We’ve invited the same scientists back to give us their assessment of our journey with Covid 19 over the past year and discuss their findings on Omicron.
Featuring:
Ravi Gupta Professor of Clinical Microbiology at the University of Cambridge
Tulio De Oliveria Professor on Bioinformatics, Stellenbosch University, South Africa
Dr. Allie Greaney From the Medical Scientist Training Program at the University of Washington School of Medicine
And Professor Jeremy Luban from the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard
Should you wash your eggs? Well, believe it or not, there is quite an international debate about this question from CrowdScience listener Susan. In Canada, where Susan grew up, commercially sold eggs are washed before they reach stores, whereas in the UK where she is now living they are not. So what is best to avoid contamination?
It’s one of a number of egg-themed questions that CrowdScience tries to crack in this episode. One of our presenters, Marnie Chesterton, heads over to Susan’s home in London to cook some eggs and explore other egg cooking questions from our listeners, such as what is the science behind frying an egg without it sticking to the pan and why are some boiled eggs harder to shell than others?
Meanwhile, this episode’s other presenter, Anand Jagatia, explores questions about eggs after they have hatched. He investigates a case of curious chicken behaviour sent in by listener Laurie, as well as working out how a cuckoo knows it’s a cuckoo when it’s been raised in another bird’s nest.
Featuring: Dr. Vincent Guyonnet, Dr. Valérie Lechevalier, Dr. Siobhan Abeyesinghe and Dr. Ros Gloag
In this episode, we hear how, on receiving news of Saladin's great victory at Hattin in 1187, and his taking of Jerusalem, the Monarchs of the West pledged to stop fighting each other and to march East on a Crusade to recover Jerusalem for Christendom. First among them was the German Emperor, Frederick Barbarossa. He set out with a great army, taking the land route to Constantinople. But his passage through Anatolia would lead to a most unexpected outcome.
Please take a look at my website nickholmesauthor.com where you can download a free copy of The Byzantine World War, my book that describes the origins of the First Crusade.
Dan Tapiero is an investor and entrepreneur with deep experience in gold and bitcoin. In this conversation with NLW he discusses the new group of institutional investors coming into the space and why, for them, bitcoin represents much more than just a hedge against possible future inflation.
The incarceration of tens of thousands of Japanese Americans in the 1940s is one of the most shameful acts in American history. Dahlia Lithwick is joined by Judge Edward M Chen and Don Tamaki, members of the legal team that worked to clear Fred Korematsu’s name almost 40 years after his conviction, to discuss the overlooked context, corruption, and cover-up that enabled the policy, and to examine how the Supreme Court has yet to fully contend with the legacy of Korematsu v United States. They also unpack the lessons the case offers for the present moment.
Back in November, comedian Robyn Schall found an old list of her goals for 2020. She shared the list in a video that went viral — because it turned out a lot of people could relate to a year that didn't go as planned.
Gretchen Rubin and R. Eric Thomas have some advice on how to make 2021 a little better.
Rubin writes books about happiness and habits — her latest isOuter Order, Inner Calm — and she hosts the podcast Happier with Gretchen Rubin. Listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
Thomas dispenses opinions and wisdom as a senior staff writer at elle.com. He's the author of the memoirHere For It.
As regular listeners may recall, CrowdScience has delved into the strange world of fungi before, as we dug down into the forest floor to reveal how plants and trees are connected to the vast mycelial network known as the “wood wide web”. But what makes this network possible and how might it have evolved? Fungi are incredibly clever, or at least , it appears that they’re capable of displaying complex behaviour that gives them the appearance of intelligence. In this episode, we speak to fungal ecologist and author of a new book, Merlin Sheldrake, about fungal “brains”, the evolution of magic mushrooms and zombie insects – the astonishing way certain fungi can take over the bodies of ants and wasps in order to sow their spores above ground.
Presented by Anand Jagatia
Produced by Rami Tzabar for the BBC World Service.
The wealth adviser and CEO of Onramp Invest discusses why the Federal Reserve continues to ignore its role in income inequality and what the bitcoin community can do to be a force for positive change.
Goodbye and good riddance to 2020. COVID-19 rages into 2021. An arrest in the destruction of hundreds of vaccine doses. Correspondent Deborah Rodriguez has the CBS World News Roundup for New Year's Day, 2021:
