We’re resourceful, adaptable and the smartest thing this planet has ever seen. We got ourselves into this mess but we can get ourselves out of it. BBC Radio Four, in partnership with the Royal Geographical Society presents 39 ideas to relieve the stress that climate change is exerting on the planet.
From tiny solar cells to the total transformation of the Siberian landscape, Tom Heap and Dr Tamsin Edwards from Kings College, London view the fundamental problem of our age from a fresh perspective. Small things that make a big difference. Big things that make a small difference. We’re going to need every one of them.
In the first programme Tom discovers the secret of low-carbon rice with Dr Smita Kurup from Rothamsted Research.
Producer : Alasdair Cross
Researcher: Sarah Goodman
Produced in association with the Royal Geographical Society. Special thanks for this episode to Professor Vincent Gauci from the University of Birmingham.
I just heard the sad news that Gerry Marsden, of Gerry and the Pacemakers, has died today aged seventy-eight. As the latest episode of the podcast is late due to personal issues, I thought I’d make this available to the general public – this is a ten-minute Patreon bonus episode I did back in October, on Gerry and the Pacemakers, so it’s here as a little tribute. He’ll be missed.
This has been an incredible year for scientific advance and collaboration, epitomised by the roll out of vaccines that didn’t exist a year ago, against a virus that no one had ever heard of .
And yet at the same time its been a year of incredible frustration. We are stil largely using the same methods to counter the virus that were used in past pandemics, going back a hundred years.
Here we look back at key the findings on who is most susceptible and why, and ask how to improve the strategies for reducing transmission.
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 incredible 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.
Tony Greer is a macro analyst and author of the Morning Navigator Newsletter. In this conversation, he and NLW discuss how central banks continued to kick the can down the road on debt as well as unexpected sources of strength for the economy heading into 2021.
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.
