Weddings are full of traditions. Almost every aspect of a traditional western wedding involves customs that may date back hundreds or thousands of years. However, most people have no idea where these customs or traditions come from. They simply do them because that’s what you do when you have a wedding. Learn more about wedding traditions and learn where they came from, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
‘Outside my work the thing I care most about is gardening’, wrote George Orwell in 1940. In Orwell’s Roses Rebecca Solnit explores how the writer’s love for growing things, especially flowers, seeps into his work. She reflects on how he uses pleasure, beauty and joy as powerful acts of resistance. And how far these can counter the political and environmental challenges we face today.
The father of science fiction, H.G. Wells was also driven by a desire to reform the society he lived in at the turn of the 20th century. The biographer Claire Tomalin brings to life his early years in The Young H.G. Wells: Changing the World. He was born into poverty and achieved international fame, but never lost his boundless curiosity for the world around him, and the possibilities of science to change it.
The journalist Peter Hetherington asks why land reform is not higher on the government’s agenda. In Land Renewed he looks at the competing elements in the reshaping of the countryside and aiding nature’s recovery, including protecting valuable farmland, encouraging more local food production, re-wilding and ‘re-peopling’ remote places. But he argues it needs a wider vision to re-work the countryside for the benefit of all.
Dr. Emily Greble, Associate Professor of History at Vanderbilt University, is the author of Muslims and the Making of Modern Europe (Oxford University Press, 2021). Focusing on the Muslim inhabitants of the Austro-Hungarian Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Serbia, and later Yugoslavia, as they repeatedly adjusted to shifting borders and modern state building projects between the 1870s and the 1940s, Dr. Greble shows how Ottoman political, legal, economic, and social legacies shaped post Ottoman successor states, and how ordinary Balkan Muslims understood, negotiated, and reworked the rapidly changing ideological landscapes into which the late nineteenth century had thrown them. The book forcefully argues that modern European constructs of law, national minority, and public education developed in a distinct Christian context. By recovering the Balkan Muslims’ struggle to define the role of Islam in their new, nationalizing states and societies, the book sheds new light on the historical dynamics of modern citizenship and multiculturalism, but also illuminates Muslims’ oft overlooked agency in the making of modern Europe.
Vladislav Lilic is a doctoral candidate in Modern European History at Vanderbilt University.
We'll tell you what investigators have been able to find out about an accidental, deadly shooting on a movie set. Complaints are surfacing about the man who handed movie star Alec Baldwin the gun.
Also, the operation that finally brought down one of the world's most notorious drug kingpins.
Plus, the weather impacting more than 100 million Americans this week, allegations from a second former Facebook worker, and the movie that won the box office over the weekend even though people could watch it from home.
Andy calls up Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel for a remarkable behind-the-scenes look at the last two years inside the company. As Moderna's booster shots start to roll out across the country, Andy and Stéphane discuss the origins of Moderna's partnership with the government, how he thinks the vaccine will hold up against future variants, and the effort to vaccinate the globe. Plus, Stéphane's riveting recollections of hearing about COVID-19 for the first time in January 2020, and what else they’re working on right now to help us end the pandemic.
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Cinematographer Halyna Hutchins was killed in an incident last week involving a prop gun fired on the set of the film, “Rust.” It is unclear at the moment whether there will be any criminal charges stemming from this incident, but given reports of negligence, cutting corners, and lax safety standards, there will certainly be civil suits.
Organizers at an Amazon facility in Staten Island plan to file for a union election today. Christian Smalls was fired after he organized a protest about safety conditions when he worked at the facility. Small is now the president of an independent group, the Amazon Labor Union, and joins us to discuss the news.
And in headlines: “The Facebook Papers” revealed the degree to which Facebook employees knew of extremists on the site who were polarizing people, U.S. Border Patrol recorded the highest number of arrests ever at the Southern border, and researchers in Africa are attempting to reverse engineer the Moderna vaccine.
"[F]or the next three years, we're going to be dealing with Joe Biden," Spicer tells The Daily Signal. "You better know who these policies and people are that he's pursuing. Because as I said, if we don't look right now and engage, we are going to end up with a radical nation."
Not long ago, Spicer was sparring with the media as White House press secretary under President Donald Trump. Today, he's host of "Spicer & Co." on Newsmax and a bestselling author. He shares what life it like behind the camera and how he approaches the news each day.
Tom Heap discovers fresh ways to quantify greenhouse gas emissions with help from satellites, artificial intelligence and former US Vice President Al Gore.
Emissions data from companies and countries can be inaccurate, incomplete or sometimes just plain deceitful. The team at Climate TRACE, led by Al Gore, have devised innovative ways to calculate accurate emissions data from power stations, factories, ships and even planes. That data can be used to reveal unexpected sources of carbon dioxide and methane and to provide independent figures for international negotiations on climate change.
Producer: Alasdair Cross
Researcher: Sarah Goodman
Produced in association with the Royal Geographical Society. Special thanks for this episode to Professor Raphael Heffron from the University of Dundee and Professor Paul Palmer from the University of Edinburgh. Image courtesy of Transition Zero.
Ever thought about the carbon cost of a packet of crisps? At CCM Technologies they think of little else. Their revolutionary fertiliser offers a big step to carbon-free snacking.
Waste from crisp factories or from sewage treatment works can be routed and treated to form the basic building blocks of new fertilisers that can be spread on the ground to grow a new harvest of potatoes- or any other crop we need. The system avoids waste and takes a big cut out of the carbon emissions of traditional fertiliser production. Tom Heap tours the CCM fertiliser plant on the outskirts of Birmingham and discusses the carbon benefits with Dr Tamsin Edwards of King's College London.
Producer: Alasdair Cross
Researcher: Sarah Goodman
Produced in association with the Royal Geographical Society. Special thanks for this episode to Dr Kate Schofield from the University of Plymouth and Dr Abigail González Díaz from the National Institute of Electricity and Clean Energy.
Wind energy is vital in the battle against climate change, but can we make improvements to harness more from them?
Tom Heap visits Kelburn windfarm in North Ayrshire to discuss whether 'wakesteering' - reorientating the turbines could see them harness more power collectively. Meanwhile some potential sites are refused or restricted due to the damage caused to wildlife. Hubert Lagrange talks about his childhood obsession with bats which are often killed by the pressure around turbine blades.
He's worked to develop a system to sense bat and bird activity and allow the turbines to operate longer through a refined system.
Dr Tamsin Edwards discusses how much more potential there is and how much carbon this could save.
Producer: Anne-Marie Bullock
Researcher Sarah Goodman
Produced in association with the Royal Geographical Society. Special thanks for this episode to Asst Professor Michael Howland from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Professor Nick Jenkins from Cardiff University.