Category: Retired

The eight-limbed master of disguise and surveillance technology. The colour and texture-changing abilities of the octopus are helping researchers develop camouflage. Can we make robots do the same thing? With Patrick Aryee. #30Animals

John Green reviews the Hall of Presidents and the song "New Partner" by Palace Music. 

Growing up, a young woman and her dad bonded over their love of basketball. But there was one game she knew they could never talk about. And for years she never asked. But when his health took a turn for the worse, she decided to ask the question she never dared. This week’s story is from The Nod’s editor, Emanuele Berry.

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Humans have valued bees for their honey for thousands of years – and economists have long admired bees for their cooperative work ethic, too. But few of us, whether economists, honey-lovers, or both, have quite appreciated just how much the honey bee has been industrialised – and the simple yet radical invention that made that industrialisation possible. As Tim Harford explains, it is a sign of just how far the modern market economy has penetrated that it now reaches deep into the heart of the beehive. Producer: Ben Crighton Editor: Richard Vadon (Image: Bee keeper lifting shelf out of hive, Credit: MIlan Jovic/Getty Images)

Introducing our new podcast about innovation, technology and the animal kingdom. This is the whole of the first episode about how the kingfisher inspired the design of a train. The 500 series Shinkansen, also known as bullet train, is one of the fastest in the world. It is also quiet, but that was not always the case. This is the tale of Japanese engineer Eiji Nakatsu, the kingfisher, an owl, a penguin and biomimicry. www.bbcworldservice.com/30animals

The story of the bird and the engineer. How the kingfisher inspired the design of a train. The 500 series Shinkansen, also known as bullet train, is one of the fastest in the world. It is also quiet, but that was not always the case. This is the tale of Japanese engineer Eiji Nakatsu, the kingfisher, an owl, a penguin and biomimicry. With Patrick Aryee. #30Animals

Fifty more things are on their way! Including the pencil, blockchain, bicycle, credit ratings and gambling. Tim Harford will return with season two on 25 March 2019. #50Things

This week Eric talks with Cord Jefferson, a writer for NBC’s The Good Place, about how Blackness is depicted in the afterlife (Eric’s Chidi Anagonye standom is also discussed). Later, Eric tells Brittany the legendary story of a little-known Black cowboy that’s better than any tall tale.

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