Podcasts about Denmark

Reagan and Mike breakdown Denmark's big win over Kazakhstan and why is May 14th a big day for the Danes? Germany vs Slovakia was electric, Andres Ambühl scores in his 17th appearance in the World Championship for Switzerland and Reagan chats with Britain's Cade Neilson.

Nakba is Arabic for disaster or catastrophe that happened to Palestinians in 1948 when around about 700,000 Palestinians fled their homes as refugees and Palestinian society and homeland ended. Bilal Al Issa is a third generation Palestinian living in Denmark, a board member of the Danish house in Palestine (DHIP). His grandfather now in his 90s, is still in a refugee camp in Lebanon, yet hopes to return to his village that he left in 1948. Daniel Bannoura, is a Christian Palestinian from Bethlehem, born in Jerusalem, currently working on a PhD on the Qu'ran at Notre Dame in the United States.  Our two guests tell of their experiences, and how Nakba continues and plays out today in the Israel/Palestine conflict. They end by sharing how we as listeners can contribute to peace in the Holy Land.  Guests: Bilal Al Issa and Daniel BannouraHost: Andrew Bolton

Subscribe to Quotomania on Simplecast or search for Quotomania on your favorite podcast app!On February 18, 1925, Jack Gilbert was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He was educated in Pittsburgh and San Francisco, where he later participated in Jack Spicer's famous "Poetry as Magic" Workshop at San Francisco State College in 1957.His first book, Views of Jeopardy (Yale University Press, 1962) won the Yale Younger Poets Series and was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. Soon after publishing his first book, Gilbert received a Guggenheim Fellowship and subsequently moved abroad, living in England, Denmark, and Greece. During that time, he also toured fifteen countries as a lecturer on American Literature for the U.S. State Department. Nearly twenty years after completing Views of Jeopardy, he published his second book, Monolithos, which won the Stanley Kunitz Prize and the American Poetry Review Prize. The collection takes its title from Greek, meaning "single stone," and refers to the landscape where he lived on the island of Santorini.Gilbert is also the author of Collected Poems (Knopf, 2012); The Dance Most of All(2009); Transgressions: Selected Poems (Bloodaxe Books 2006); Refusing Heaven(2005); winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award, and The Great Fires: Poems 1982-1992 (1996).His other awards and honors include the Lannan Literary Award for Poetry and a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. Gilbert was the 1999-2000 Grace Hazard Conkling writer-in-residence at Smith College and a visiting professor and writer-in-residence at the University of Tennessee in 2004. Gilbert died on November 13, 2012 in Berkeley, California after a long battle with Alzheimer's. He was 87.From https://poets.org/poet/jack-gilbert. For more information about Jack Gilbert:Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:Elizabeth Gilbert about Gilbert, at 10:25: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-155-elizabeth-gilbert“Jack Gilbert, The Art of Poetry No. 91”: https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/5583/the-art-of-poetry-no-91-jack-gilbert“Jack Gilbert”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/jack-gilbert“The Danger of Wisdom”: https://www.writersalmanac.org/index.html%3Fp=7505.html

Oliver Milman joins the scientists tracking the decline of insect populations across the globe, including the soaring mountains of Mexico that host an epic, yet dwindling, migration of monarch butterflies; the verdant countryside of England that has been emptied of insect life; the gargantuan fields of U.S. agriculture that have proved a killing ground for bees; and an offbeat experiment in Denmark. With urgency and great clarity, Milman explores this hidden emergency, arguing that its consequences could even rival climate change. Join on us as we discuss The Insect Crisis, with acclaimed journalist Oliver Milman who dives into the torrent of recent evidence that suggests this kaleidoscopic group of creatures is suffering the greatest existential crisis in its remarkable 400-million-year history, on this installment of Leonard Lopate at Large on WBAI 99.5FM.

The Eurovision Song Contest Grand Final has arrived and presenter Steve Holden hosts a massive episode of the podcast.He's joined by 2011 champion Eldar Gasimov, 2021 Swiss entry Gjon's Tears, Swedish commentator Edward af Sillén, Ukraine's Head of Delegation Oksana Sybinska and Denmark's 2022 entry REDDI.Choreographer Kyle Hanagami discusses creating Chanel's routine to Slo-Mo and British DJ Zoe London talks about Måneskin's influence with her best friend - BBC Radio 1 host Jack Saunders.Previous Eurovision stars Cesár Sampson (Austria), Hovig (Cyprus), The Roop (Lithuania), SuRie (United Kingdom) and Lake Malawi (Czech Republic) remember the one hour before they went on stage for the final.Steve also catches up with Eurovision Backstage host Samya Hafsaoui and Eurovision's walking encyclopedia Samantha Ross for one final time.Find Steve (@steve_holden_ldn) on Instagram. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In the latest podcast update:·       Fed fight against inflation rattles markets·       April U.S. consumer price index eases slightly ·       Markets ratchet up rate-hike expectations for global central banksIMPORTANT DISCLOSURE:These views are subject to change at any time based upon market or other conditions and are current as of the date at the top of the page.Investing involves risk and principal loss is possible.Past performance does not guarantee future performance.Forecasting represents predictions of market prices and/or volume patterns utilizing varying analytical data. It is not representative of a projection of the stock market, or of any specific investment.This material is not an offer, solicitation or recommendation to purchase any security. Nothing contained in this material is intended to constitute legal, tax, securities or investment advice, nor an opinion regarding the appropriateness of any investment, nor a solicitation of any type.The general information contained in this publication should not be acted upon without obtaining specific legal, tax and investment advice from a licensed professional.  The information, analysis and opinions expressed herein are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual entity.Please remember that all investments carry some level of risk. Although steps can be taken to help reduce risk it cannot be completely removed. They do no not typically grow at an even rate of return and may experience negative growth. As with any type of portfolio structuring, attempting to reduce risk and increase return could, at certain times, unintentionally reduce returns.Investments that are allocated across multiple types of securities may be exposed to a variety of risks based on the asset classes, investment styles, market sectors, and size of companies preferred by the investment managers. Investors should consider how the combined risks impact their total investment portfolio and understand that different risks can lead to varying financial consequences, including loss of principal. Please see a prospectus for further details.The S&P 500® Index, or the Standard & Poor's 500, is a stock market index based on the market capitalizations of 500 large companies having common stock listed on the NYSE or NASDAQ.The MSCI AC (All Country) World Index: Captures large and mid-cap representation across 23 Developed Markets (DM) and 24 Emerging Markets (EM) countries. With 2,791 constituents, the index covers approximately 85% of the global investable equity opportunity set.The FTSE 100 is a market-capitalization weighted index of UK-listed blue chip companies.With a fixed number of 600 components, the STOXX® Europe 600 Index represents large, mid and small capitalization companies across 17 countries of the European region: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. It is derived from the STOXX® Europe Total Market Index (TMI) and is a subset of the STOXX® Global 1800 Index.Indexes are unmanaged and cannot be invested in directly.Copyright © Russell Investments Group LLC 2022. All rights reserved.This material is proprietary and may not be reproduced, transferred, or distributed in any form without prior written permission from Russell Investments. It is delivered on an “as is” basis without warranty.CORP-12039Date of first use May, 2022

Kathy Barnette…; Ron from Texas asks why Jesse calls Tim Scott a RINO. They touch on MTG and other Republicans and where they stand. They also chat about Candace Owens. Jesse has no problem with Candace and appreciates her support of Donald Trump but Jesse makes the point that these women are on ego trips. — Patrick from Denmark says God sent him in a dream. He describes being with a black woman in the dream. James from England comments on the IF poem. Back to Patrick…; Russ from Hampton, VA Ed from England has never met his father and wonders how to forgive.

  Bigger and better are aspirations that most companies hold, but scaling a business is complicated and requires a range of expertise to ensure that the culture and values are sustained as the company grows. In today's episode, we speak to Anabel Morales, who is in charge of VP talent acquisitions at Worksome. Worksome is a Danish-based company that offers an end-to-end solution for companies to manage their external workforce. Anabel's approach to her role is centered on forming interpersonal relationships, and upholding company culture and values. In this episode, we learn more about Anabel's role at Worksome, the services that Worksome provides, recruiting in different marketplaces, challenges in the current marketplace, the importance of company values, and much more!   Key Points From This Episode:   An introduction to today's show and some background information on Anabel's career. The journey to Anabel's current role as VP of talent acquisition at Worksome. How income tax works for Americans working and living in Denmark. We find out about the work that Worksome does and Anabel's approach to her role. Current challenges that Anabel sees as a priority within the recruitment sector. Problems that Anabel experienced during the Series A funding round. Hiring capacity of Worksome during the early stages of growth. The importance of hiring local expertise when working in unique markets. The steps that Anabel took to increase capacity at Worksome. How Anabel ensured recruitment was quick and effective. Motivation behind Anabel's idea to change to another ATS for data. The values that Worksome cultivates and how these benefit them as a hiring brand. Why Anabel thinks it is essential for companies to establish a value system. The link between company culture and values, and what the culture at Worksome is like. How Anabel conveys Worksome's values and culture to candidates. Anabel's approach to sustaining company values and culture while scaling. Why Anabel thinks cultivating psychological safety during the interview process is important. Anabel shares some practical examples of how to cultivate psychological safety.   Tweetables:   “My approach was about finding great recruiters in both of those markets that could promote our brand, build relationships and also be cultural ambassadors in those offices.” — Anabel Morales [0:07:08]   “Being a startup, you want to make sure that early on you are able to build a great experience and a good brand in the market, especially for entering new markets.” — Anabel Morales [0:08:22]   “We recognize that the key to scaling successfully, or at least scaling our culture successfully, is going to be to equip our leaders with some tools to really scale this trust, transparency, and inclusion.” — Anabel Morales [0:17:46]   “It's really not possible to expect people to feel comfortable talking about their mistakes if you don't have the leadership to support it.” — Anabel Morales [0:21:29]   Links Mentioned in Today's Episode:   Anabel Morales on LinkedIn Anabel Morales on Instagram Worksome Greenhouse Talk Talent to Me Hired

New limited edition megas this week, after Schleswig-Holstein, AKA the sticky-up bit that's almost Denmark, went to the polls and delivered a blow to the AfD. Then Berlin cops failed to enforce neutrality on Victory Day, Giffey got a Gif-Ei (crap German pun), and why Berlin's Education Minister gives Megan the heebie-jeebies. Ahoy! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/megans-megacan/message

Dr. Kelly Tappenden interviews Dr. Johanna Eliasson, Department of Intestinal Failure and Liver Diseases, Rigshospitalet, Copenhagen University Hospital, Copenhagen, Denmark, discussing her paper “Apraglutide, a novel glucagon-like peptide 2 analog, improves fluid absorption in patients with short bowel syndrome intestinal failure: findings from a placebo-controlled, randomized phase 2 trial”. Business Corporate by Alex Menco | alexmenco.net Music promoted by www.free-stock-music.com Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en_US

➡️ DETAILS | Over the past two years, Josie has been feeling more confident in her own sexuality than ever. A playful open communication style (and relationship!) with her long-distance partner is part of it, and she tells us how new and sexy it was to experience explicit consent as a fun, grownup game. She remembers masturbating to the voice of Cher, parents who were open, flirty, and often naked, and feeling a sense of liberation talking to her friends about orgasms, her siblings about sex, and the formative experiences at boarding school, where kids in Denmark usually spend a year sometime between ages 15-17. Early experiences were hard to communicate and Cosmo was little help, and her current partner made hot personalized “instructional” videos about his balls, and she shares learnings of ball play, making everything wet, building to orgasms, her felt experience of inside/outside alternations, and how much she enjoys the Dom/sub dynamic that she is exploring consciously for the first time. She tells a story of a therapist who clearly didn't understand power dynamics, the struggle for partnered poly dating on tinder, threesome wooings, submissives taking turns, and telling her partners juicy details after each time she'd see her couple lovers. Her future bucket list includes more BDSM explorations, clubs, rope, and novel things in general. She wants more spankings, which she gets by being very bratty, but she's not into face hitting or humiliation, though she is super DUPER into struggle fucks, which leans more toward wrestling than CNC fantasies for her, and we also talk the hot taboo of anal, kissing compatibility, and how a really mean Dom is one who withholds kisses. Q for Wyoh: When you're too in your head instead of body, what do you DO? ➡️ STATS | Our guest today is a 30 year old white Danish cis female; she would characterize herself as heteroflexible, is in a monogamish relationship of 2 years with a German man, and is a sensual submissive who loves spanking, intense kissing, anticipation and struggle fucking. Born and rasied in Denmark, where she current live lives and works as a researcher at a university, welcome Josie. ➡️ JOIN THE MISSION | Explore (y)our creativity: https://www.creation.place  ➡️ GET BETTERHELP | Support yourself & Sex Stories: https://www.betterhelp.com/sexstories 

In this recreation of a lost walk Ben visits the garden of G. N Brandt (deceased) who brought the arts and crafts movement to Denmark and whose modest orchard-watergarden-woodland survives in the suburbs north of Copenhagen. https://ko-fi.com/bendark

Listen in as Maxim shares the key differentiators that set Germanhaus and LEICHT apart in the kitchen design and manufacturing space.He breaks down Germanhaus' incredible (and uniquely German) approach to construction, which has resulted in their production of 650 kitchens with net-zero carbon emissions. He also explains how the privately-owned LEICHT has consistently maintained its reputation as an industry leader after over 90 years in business.Topics Discussed:[01:44] Why Maxim chose Vancouver and his passion for tennis and healthy eating[11:33] Germanhaus/LEICHT's vision-mission[15:44] How Germanhaus' factory produces 650 kitchens with net-zero carbon emissions[21:14] The difference between German and Italian kitchens[26:30] Striking the perfect balance between form and function[28:49] The biggest customer challenge that LEICHT aims to solve[33:48] How Germanhaus has grown since its founding in 2015, and its perfect client[38:13] LEICHT's competitive advantages as a privately-owned company[41:59] How LECHT has consistently stayed on the cutting edge after over nine decades[44:34] How Germanhaus stays relevant[52:37] About Germanhaus' proprietary kitchen design software[55:19] Why Maxim loves carsConnect with Maxim Gotsutsov:Website - www.leichtvancouver.comInstagram - https://www.instagram.com/leichtvancouver/Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/leichtvancouverYouTube - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCV2U0Uu_FZv7VItDHt5usmwConnect with Build Magazine:Website - https://rebrand.ly/bmwebInstagram - https://rebrand.ly/bmigwebFacebook - https://rebrand.ly/bmfbwebKey Quotes by Maxim:Germanhaus came to fill that niche between good, local stuff and high-end stuff from Italy, Denmark, and Germany. We're right in the middle: We can service everybody.One thing that you're paying for with a brand like LEICHT is that there is a team of engineers doing R&D to make sure that the door panel above your oven doesn't delaminate after 15 years because of the steam that comes out of your steam oven.[Our perfect client] is the person that knows how to live.One thing that LEICHT does very well is that their upper management is not disconnected from the blue-collar workers⁠—their staff.

This time we're revisiting an episode about working women in the Nordic countries. Scandinavia has a reputation for equality and excellent work/life balance. American women look enviously at these nations as they scrape together a short maternity leave or finish another 10-hour day. But here's the paradox: there are just as few women in powerful roles in Scandinavia as there are in the US. Three women in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark take us behind the scenes to find out why. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Maryland scores yet another climate change law, plus cranberry bog restoration in Tannersville, MD. Funding for Michigan's Erie Marsh, and a Denmark/USA partnership aims to reduce water sector CO2 emissions.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of our ancestors, Homo erectus, who thrived on Earth for around two million years whereas we, Homo sapiens, emerged only in the last three hundred thousand years. Homo erectus, or Upright Man, spread from Africa to Asia and it was on the Island of Java that fossilised remains were found in 1891 in an expedition led by Dutch scientist Eugène Dubois. Homo erectus people adapted to different habitats, ate varied food, lived in groups, had stamina to outrun their prey; and discoveries have prompted many theories on the relationship between their diet and the size of their brains, on their ability as seafarers, on their creativity and on their ability to speak and otherwise communicate. The image above is from a diorama at the Moesgaard Museum in Denmark, depicting the Turkana Boy referred to in the programme. With Peter Kjærgaard Director of the Natural History Museum of Denmark and Professor of Evolutionary History at the University of Copenhagen José Joordens Senior Researcher in Human Evolution at Naturalis Biodiversity Centre and Professor of Human Evolution at Maastricht University And Mark Maslin Professor of Earth System Science at University College London Producer: Simon Tillotson

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of our ancestors, Homo erectus, who thrived on Earth for around two million years whereas we, Homo sapiens, emerged only in the last three hundred thousand years. Homo erectus, or Upright Man, spread from Africa to Asia and it was on the Island of Java that fossilised remains were found in 1891 in an expedition led by Dutch scientist Eugène Dubois. Homo erectus people adapted to different habitats, ate varied food, lived in groups, had stamina to outrun their prey; and discoveries have prompted many theories on the relationship between their diet and the size of their brains, on their ability as seafarers, on their creativity and on their ability to speak and otherwise communicate. The image above is from a diorama at the Moesgaard Museum in Denmark, depicting the Turkana Boy referred to in the programme. With Peter Kjærgaard Director of the Natural History Museum of Denmark and Professor of Evolutionary History at the University of Copenhagen José Joordens Senior Researcher in Human Evolution at Naturalis Biodiversity Centre and Professor of Human Evolution at Maastricht University And Mark Maslin Professor of Earth System Science at University College London Producer: Simon Tillotson

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of our ancestors, Homo erectus, who thrived on Earth for around two million years whereas we, Homo sapiens, emerged only in the last three hundred thousand years. Homo erectus, or Upright Man, spread from Africa to Asia and it was on the Island of Java that fossilised remains were found in 1891 in an expedition led by Dutch scientist Eugène Dubois. Homo erectus people adapted to different habitats, ate varied food, lived in groups, had stamina to outrun their prey; and discoveries have prompted many theories on the relationship between their diet and the size of their brains, on their ability as seafarers, on their creativity and on their ability to speak and otherwise communicate. The image above is from a diorama at the Moesgaard Museum in Denmark, depicting the Turkana Boy referred to in the programme. With Peter Kjærgaard Director of the Natural History Museum of Denmark and Professor of Evolutionary History at the University of Copenhagen José Joordens Senior Researcher in Human Evolution at Naturalis Biodiversity Centre and Professor of Human Evolution at Maastricht University And Mark Maslin Professor of Earth System Science at University College London Producer: Simon Tillotson

In today's episode of Business Daily we'll see how Eurovision goes so much further than the stage. We head to this year's host city, Turin in Italy, to see whether there's a been boost in local business there. We hear from Ochman who's representing Poland, on how his career has changed since becoming an act, and from Emmelie De Forest who represented Denmark in 2013, who says the competition was both a "blessing, and a curse". Dr Filippos Filippidis, from Imperial College London, tells us about the positive effect that Eurovision can have on a country's mental health. And Dr Adrian Kavanagh from Maynooth University in Ireland, talks about the economic impact of hosting. We also speak to one of the competition's most famous former presenters, Danish actor Pilou Asbaek. Presenter/producer: Izzy Greenfield Image: Getty (Description: Eurovision song contest logo 2022)

Rick visits some of Europe's great open-air folk museums in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark, plus England's Blists Hill Victorian Town. For European travel information, visit https://www.ricksteves.com.

What is Dugnad? Norway has placed 8th in the recently released 2021 edition of the World Happiness Report. In preceding years, the country had ranked fifth and third in the annual publication from the UN's Sustainable Development Solutions Network. Along with Finland, Denmark, Iceland, Switzerland and the Netherlands, this country of 5 million people is well-known for its quality of life. Furthermore, Norway is first in the world when it comes to the Economist Intelligence Unit's Democracy Index and the UN's Human Development Index. How does it translate into English? When does the day fall then? How is dugnad characteristic of Norway? In under 3 minutes, we answer your questions! To listen to the last episodes, you can click here: What is de-extinction? What are happy hormones? What is erectile dysfunction? A podcast written and realised by Joseph Chance. In partnership with upday UK. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

At the start of the 20th century, physicists probed the structure of nature. Their discoveries changed our fundamental understanding of matter, of life, and of war. At the center of these discoveries stood the Danish physicist Niels Bohr. Bohr approached problems of atomic structure and quantum theory with a philosophical perspective and an ability to skirt paradoxes with his principle of complementarity. Perhaps as important as Bohr's discoveries on the atom was his hosting of international collaborations at his institute in Copenhagen, which in turn led to fundamental insights in physics and chemistry. Bohr also played significant humanitarian and diplomatic roles during World War II in Denmark, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Many Jewish refugee scientists passed through Bohr's institute after escaping Nazi Germany, and Bohr then facilitated their immigration to safe harbors. With us to decipher Bohr's complex legacy is John Heilbron. John is a member of the International Academy of the History of Science, for which he served as president from 2001-2005. He is also a member of The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, The American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and The American Philosophical Society. He is the recipient of many awards for his scholarship on the history of science.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently completed a three-country, whirlwind tour of Europe. The trip began in Germany, where Modi met with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, then continued with a stop in Denmark, where he participated in the India-Nordic Summit, and wrapped up in Paris, where he sat down with newly reelected French President Emmanuel Macron.To discuss Modi's Europe visit and its lasting implications, Milan is joined on the show this week by Garima Mohan. Garima is a senior fellow in the Asia program at the German Marshall Fund based in Berlin. Her research focuses on Europe-India ties, EU foreign policy in Asia, and security in the Indo-Pacific.Milan and Garima discuss how Europe sees India's evolving stance on Russia-Ukraine, India's ambitious (and nuanced) European outreach, and the trajectory of defense collaboration. Plus, the two discuss how Europe and India are working together on cross-cutting issues from climate to trade and technology. Episode notes:Nayanima Basu, “Modi's trip shows India & EU can grow closer despite differences on Russia's Ukraine invasion,” ThePrint, May 6, 2022.Garima Mohan and Thorsten Benner, “Look More at India!” Der Spiegel, May 2, 2022.Sreemoy Talukdar, “An assessment of EU-India ties as Modi visits Europe: Sheer political will driving strategic convergence beyond differences,” Firstpost, May 4, 2022.

In this episode, we're restoring the sacred to the slandered. So many of the innately human, life-giving, embodied expressions of what it is to be alive (most of which are feminine by nature) have been slandered, shamed and outlawed for thousands of years. Sex, birth, blood, the body, and the earth have all been oppressed and repressed, stripping humanity of its connection to its roots, depth and power. In this episode we explore why, as well as how to restore our birth right to be deeply connected with and in reverence to these parts of ourselves and humanity for more richly fulfilling, sovereign, embodied lives. This episode is important for everyone to hear, regardless of gender, as these lost parts of ourselves have left many aching for meaning, direction, connection, and aliveness in a world that has long been disconnected from the core nurturance and nourishment of the feminine. In this episode, Rachel Ruva, Birth Keeper, Portal Tender, Apprentice to the Plants, explore all of this and so much more, including: ❦ Connecting with the wisdom of the body, blood, womb and earth ❦ Conscious conception ❦ Sx and motherhood ❦ Intentional parenting ❦ Sovereign, instinctual, natural birthing ❦ Motherhood as a spiritual teacher ❦ Sacred sisterhood ❦ And more! Rachel Ruva is a mama, a birth witness, a caster of circle spaces and spells and a devotee to the old earth ways which invite instinctual renaissance and living reverence into our bodies. Plants, womb blood and the familiar shape of a circle inform her work as a space holder and facilitator. She holds three in person programs in Denmark: the Birth Keeper Immersion and Embody your Female Nervous System and The Wisdom of the Witch Wounds, where women gather to do the work to re•member the living technology of our bodies and inherent place in the web of life. She also supports women as they walk the path of sovereign birthing, motherhood, cyclical womb-centered living, and nourishment with plant and animal foods as medicine. Learn more about Rachel's work and stay connected: www.rachelruva.com www.instagram.com/womb.song --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/sureya-leonara/support

Join Howard S. Veisz, a dedicated volunteer in the Watercraft Department at the Mystic Seaport Museum since 2009, as he shares the story of Henny Sinding Sundø and Gerda III, the boat Henny used to save Jewish lives during the Nazi occupation of Denmark. Veisz's book, Henny and Her Boat, provides a fresh perspective on the Danes' defense of their Jewish countrymen during years of Nazi occupation and, ultimately, their heroic rescue of the Danish Jews on a fleet of fishing boats and other small craft. This podcast is presented in collaboration with the Sandra Bornstein Holocaust Education Center Baxt Lecture Series, an annual event that brings Holocaust education to the greater Rhode Island community. -- In 2009 Howard S. Veisz left a litigation career and went to sea. After a two-year sailing voyage around the North Atlantic, Howard and his wife settled on Connecticut's Mystic River, and Howard began work as a shipyard volunteer at the Mystic Seaport Maritime Museum. Howard worked in the rigging shop for a massive project: restoring Mystic's 1841 whaling ship, the Charles W. Morgan, and getting it under sail for the first time in 93 years. As the whaling ship project wound down, Howard's interest in Gerda III, also docked at Mystic Seaport Museum, arose. With a father and grandparents who barely escaped Nazi Germany, Gerda III's role in rescuing Denmark's Jews drew Howard in. While helping to preserve Gerda III, Howard began a four-year mission to reconstruct its history. Howard traveled to Denmark to locate and interview descendants of the people who carried out Gerda III's rescue missions; scoured Danish archives; visited the docks from which Gerda III set out; gathered accounts by leaders of the Gerda III rescue group that had never appeared in English; and assembled translators to uncover the fascinating story that had been buried in those writings for over seventy years. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/rhodyradio/message

This week Harry continues to explore advances in "digital therapeutics" in a conversation with Paolo Pirjanian, the founder and CEO of the robotics company Embodied. They've created an 8-pound, 16-inch-high robot called Moxie that's intended as a kind of substitute therapist that can help kids with their social-emotional learning. Moxie draws on some of the same voice-recognition and voice-synthesis technologies found in digital assistants like Siri, Alexa, and Google Home, but it also has an expressive body and face designed to make it more engaging for kids. The device hit the market in 2020, and parents are already saying the robot helps kids learn how to talk themselves down when they're feeling angry or frustrated, and how to be more confident in their conversations with adults or other kids. But Moxie isn't inexpensive; it has a purchase price comparable to a high-end cell phone, and on top of that there's a required monthly subscription that costs as much as some cellular plans. So it feels like there are some interesting questions to work out about who's going to pay for this new wave of digital therapeutics, and whether they'll be accessible to everyone who needs them. Pirjanian discussed that with Harry, along with a bunch of other topics, from the product design choices that went into Moxie to the company's larger ambitions to build social robots for many other applications like entertainment or elder care.Please rate and review The Harry Glorikian Show on Apple Podcasts! Here's how to do that from an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch:1. Open the Podcasts app on your iPhone, iPad, or Mac. 2. Navigate to The Harry Glorikian Show podcast. You can find it by searching for it or selecting it from your library. Just note that you'll have to go to the series page which shows all the episodes, not just the page for a single episode.3. Scroll down to find the subhead titled "Ratings & Reviews."4. Under one of the highlighted reviews, select "Write a Review."5. Next, select a star rating at the top — you have the option of choosing between one and five stars. 6. Using the text box at the top, write a title for your review. Then, in the lower text box, write your review. Your review can be up to 300 words long.7. Once you've finished, select "Send" or "Save" in the top-right corner. 8. If you've never left a podcast review before, enter a nickname. Your nickname will be displayed next to any reviews you leave from here on out. 9. After selecting a nickname, tap OK. Your review may not be immediately visible.That's it! Thanks so much.TranscriptHarry Glorikian: Hello. I'm Harry Glorikian, and this is The Harry Glorikian Show, where we explore how technology is changing everything we know about healthcare.Two weeks ago, in our previous episode, I talked with Eddie Martucci, the CEO of a company called Akili Interactive that's marketing the first FDA-approved prescription video game. It's called EndeavorRx, and it's designed to help kids with ADHD improve their attention skills.It's one of the first examples of what some people are calling “digital therapeutics.”And this week we continue on that topic—but with a conversation about robots rather than video games. My guest Paolo Pirjanian is the founder and CEO of Embodied.They've created an 8-pound, 16-inch-high robot called Moxie that's intended as a kind of substitute therapist that can help kids with their social-emotional learning.Moxie draws on some of the same voice-recognition and voice-synthesis technologies found in digital assistants like Siri, Alexa, and Google Home. But it also has an expressive body and face designed to make it more engaging for kids.Moxie Video Clip: Hi, I'm Moxie. I'm a robot from the GRL. That's the Global Robotics Laboratory. This is my first time in the human world. It's nice to be here. Oh, where is here, exactly? It's a pretty big world for a little robot.Harry Glorikian: Moxie hit the market in 2020, and parents are already saying the robot helps kids learn how to talk themselves down when they're feeling angry or frustrated, and how to be more confident in their conversations with adults or other kids.But just like EndeavorRx, Moxie isn't inexpensive. The robot has a purchase price comparable to a high-end cell phone, and on top of that there's a required monthly subscription that costs as much as some cellular plans.So, it feels like there are some interesting questions to work out about who's going to pay for this new wave of digital therapeutics, and whether they'll be accessible to everyone who needs them.Paolo and I talked about that, as well as a bunch of other topics—from the product design choices that went into Moxie, to the company's larger ambitions to build social robots for many other applications like entertainment or elder care.So here's my conversation with Paolo. Harry Glorikian: Paolo, welcome to the show.Paolo Pirjanian: Thank you. Hey, for having me on the show.Harry Glorikian: Paolo, you're the co-founder and CEO of a company called Embodied. And and you guys are in the field of, I'm going to call it educational robotics. But this is not your first robotics company, right? Can you can you start by filling in listeners about your history in the consumer robotics field?Paolo Pirjanian: Absolutely. Yeah. So I actually got my education in Denmark. I got a PhD in A.I. and robotics and then moved to the US actually to work at NASA's JPL. Which was a childhood dream job. Shortly thereafter, I got approached by Bill Gross of Idealab, who started one of the earliest incubators, who wanted to start a robotics company. So I joined that company as the CTO originally and then eventually became the CEO. We developed Visual Slam Technology, which is a vision based, camera based ability for a robot to build a map of the environment and know how to navigate it autonomously. That company in 2012 was acquired by iRobot. And we integrated that technology across Roomba and the other iRobot portfolio products to allow them to be aware of the environment and know how to navigate around the home, primarily for cleaning the floors. I was a CTO there for a couple of years and then decided to move on to do something that's been a childhood dream, to really create AI friends that can help us through difficult times in our lives.Harry Glorikian: But one of the projects you worked on, and correct me if I'm wrong, was the Sony's Aibo Robot Dog, right? It's not necessarily educational, but it was aimed at kids. So what sort of drew your focus on robotics for education and socialization, I want to say.Paolo Pirjanian: Yes, correct. Sony Aibo, the robotic dog, my previous company, we developed a computer vision technology for it that enabled the robot to be able to see things and interact with things in the environment. And it was an amazing product, actually, the Sony Aibo. And I've always actually had interest in let's call it mental health. And of course, my craft is AI and robotics. And so after my last company was acquired, I decided the timing is now to go pursue that childhood dream of creating robots that can actually help us with mental health. So we don't categorize ourselves as education in the strict sense because we do not really focus on STEM education. We focus on for children. The first product is for children. It's called Moxie, and it's helping them with social emotional skills, learning, which in layman's term you could describe as EQ, emotional intelligence skills versus IQ, which are more related to STEM type education.Harry Glorikian: Yeah. And it's it's supposed to complement traditional therapy if I was reading everything correctly.Paolo Pirjanian: Exactly. Exactly. We don't believe in replacing humans in the loop. We want people to be treated by humans. But given the shortage and cost of mental health services, there's always room for complementing that with AI and other technologies. And that's what we are doing.Harry Glorikian: So if I ask the question, is Moxie more like a toy that's supposed to be fun, or is it a tool that's supposed to be therapeutic or correct some help help a child that's using it or is it both?Paolo Pirjanian: It's primarily a tool to help children with social emotional learning, things that you would go to a therapist for. The analogy that I use that may be helpful here is really Moxie is a tool to deliver therapy to children. But we we have to make it fun enough for the child to want to take that pill. So in a way, if you use pharmaceuticals as an analogy, a pill usually for children is sugar coated because you want them to take the pill to deliver the medicine to them. So the same way here, Moxie has a lot of fun activities and interesting things that attract a child to want to interact with Moxie. And then during those interactions, Moxie will find the opportunity to deliver techniques and therapies, for instance, to teach the child about mindfulness, teach them about emotion regulation, teach them social skills, to teach them about empathy and kindness, talking about your feelings and so on.Harry Glorikian: I know many adults that may need Moxie for sure. With all those categories you mentioned. Right.Paolo Pirjanian: I agree.Harry Glorikian: But but let's talk about the range of challenges, problems or issues that you've designed Moxie to help with. So can it help with relatively mild issues like shyness, or is it designed to help kids with more severe issues like, Autism Spectrum Disorder or all of the above?Paolo Pirjanian: Yeah, no, it's first of all, you're talking about the audience that it's appropriate for. Obviously, children that have been diagnosed with any neurodevelopmental challenges such as autism need to be trained on social emotional skills. But neurotypical children also can benefit from it. Actually in our customer base, we see a roughly 50-50 split between children that have mental, behavioral developmental disorders. And in the 50% are children that you would call neurotypical. But yet we know even within neurotypical children, they have to deal with things such as stress, anxiety, sometimes even depression. Covid obviously did not help it. It exacerbated a lot of mental health issues for every child, including adults, by the way, as you pointed out. And these techniques and tools that you use from therapy are really the same independent of the diagnosis. Now, some children may need more help with social skills. Let's say if there is a child on the autism spectrum, they may not be very comfortable making eye contact, which is an important social skill to have. When you're interacting with someone, you want to look them in their eyes and Moxie will help them, for instance, with that. And that's maybe something that a neurotypical child doesn't need. So Moxie will focus more on helping them with things such as coping skills, with coping with stress, coping with anxiety or managing anxiety, or even social skills. Like you can talk to Moxie about bullying and it will allow you to talk about it and understand how to navigate that and teach you skills about how to protect your own personal space. A lot of these foundational skills are are the type of skills that social emotional learning includes.Harry Glorikian: So. Let's talk a little bit more about the actual product. And because this is a podcast, I'm sort of like need to talk through some of the features, right? Because they everybody can't see it. But so on the hardware side, you know, the arms, the waist, it bends, the rotating ears, the rotating base, the ears, the face, the speakers, the camera, you know, the program that animates the face and gives Moxie, a personality, the computer vision elements. Right. And then all the scripts of all the different interactions. Right, you know. Why was it important to give Moxie an LCD screen as a face rather than mechanical mouth or eyes.Paolo Pirjanian: Yeah. Let me start maybe take a couple of steps back for the audience, as you said there are no visuals here. Think of Moxie as a AI character brought to real life. Right. So think of it as a, sorry, as a cartoon character brought to real life. So think of a cartoon character that has physical embodiment and it can talk to you. It can smile back at you. We can interact with you with body language and emotions and so on. To your question as to why it required a LCD display. We could potentially consider creating a mechanical face that can have enough expressivity, but that can add a lot of costs on one hand. On the other hand, if not done well enough, it can become uncanny and creepy. So we decided that the LCD display that, by the way, is very is curved because we did not want it to look like a monitor stuck in the head. But it was integral to the design. So it's curved and looks like a face. And what you see on the face is an animated character, Moxie's character, which is integrated very well with a hardware industrial design. So you can provide much more freedom of expression from facial expressions. And especially for children, you want to have a robot that has the ability to show facial expressions. By the way, the intonation of the voice will change as well, based on the type of conversation and the emotion we are trying to capture in the conversation.Paolo Pirjanian: And then the other question, actually, a macro level question becomes embodiment, why did this need to be embodied? Why physical? Why not just a digital character on a screen? Well, so, evidence from neuroscience, from MRI, fMRI scans shows that when we interact with something that has physical embodiment and agency, it triggers our mirror neurons, our imitation neurons are triggered at a much higher level and much wider level than when you're interacting with something just on a screen. And the implication of that is that things you can learn through interaction with the embodied agency have a deeper impact in terms of retention of the information, something that we may be able to anecdotally relate to during COVID. All education went online and the post mortem on that was that te quality of education that was delivered online doesn't compare to what happens in the classrooms. And that's, again, the same thing when it's not embodied. You don't feel that emotional connection. You don't feel an obligation. Many children will just turn off the monitor and walk away, whereas with something that's physically embodied, you feel you can't do that. It has feelings, you feel it has a perspective. You can't just turn it off. By the way, on Moxie, if you look at it closely, there are no buttons on Moxie. There is no input device on moxie like a keyboard or a touch screen or anything else. The way you interact with moxie is the way we interact with each other, using conversation, body language, intonation of voice, emotion, facial expressions and so on. There is one switch actually on the bottom of the robot that you don't see. That's for emergency situations in case something goes wrong. For certification reasons, we have to put that physical switch to turn it off if something goes wrong.Harry Glorikian: So not having played with it does, and only watching the video online, Moxie's voice synthesized like Siri or is it prerecorded? Like, how does it sound?Harry Glorikian: It's synthetic. Yes. So, yeah. So we cast the character of Moxie, decided what this character stands for, what are its values, what is the background story? And then based on that, decided the voice of Moxie, what it should be. And then the way you develop the synthetic voices that you take in neural network and train it based on a lot of samples that we captured from a voice actress in a studio recording hundreds and hundreds of hours of speech from a script. So we have this script and we know how it sounds based on the character's voice recording, and that gets fed into a deep neural network that is trained over and over again until it models that voice. So that later I can just give a text and it will generate a synthetic voice that sounds exactly like that character.Harry Glorikian: And then Moxie seems to emit a lot of sound effects and music. Does that element enhance the product somehow?Paolo Pirjanian: Yeah. So we can underline mood and so on with sound effects or background music. For instance, one of the activities Moxie will suggest if the child is talking about things that are have to do with stress and so on, is a mindfulness journey. Where it will ask you to close your eyes. Imagine you are in a forest or other places as well. There's a library of them. Let's say you're in a forest, listen to the wind and then it will start playing some sound effects in the background and calming music to get the child to imagine they're in that space. For some children that have high sensitivity disorders to certain stimuli like sound, the parents can actually, through a parent app, provide that information which will adjust the settings. In that case, Moxie will actually not use sound effects or any jarring effects that may disturb that child.Harry Glorikian: Interesting. So. Simple question, but is it battery operated? I mean, how long does it last on a single charge? Does it plug in?Paolo Pirjanian: Yeah, it's battery operated because the child usually likes to move it around. You carry the round almost like a baby on your arm. If you remember the days where we had young babies, it was literally ergonomically, it sits exactly right on your arm very nicely. And it has a battery that can run for hours of active usage. And then at night, usually like your cell phone, you plug it in any charges overnight.Harry Glorikian: So, you know, this begs the question of where did the idea of Moxie really come from? Because you don't decide on a whim to build a product this complex. You know, how did you persuade yourself and your investors that the technology is at a point where, you know, it could really make a difference with kids, you know, that have social emotional development issues?Paolo Pirjanian: Yeah. I mean, the idea was sparked probably early in my early childhood, I would say. So, very briefly at a very early age due to a war, my world was turned upside down. And unfortunately, I had to flee my my homeland and seek refuge in another country where I looked different, sounded different and was different. Right? And and unfortunately, as such, you do get rejected by the society. You have a harder time in school. You get exposed to racism and rejection and all these things. So. I remember during that time I saw the first animated short by Pixar. Which was Luxo Jr., the two lamps, mama lamp and baby lamp playing with a ball. Which blew me away that a computer can generate millions of pixels on the screen that are moving to create, to induce or elicit such emotion in the audience. So that inspired me to actually seek education in computer science and robotics and A.I. because before that, as many immigrants you were taught that you were going to be a doctor, so that that's.Harry Glorikian: Or a lawyer.Paolo Pirjanian: Lawyer comes second, but obviously doctor first. So so that inspired me actually to buy a computer and start coding by myself. And I started learning coding and then I decided I'm going to do well in high school so I can get into university and pursue my education. And I did. And to be honest with you, this has been something I've been wanting to do for since I can remember. My previous company, as I mentioned, Evolution Robotics, that was a Idealab company and I was the CTO then became the CEO. I wanted it to do it then, but that's almost a decade ago, or maybe slightly more than a decade ago. We even tried. It was not possible. Absolutely not possible. I remember back then. Just to use an example that I think most people can relate to, voice recognition for even a single command was hard. All of us have had in-car navigation systems with a voice assistant that you would press a button, hold it down and say navigation, and would pull up navigation and say, Enter your address. It will enter the address. And you would have, to by the time you were done, enter the address because it would constantly misunderstand you and then give you options. Did you say A, B or C and no, no, no. I didn't say that. By the time you were done entering the address, you were at the destination. So that was state of the art only a decade ago. Just for voice recognition. Same thing with computer vision.Paolo Pirjanian: My specialty actually was computer vision. Computer vision. Also, we couldn't recognize things very well. And the advancement that has happened in deep neural networks due to the increase in compute power, due to increase to labeled data sets that are available through many sources from YouTube and the Internet and so on. We have been able to solve age-old problems that for decades we were struggling with So it was not possible. The other piece that was probably not possible was that I was not ready as an entrepreneur probably to take on such a colossal challenge of building a product like this. So the stars aligned around 2015 when I decided to leave iRobot and said, You know what? The time is probably right now. And and fortunately, I was able to get some investors that believed in the vision of creating AI characters, AI friends that can help children with social emotional development. And obviously, this technology platform, we will in the future use it for also helping the elderly population with loneliness and Alzheimer's and dementia and so on. We have just scratched the surface with our first products, right? And there is a lot more work to do. But today it's possible. We have proven it. We have a product in the market. A five year old can will interact with it for months at a time without any human intervention. So yeah, so it was a series of events brewing over the last 30, 40 years for this to become possible today.[musical interlude]Harry Glorikian: Let's pause the conversation for a minute to talk about one small but important thing you can do, to help keep the podcast going. And that's leave a rating and a review for the show on Apple Podcasts.All you have to do is open the Apple Podcasts app on your smartphone, search for The Harry Glorikian Show, and scroll down to the Ratings & Reviews section. Tap the stars to rate the show, and then tap the link that says Write a Review to leave your comments. It'll only take a minute, but you'll be doing a lot to help other listeners discover the show.And one more thing. If you like the interviews we do here on the show I know you'll like my new book, The Future You: How Artificial Intelligence Can Help You Get Healthier, Stress Less, and Live Longer.It's a friendly and accessible tour of all the ways today's information technologies are helping us diagnose diseases faster, treat them more precisely, and create personalized diet and exercise programs to prevent them in the first place.The book is now available in print and ebook formats. Just go to Amazon or Barnes & Noble and search for The Future You by Harry Glorikian.And now, back to the show.[musical interlude]Harry Glorikian: I mean, just looking at the system, there's probably a lot of innovations that were required to put Moxie together. And so. I don't know, maybe you can give us a few, you know, like "Oh, my God" moments that took place in this, right? I mean. I don't know if it's the physical movements. I don't know if it's the, you know, personality or the scripts. But, you know, give us the highlights of what you think was like the big breakthroughs that made this possible.Paolo Pirjanian: Yeah. So there are many, many, many, many pieces of technology that we had to invent or partner for to make this happen. So   what I mentioned, deep neural networks, generally speaking, in the field of AI have advanced to the point where we can have very reliable speech recognition technology, for instance, right? Where you have an accent or not, you're speaking loud or soft and so on, you have background noise and so on, it will be able to transcribe what you're saying pretty accurately. There are still errors, but it's pretty accurate. It's accurate enough, let's put it that way. The next stage of the conversation pipeline is actually understanding. Now you have a transcript of what was said. Now I need to understand the semantics of what was meant, what was the intent behind this, this string of characters, and that's natural language understanding. In that area, Embodied has made huge advancements because we have to be able to understand what the child is saying. And the state of the art when we started is defined by Siri and Alexa and Google Home, where it's very command and response. "Alexa, play music for me. Alexa, how is the weather? Alexa, tell me a joke. Alexa, read a story or read the news for me." And so on. So short utterances and and direct mapping to a function that the device can do. Whereas in our case it's not about this transactional command and response, it's about relation and social interaction. So the child, Moxie will actually ask and encourage the child. It says, "So how was your day to day?" There is no way any human being can script all the possible answers that you could expect to hear because you could basically say anything possible to that question.Paolo Pirjanian: So we had to develop natural language understanding that can understand what was said no matter what was said, and provide a relevant response. Because if you don't, if the robot says something that's absolutely not related to what the child wanted to talk about, then children get disappointed. They say, well, this thing is a dumb robot. It doesn't doesn't understand me. And they will dismiss it, right? The illusion of intelligence breaks away very quickly as soon as you you misunderstand or say something off script, let's say. So we had to develop a combination of systems to be able to address that. Another major challenge, and this was actually much bigger than I thought, we spent a lot of time on this challenge to solve. Again, it has to do with interaction using Alexa as an example also, and Siri as well as Google. They all have this notion of a wake word, Hey, Google, hey Siri or Alexa. When you say this keyword known as a wake word, the device is actually at the, when it's on standby, it's putting all of its attention to look for that keyword before it does anything else. So as soon as you say it, a couple of things happen. It's almost like turning on a switch to say, I'm going to speak, right? So number one, you're telling it, I'm going to say something now. Number two, as soon as you have said that phrase, these things have multiple microphones on them. And the mic array allows you to be able to be informed and focus your attention on the location from which you heard this phrase. With doing that, you can also filter out anything that's in the background. So you focus the attention of the device on that location of the user that said Alexa. And then you say a phrase and then it processes and executes the action. In our case, in social interaction, it will not be appropriate if you had to say Moxie in every volley of the conversation. Every time you want to say a sentence to me, you would start by saying Paolo and I and I would look at you, and then you would say something, and then I would stop listening. And then you say, Paolo, for every sentence, right. That would that would be a very awkward social interaction. So we had to solve that problem. It's a tough problem to solve. And we use a combination of cameras to know where the child is, the voice, where it's coming from, and what was being said to focus the attention of Moxie on the person that's engaged with it so that Moxie doesn't respond to the TV or mom and dad maybe having a conversation on the phone over there and it filters all of that automatically, without the need for having a wake word phrase. And I can go down the list. There is many, many more. But this is just examples of the type of things we have to solve.Harry Glorikian: So, you know, I think some people might make the argument that kids should really be learning their social and emotional skills from other human beings. From a parent, from a teacher, from their peers, maybe their therapist if they have one. You know, how can a robot fit into that picture in a healthy, productive way? You know, how would you respond to the potential criticism, which I'm sure you've heard before. When a parent who buys Moxie for their kid, are they offloading their parental responsibilities?Paolo Pirjanian: That's an absolutely valid concern and a good question to ask. And obviously, even before inception of the company, I personally myself was thinking about this because there is a there's a contradiction in saying that a child that is not very good at social interaction, let's put them in front of a robot, they'll get better at it. There's a contradictory element to that potentially. Right. So let's put it this way. In the extreme case, what if the child does not have the ability to have interaction with their peers? Right. So they do not get the opportunity to interact with other peers from which they're actually learning to hone in their social skills. Well, that happened during the pandemic. There's a huge mental health crisis happening in the US now that will take years for us to to address. That was because children were locked in their home without the ability to socialize with other children because of worries about being getting COVID, right. So now pandemics are rare events that hopefully don't happen that often. But now let's put ourselves in the shoes of children that are, for various reasons, are not successful in providing social interactions. An extreme case is a child on the autism spectrum. That does not have the right skills to have social interactions nor interpret social cues in a conversation. Let's say if you're annoyed at someone on the spectrum, it's likely that they may not even understand that you're annoyed at them and they may keep saying the same thing or doing the same thing. That's going to make you more and more agitated or the other end of the spectrum, which is not as severe.Paolo Pirjanian: My example when I was a child. And I lived in a foreign country where I was different. I had an accent. I looked different. I came from a different cultural background and other kids didn't want to play with me. And there's everything in between. Right? So then. What do we do? Well, you can have therapies and that's what we do. There's a massive shortage of therapists. If you have a child, usually the way this works is that your school teacher will come and say, we think your your child may be on the spectrum or your child may have ADHD or your child have some other neurodevelopmental challenge. You should get your child diagnosed. Okay. Hopefully no one has to try this. The waiting list for getting diagnosed is minimum six months, minimum six months. And that's if you have connections and good providers and all these things. While imagine for six months your mind as a parent, you're like, dying. What the hell is going on with my child? I've got to figure this out quickly. Once your child is diagnosed and you spend 6000, 7000 hours on that, then you've got to find providers. There's a huge shortage of providers, and even when you get to the provider, there is a massive cost associated with it. So typically children on the spectrum, as an example, get diagnosed at the age of three or so. Ideally, actually, because the sooner you can intervene, the better the outcomes. And when they're diagnosed, they will be recommended to seek 20 to 40 hours of therapy per week. 20 to 40 hours of therapy per week. Yeah.Harry Glorikian: They're not doing anything else.Paolo Pirjanian: No. And many times, many times schools are supposed to provide it. But you have one or two special needs teachers that are to deal with the whole population of kids on the spectrum in their school as an example. So they're not going to get 20, 40 hours per week. The cost of therapy is super expensive. Insurance also has to pay for it. Nowadays, they're mandated to, but the cost still adds up. On average, a family will spend $27,000 out of pocket per year, even despite insurance coverage. So not everyone has access. And also if you live in rural areas and so on, you don't have access. So. Why not have an automated system that can do this, at least filling the gap? Right. We think of Moxie as a springboard to the real world. So we want to use Moxie as an opportunity to for the child to open up to Moxie, use that as an option, teach them a number of techniques for how they can be more successful in social interactions, and then Moxie will actually encourage them to go in the real world and experience these things and come and tell it about what what, how it went. So we use Moxie as a springboard to the real world. There is another phenomena that happens, and I don't know how to describe this. You may actually have more insights in neuroscience than I do. Children, especially children that have neurodevelopmental challenges, open up to a robot like Moxie better than they do to humans.Paolo Pirjanian: Let's take autism as an example again. I remember the very first experiment we did with our first prototype. We took that prototype to a family's home. They had a ten year old son on the spectrum, and we put Moxie down. At the time we did not have the AI yet. It was the robot remotely controlled by one of our therapists. On an iPad they were typing what the robot should do and say. The child immediately opened up and start talking to Moxie. And if you look at that child, you say. And you know, as a matter of fact, I asked Mom: "I don't see anything wrong with your child. Why do you think he's on the spectrum?" And he says, well, you have to see him how he treats his peers. He doesn't open up to them. He doesn't want to talk to them. When he comes home from school it takes me, mom, a couple of hours to "find," quote unquote, my child. Tuning into the channel. So they shut down. And there's a few reasons for for sort of, I think, anecdotal or maybe rational reasons to why that is. One is that children that are on the spectrum, they completely understand feelings and emotions and so on. They are not very good at expressing themselves or or showing their feelings, but they understand if they are being rejected or teased out in a conversation and so on. So they shut down. A robot is non-judgmental, right? They understand that it's a safe, non-judgmental space.Paolo Pirjanian: The other part is that when someone like me who comes with a warmer blood and too many gestures and intonation, voice and expressive, it's too much there's too many signals going on. And that's overwhelming to a lot of children on the spectrum. And they shut down. It's too much. I cannot deal with this. Right. And so hence, a robot is finding social doing social exercises and experiences on training wheels. And helping them develop those muscles and get better at how to handle different situations when they go in the real world to interact with their peers or other people in their circle, social circle, to be successful. And that success will hopefully breeds more success. So ideally we are successful when people actually stop using our product. And as a matter of fact, we have parents reaching out to us and say, my child could not stand up in front of their classroom to say a word. Now she stands up and gives a whole presentation and we have stopped using Moxie. Thank you so much for the help that that's what what it is. It's like it's stepping stone. It's training wheels for social emotional learning so that they can have a chance of being successful, because otherwise they do not have the chance to to have these exercises to learn. We learn a lot by interacting with each other.Harry Glorikian: So the company describes Moxie as just the first iteration of a larger platform that I think you call SocialX. So what is SocialX and what other kinds of products do you envision coming out of it?Paolo Pirjanian: Yes. SocialX is our technology platform, which which allows a machine to interact with us using real conversation, eye contact, body language, gestures, intonation of voice and and for the machine to do that as well as understand you on all those channels as well. That's what social platform is. The name SocialX is a juxtaposition to user experience, UX with an emphasis on the social experience. Right? We are creating a social experience. We are not just creating a user experience where you can push buttons or say a command, play music. Tell me the weather, what's the stock market like? But rather social interaction which involves social skills, emotion, skills, empathy and so on. And this is our first iteration. It's going to get exponentially more advanced. With every single user we add to our customer base, it allows us to improve SocialX because the data and the interactions that we can experience allows us to keep improving our algorithms to get better and better and better. So we decided to start with children because they are the most vulnerable in our society and we thought that's where we can have the most impact. The other end of the spectrum, where we become vulnerable again is when we are aging, right? And mental health is extremely important for aging people. And loneliness leads to a lot of mental health challenges that lead to a lot of physical challenges.Paolo Pirjanian: We know this. The surgeon general of U.S. said a couple of years ago that loneliness for elderly is equivalent to smoking a pack of cigarettes in terms of the health implications it has. And it's true. Again, during COVID, a lot of elderly that were alone suffered massively because they were high risk for COVID. Even my mom, who lives 5 minutes away from me, I didn't visit her for a few months until we sort of figured out that we think we know how to handle COVID so it was safe to to meet meet each other. It's extremely difficult. So that's the other end of the spectrum that we intend to address. And then in between every age group, in between that, from your teens to your aging, every person in their lifetime deals with mental health challenges. As a matter of fact, the US population, 17 percent of the population at any given time deals with mental health challenges stress, depression, suicidal thoughts and so on. And having a life coach that can help you through these difficult times, we believe can have a huge impact. So eventually with those three pillars, we will be able to help the entire population. You can go beyond mental health, which is what we are focused on, because that's where we think we can have the biggest impact you could imagine.Paolo Pirjanian: You go to Disney Park and you could have an interactive character coming up to you that's not a person inside a suit, but it's actually an animated character that's walking around and talking to you and entertaining you. You can imagine going to a hotel lobby where your intake to the lobby will be serviced by an interactive character, AI character. By the way, we are also working with hospitals and schools. Right now for hospitals we work with University of Rochester Medical Center. We are currently doing a pilot of using Moxie to help children, diabetic children, to educate them about how to treat themselves and how to adhere to their treatment plan. And then there is a number of other use cases that we are going to expand into, including intake to the hospital, dealing, sort of holding their hands and making sure they are not stressed out, coming to the hospital for the first time, pre-op and then post-op. Also a lot of complications you want to avoid by making sure there is someone to remind you about your care plan and so on. So to be honest with you, the sky is the limit. But the three areas we are focused on is children, elderly and then everyone in between that suffers from mental health or loneliness type of challenges.Harry Glorikian: Yeah, there are so many other applications that I can think of that I would, you know that I could use my self. So hopefully, that will come into play because this would be something interesting for me even to interact with, depending on, you know - Don't forget to work out or, you know, there's something that you interact with regularly. Right. But so let's go to sort of the crux of the some of the issues. Right. It's it's not an inexpensive device. I mean, it does a lot. So you can't expect that it's going to be inexpensive. Right. It's it's $999 to purchase plus a separate monthly subscription of about, what is it, $39 per month for a minimum of 12 months. And so how how do you get this out to a larger group of people that really need it. Is it subsidized purchases? Is it insurance? What are you guys thinking of from a business model perspective?Paolo Pirjanian: Yes. So we actually launched the product in the second half of last year for the first time and we sold out. But I agree with you that it would be much better if it was more affordable, because we don't want this to only be a product available for high income families, for rich kids to use a derogatory term maybe. We want it to be available to every every child. And for that to happen, there is a couple of different strategies we are pursuing. One is that once we get to a scale of efficacy studies that are convincing enough that we can get insurance, potentially insurance coverage to cover it or at least subsidize part of it to make it more affordable. The other approach is that we are working with bigger institutions such as hospitals and schools and libraries, by the way, which can buy it and make it available to their population. As an example, this library actually came to us, which is a very interesting business model that addresses the reach to the society that may not be high income. The library bought a fleet of Moxies from us, and they're lending them out to their society, to their members as a book. So a child gets to take Moxie home for a month and then bring it back, which is awesome because we have, by the way, we have done efficacy studies and it shows that even within a month you can see significant improvement on a lot of these social emotional skills.Paolo Pirjanian: But ultimately, that's that's how it goes. And also, just to put it in perspective to two examples. One is that robots of this nature....By the way, there is nothing like Moxie because the technology has not existed today, but people have tried, actually, SoftBank has a subsidiary called SoftBank Robotics that have spent hundreds of millions of dollars developing this robot called Pepper that costs $14,000 to buy and $2,000 a month to subscribe to it. Yeah. So we are orders of magnitude better than that. And that was part of the design principle that we said we want to be on par with an iPhone ownership of a cell phone. Buy it for roughly about $1,000. And you pay roughly about $50 a month in subscription. So we met that goal, which was a major accomplishment, very hard to do, but we are not satisfied with that because as I said, this has to be available. The other part of the other example is that if you have a child that needs therapy and if this cuts your therapy by a handful of therapy sessions, it pays for itself. Right? Again, ideally, we will have insurance pay for it. And so that will take some time. As you know, sort of navigating the medical fields and insurance organizations and so on will take some time, but we will get there eventually.Harry Glorikian: Yeah, I mean, I recently interviewed the CEO of Akili Interactive, Eddie Martucci, and they are the first group to get an FDA approved prescribed video game for children between eight and 12 years old with certain type of ADHD. And so, you know, they're using the prescription route as a way to have somebody pay for the clinical trials and everything else and the product itself. So I know that this business of robotics is not for the faint of heart. I mean, there's there's many different companies out there like Jibo, which was out here. Or I think there was a company in in San Francisco called Anki that, you know. You didn't pick an easy one, that's for sure, Paolo.Paolo Pirjanian: Definitely not. Definitely not.Harry Glorikian: But but, you know, I you know, I wish you incredible luck. I mean, this this thing sounds so exciting. I mean, it brings out, like, the Star Trekkie guy in me and wants to interact with it and have it do certain things or say certain things or or maybe even like interact with my wearable and be able to see something and then make a comment to me as I'm using it. So I can only wish you incredible luck and success.Paolo Pirjanian: Thank you. I need it and I appreciate it.Harry Glorikian: Excellent. We'll talk soon.Paolo Pirjanian: Talk soon, thank you so much for having me.Harry Glorikian: That's it for this week's episode. You can find a full transcript of this episode as well as the full archive of episodes of The Harry Glorikian Show and MoneyBall Medicine at our website. Just go to glorikian.com and click on the tab Podcasts.I'd like to thank our listeners for boosting The Harry Glorikian Show into the top three percent of global podcasts.If you want to be sure to get every new episode of the show automatically, be sure to open Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast player and hit follow or subscribe. Don't forget to leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts. And we always love to hear from listeners on Twitter, where you can find me at hglorikian.Thanks for listening, stay healthy, and be sure to tune in two weeks from now for our next interview.

On this week's podcast, Mat's trying to stay young by getting into Fortnite and playing yet another word game in Knotwords, while Tom has been playing such classics as Link's Awakening on the Switch and Donkey Kong Country. Games discussed int this episode: Fortnite (everything), The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening (Switch), The Legend of … Continue reading TMA 273 -Not a lot of Knots →

Welcome everyone, a few shopkeeping items before we start. Mark your calendars for the 19th and 20th of August, there will be a Sean Robertson benefit clinic at Cascadia equine veterinary clinic in tangent, Oregon. The clinicians will be Riley Kirkpatrick, Jacob Manning, and Chris Wycliffe, DVM Sean, AKA Shrek Robertson was a second-generation farrier who had shot all of his life and was a mentor to many. He was known for his large stature and his kindness. Sean tragically lost his life due to an auto accident back in December. and the proceeds from this clinic will go to support his wife, Wendy, to help with the expenses from the accident and her, as he was their only source of income. For any inquiries about the event or ways that you can help out please contact Quentin Gravelle at 541-749-0861 or gravellefarrier@gmail.com. If next weekend, May the 13th and 14th, you find yourself in the neighbourhood of Puslinch, Ontario the Ontario Farriers Association is hosting Jan Krogh for a clinic. The title of the clinic is Therapeutic Shoeing for Sport Horses. Jan is a master farrier from Denmark and amongst his impressive list of items on his resume, is the national team farrier. If you want to learn more about Yan and his story, you can listen to his interview with Simon Curtis on the Hoof of the Horse podcast. Visit Ontario farriers.ca for more information. With today being “Mother's Day” boxing day, we decided to celebrate by having a conversation with a mother we don't often hear from. Kelly Gregory CF has helped numerous students build the foundational skills necessary to become successful farriers in this trade. Her influence has been great in our world, but she likes to work quietly in the background, so much so that even getting a photo for this episode was a challenge. Just imagine how hard it was to convince her to sit down and do the interview! She has done some cool things, including being a competitor on Forged in Fire. I completely gapped and forgot to ask her about that whole experience during the interview so my apologies to everyone for failing in my journalistic duties.  She had some great stories to share nonetheless, and despite the struggles to get her there, we had a fun time. I hope you enjoy the conversation as much as I did!

DONATE TO UKRAINE: Lithuania: https://www.panrs.lt/krasto-apsaugos-ministerijos-rekomendacijos-del-paramos-ukrainai/ Germany: https://helferschwein.de/ International: https://www.blue-yellow.lt/en/ #25 Martyna: Martyna Motum is the wife of Brock Motum but certainly she has her own identity and is building her own career in the background. Martyna has finished her High School studies in Denmark, University studies in London and later obtaining a Master's Degree at the Euroleague program later on. After working for Zalgiris Kaunas and creating social media content, she eventually met Brock while he was playing in Kaunas and decided to build a future together abroad. Today, Martyna and me talked about the challenges that coming with the "road-life" while moving to new countries with her husband and what it's like to build a social circle when living abroad. We also talked about the importance of having and continuing to build your own identity while being at home, looking for ways to build a career as well as the lifestyle behind the scenes. Life certainly changed when their son Maverick came into the world, which also presents its own challenges in a way. Meanwhile, Martyna is also building a new career of her own at BasketNews.com while traveling around Europe with her son and creating video content for the most popular european basketball platform. Topics: Martyna's Background Beginning of Relationship Life in Istanbul Social Circle & New Contracts Discovering Identity & New Purpose Spending Time Together Life With A Baby New Career / BasketNews / AndOne Relationship ATOs Finding Martyna: Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/martynamotum/ LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/martyna-motum-4a7b0159/ Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/martyna.marmaite Twitter - https://twitter.com/MrsMotum Homepage - https://www.martynamotum.com/ YouTube (BasketNews) 'And One' Playlist - https://www.youtube.com/c/BasketNews_com/playlists To support my Podcast on Patreon click here (Ačiu!!): https://www.patreon.com/bmatke #MartynaMotum #PlayerWife #Basketball #Career #MomLife #BasketNews Sponsors: Not yet :) Find “The Benas Podcast”: Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-b-podcast/id1558492852?uo=4 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3Bw5UJNSQLKo0wUybEIza3 Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/show/the-benas-podcast …or just visit my website www.bmatke.com for more info. Get in touch on: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bmatke/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bmatke/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/bmatke3 www.bmatke.com

Join Angela and guest Janesh Vaidya in this episode: The Role of Thoughts. Angela is honored have had this conversation with Author, Lecturer, Ayurveda Ambassador Janesh Vaidya. Janesh shares his knowledge on Manashastra - the psychology part of Ayurveda. It's a powerful and inspirational reminder that we have the power to make decisions for ourselves and that each day there's a chance to start over and not worry about the past and where we've been! Learn more about: • the aspect of Ayurveda that Janesh is most excited to teach about - Manashastra • the formula to happiness and bliss your lifestyle • how our thoughts can make us rich or poor • why most people are dissatisfied, stressed and unhappy in this world • understanding that everything starts within Born in a traditional family in South India Janesh Vaidya started his education in Ayurveda in the early years of his life with his grandmother, a well respected Ayurveda practitioner in the village, and extended his knowledge in the subject of Mana-shastra (psychology), Vedanta (philosophy), Dhyana (meditation), Kalari marma chikitsa (Kerala martial art therapy) and Yoga chikitsa (yoga therapy) from the traditional village schools in South India known as gurukulam. Janesh Vaidya also has a bachelor's degree from Mahatma Gandhi University and a master's degree in human resources development. For more than a decade he has been traveling in Europe and United States sharing his knowledge in the field of Ayurveda through lectures, columns and books, based on his traditional knowledge in the subject and the experience in working as a practitioner of Ayurveda around the world. During the years Vaidya has done hundreds or inspirational lectures and so far he has written eight books in the field of health, which has been translated and published in the US, Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Holland and India. Janesh Vaidya, the MD (Managing Director) of Vaidya's Ayurveda Village in Kerala, south India, is an internationally known Ayurveda practitioner and ambassador, lecturer and the author of best selling health books in Europe. Connect with Janesh: Website - https://janeshvaidya.com Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/JaneshVaidyaAyurveda/ Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/janesh_vaidya_ayurveda/ Facebook - https://www.youtube.com/user/wwwjaneshvaidyacom   Learn more about Angela and her work: Ayurveda Health Counselor Program: https://simpleayurvedaschool.teachable.com/p/ahc  Website: https://simpleayurveda.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/simple_ayurveda Join The Simple Ayurveda Collective: an affordable ongoing support system that offers Ayurveda broken down into bit-sized pieces so that you are fully able to understand and incorporate this amazing ancient science into your own life. Receive access to video lessons with new content each month, private support group OFF of Facebook, seasonal suggestions, simple recipes, and more! Learn more: www.simpleayurveda.com/membership

Author and professor Eric Heinze joins Tim to talk about freedom of speech and expression at the most fundamental level. He recently wrote a book on free speech, but it's not exactly what you might expect. He explores free speech in a larger more fundamental context than America's First Amendment. He talks about it in the context of universal human rights. Eric tells us about the thinking behind his new book called, “The Most Human Right: Why Free Speech is Everything.” https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/shapingopinion/Eric_Heinze_auphonic.mp3 One of the benefits of having a podcast is that you get the chance to talk to a diverse set of really smart and interesting people. Sometimes those people write books, and that's the case with our guest today. As mentioned, the book Eric Heinze wrote is about free speech and human rights. Eric is a professor of law and humanities at Queen Mary University of London. In his book, he asks questions like, “What are human rights?” “Are they laid out definitively in the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights or the U.S. Bill of Rights?” Or, are they just items on a checklist, like a good standard of living, housing, dignity? That's how Eric frames his new book. But what caught my attention when reading the book is how deep he really goes on this topic. He doesn't flinch when he takes the stance that when global human rights programs fail, it is often the result of people being denied one basic human right – freedom of speech. Links Eric Heinze: Queen Mary University of London “The Most Human Right: Why Free Speech is Everything," by Eric Heinze (Amazon) About this Episode's Guest Eric Heinze After completing studies in Paris, Berlin, Boston, and Leiden, Eric Heinze worked with the International Commission of Jurists and UN Sub-Commission on Human Rights, in Geneva, and on private litigation before the United Nations Administrative Tribunal in New York. He conducts lectures and interviews internationally in English, French, German, and Dutch, and is a member of the Bars of New York and Massachusetts, and has also advised NGOs on human rights, including Liberty, Amnesty International and the Media Diversity Institute. He has recently served as Project Leader for the four nation EU (HERA) consortium Memory Laws in European and Comparative Perspective (MELA).  His prior awards and fellowships have included a Fulbright Fellowship, a French Government (Chateaubriand) Fellowship, a Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD) fellowship, a Nuffield Foundation Grant, an Obermann Fellowship (Center for Advanced Studies, University of Iowa), and several Harvard University Fellowships, including a Sheldon grant, an Andres Public Interest grant, and a C. Clyde Ferguson Human Rights Fellowship. Heinze co-founded and currently directs Queen Mary's Centre for Law, Democracy, and Society (CLDS).  His opinion pieces  have appeared in The Washington Post, The Guardian, The Independent, Times Higher Education, Aeon, The Raw Story, openDemocracy, Speakers' Corner Trust, Quillette, The Conversation, Left Foot Forward, Eurozine, and other publications, and he has done television, radio and press interviews for media in Denmark, Brazil, the Netherlands, Norway, South Korea, the UK and the US.  He serves on the Advisory Board of the International Journal of Human Rights, the University of Bologna Law Review and the British Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies. Heinze recently completed The Most Human Right for MIT Press.  His other books include Hate Speech and Democratic Citizenship (Oxford University Press, 2016), The Concept of Injustice (Routledge 2013), The Logic of Constitutional Rights (Ashgate 2005; Routledge 2017); The Logic of Liberal Rights (Ashgate 2003; Routledge 2017); The Logic of Equality (Ashgate 2003; Routledge 2019), Sexual Orientation: A Human Right (Nijhoff 1995), and the collection Of Innocence and Autonomy: Children, Sex and Human Rights (2000).

Ten minutes is all it took between the moment I came across a post about The Human Library and the moment I sent an invitation to its founder, journalist and social change activist, Ronni Abergel, today's guest. The Human Library is an international not-for-profit organisation, which started in Copenhagen, Denmark, 22 years ago, and is now available in 85 countries and 50 languages. Just as you borrow a printed book from your community's library, you can borrow a human book from one of the many book depots The Human Library is running across the world. You choose a title – homeless, bisexual, bipolar, transgender, to name but a few – from a reading list of people from your community, who are facing stigmas and exclusion on a daily basis, and you spend 30 minutes with your book. You're given a neutral space to listen and ask questions. How you choose to read your human book is up to you. To quote Ronni's words, ‘We are in charge of our learning outcomes. It is our courage and curiosity, which define the experience and what we get to talk about. This means that no two readings nor events are the same'. My very first Human Library event, a couple of weeks before recording this conversation, was unlike anything I'd ever experienced before. I arrived in rainy Norwich feeling curious and excited, and as I was about to read my very first human book, a man with Asperger's syndrome, I suddenly felt anxious, uncomfortable, and vulnerable. By the time he started telling me what his life had been like, about the judgements, the challenges, but also his passions and interests, I decided I would do my best to read as many books as was possible that day. I read five and, on the train back to Cambridge, I felt uplifted, exhilarated, and vulnerable still. An unlikely combination, perhaps, but one that reminded me that connecting with others and overcoming our fears and prejudices, means exploring our own humanity in the most creative way possible, because it means using our imagination and empathy to relate to somebody's else experience, however different it might seem. Today Ronni shares his take on creativity and why running The Human Library feels like a calling. He describes the process of developing a sustainable model and reviewing it on a regular basis, and of creating book depots across the world, putting ethical boundaries when selecting human books and tailoring reading lists to corporate and institutional partners. We discuss what it means to acknowledge our unconscious biases, inherent to our survival instinct, and own them, in order to potentially ‘unjudge' others, a term embraced by The Human Library which, I hope, will soon make its way into our dictionaries. When I started this podcast in January 2020, I didn't know where it would take me. All I knew, was that I wanted to explore creativity in all its shapes and forms and meet all manner of creative people. Since then, I've had a wide range of guests from different parts of the world talking about our shared creativity and humanity. The fact that two years on, I am now introducing a conversation between a Dane, and myself, a French woman, recorded in English, about what brings us together as human beings, about our prejudices, fears, and vulnerability, but also the immense creativity we have at our disposal to overcome those and help us connect with one another, makes me feel not only very grateful, but also proud, so I hope you will enjoy it. ABOUT THE CREATIVITY FOR ALL PODCAST A maths teacher can be creative. So can a financial adviser, a community builder, and a yoga teacher. Not to mention a speed painter, a potter, or an actor! Creativity is everywhere and I love nothing more than to explore it in The Creativity for All Podcast, either by focusing on a theme – such as perfectionism, feeding your creative brain, or the pressure to be creative – in my solo episodes, or through my conversations with all manner of creative people. I want to challenge the perception of creativity and, in the process, debunk many myths attached to it: it's painful, for artists and the chosen few, etc.

Animals, Episode #2 of 4. Toads, dogs, cats, ferrets, rats, and occasionally even butterflies were depicted in the 16th and 17th centuries as “witch's familiars” throughout Europe. A servant of the witches, whose purpose was to help them stir up trouble and cause harm in their enemies, familiars were particularly important in English witch lore. Some were conjured by witches, some sent by the Devil to tempt a woman into maleficence, some were supposed to be the Devil himself in the form of a common black dog. Whatever their origin and intent, familiars were not just background characters in English witch trials. They were presented as evidence and used to sentence hundreds, probably thousands, of people to death for witchcraft - in England. Not so in France or Denmark or Italy. It was only in England that the familiar's significance was codified in law. Why, you ask? Great question. Let's find out. For a complete transcript and bibliography, visit digpodcast.org Bibliography Maeve Brigid Callan, The Templars, the Witch, and the Wild Irish (Cornell University Press, 2017) Alan Dures and Francis Young, English Catholicism, 1558-1642 (Taylor and Francis, 2021) Elizabeth Ezra, “Becoming Familiar: Witches and Companion Animals in Harry Potter and His Dark Materials,” Children's Literature, 47 (2019) 175-196 Erica Fudge, Quick Cattle and Dying Wishes: People and Their Animals in Early Modern England (Cornell University Press, 2018). Charlotte Rose Millar, “The Witch's Familiar in Sixteenth-Century England,” Melbourne Historical Journal 38 (2010) 113-130. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In this episode we are joined by Sita Bhuller, talking all things performance. Born and bred in London, Sita has spent the last 15 years on the road as an acrobat and aerial artist. With a background in gymnastics and a degree in sports and exercise sciences, she fell into the world of performance by happy accident. Her first performance role was as stunt artist for Legoland in Windsor, England. Since then, Sita has travelled the world from Macau to Denmark working with an array of stellar circus and aerial companies. Highlights include working with Franco Dragone Entertainment Group on The House of Dancing Water, a stint in Las Vegas on Le Reve, a role on BBC One's professional gymnast television show Tumble, the Asian tour of Cavalia, Cirque du Soleil's world tour of Toruk and most recently choreographing and directing the aerials and acrobatics for the Danish tour of Tarzan the musical. Sita is a trained yoga teacher and has undertaken a variety of roles throughout the years, from performer to choreographer, director, coach and captain. She now finds herself playing mum, on tour with Cirque du Soleil's Kurios, with her partner Alex (a performer in the show) and their two sons Kody and Otis. We want to hear from YOU and provide a forum where you can put in requests for future episodes. What are you interested in listening to? Please fill out the form for future guest suggestions here and if you have suggestions or requests for future themes and topics, let us know here! @theatreartlife Thanks to David Zieher who composed our music.

Mother's Day is celebrated across the world, in more than 50 countries, though not all countries celebrate it on the same day. Countries that celebrate Mother's Day on the second Sunday of May include Australia, Denmark, Finland, Italy, Switzerland, Turkey and Belgium. But if you're like me, your mother is no longer living and you cannot celebrate Mother's Day. Wait a second, the apostle Paul tells us that if you're born again, New Jerusalem is your mother. The Roman Catholic church lied to you when they said that the 'Virgin Mary' is your mother, and the 'mother of the Church', as the Bible teaches no such thing. But it turns out that born again believers do have a mother, and that is the New Jerusalem that Revelation 21 says comes down from God out of Heaven. This Mother's Day, whether your earthly mother is still with you or not, I would like to bring you a message about the mother you will be with for all eternity, New Jerusalem!

Sign up to receive podcast: https://joshuaproject.net/pray/unreachedoftheday/podcast People Group Summary: https://joshuaproject.net/people_groups/19232/DA Join us for the International Day for the Unreached on Sunday, June 5, 2022 as thousands experience #AThirdofUs https://athirdofus.com/ Listen to "A Third of Us" podcast with Greg Kelley, produced by the Alliance for the Unreached: https://alliancefortheunreached.org/podcast/ Watch "Stories of Courageous Christians" w/ Mark Kordic https://storiesofcourageouschristians.com/stories-of-courageous-christians God's Best to You!  

Prime Minister Modi's visit to Germany, Denmark and France was of considerable strategic and economic importance. Vijay Sardana joins Sanjay Dixit to discuss the significance of the visit and how it is going to benefit India.

In the latest podcast update:Key highlights from the April U.S. employment report Bank of England announces fourth rate hike since December  Rising rates, inflationary fears batter markets IMPORTANT DISCLOSURE:These views are subject to change at any time based upon market or other conditions and are current as of the date at the top of the page.Investing involves risk and principal loss is possible.Past performance does not guarantee future performance.Forecasting represents predictions of market prices and/or volume patterns utilizing varying analytical data. It is not representative of a projection of the stock market, or of any specific investment.This material is not an offer, solicitation or recommendation to purchase any security. Nothing contained in this material is intended to constitute legal, tax, securities or investment advice, nor an opinion regarding the appropriateness of any investment, nor a solicitation of any type.The general information contained in this publication should not be acted upon without obtaining specific legal, tax and investment advice from a licensed professional.  The information, analysis and opinions expressed herein are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual entity.Please remember that all investments carry some level of risk. Although steps can be taken to help reduce risk it cannot be completely removed. They do no not typically grow at an even rate of return and may experience negative growth. As with any type of portfolio structuring, attempting to reduce risk and increase return could, at certain times, unintentionally reduce returns.Investments that are allocated across multiple types of securities may be exposed to a variety of risks based on the asset classes, investment styles, market sectors, and size of companies preferred by the investment managers. Investors should consider how the combined risks impact their total investment portfolio and understand that different risks can lead to varying financial consequences, including loss of principal. Please see a prospectus for further details.The S&P 500® Index, or the Standard & Poor's 500, is a stock market index based on the market capitalizations of 500 large companies having common stock listed on the NYSE or NASDAQ.The MSCI AC (All Country) World Index: Captures large and mid-cap representation across 23 Developed Markets (DM) and 24 Emerging Markets (EM) countries. With 2,791 constituents, the index covers approximately 85% of the global investable equity opportunity set.The FTSE 100 is a market-capitalization weighted index of UK-listed blue chip companies.With a fixed n