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USE CODE DEC25 FOR 50% OFF ALL PATREON SUBSCRIPTIONS UNTIL THE END OF DECEMBER https://www.patreon.com/lionsledbydonkeys In the early days of English ambassadorships to the Ottoman Empire, an increasingly petty collection of grievances among European envoys and Ottoman dignitaries set the conditions for a single errant snowball to incite an anti-English riot. Witness the story of the snowball that got a bunch of English guys' beaten with oblong objects. Research: Dr Joel Butler Reources: Public Records Office, The National Archives, Kew, London: SP 97/3; SP 97/4. ‘Bu bir nefret cinayetidir: Gazeteci Nuh Köklü, 'kartopu oynarken' öldürüldü.' Radikal (2 February 2015). ‘Gazeteci Nuh Köklü kar topu oynarken öldürüldü', BBC News Türkçe (18 February 2015). ‘Journalist Nuh Köklü murdered for playing snowball', Agos (18 February 2015). ‘Life in prison for man who stabbed Turkish journalist over snowball fight', Hürriyet Daily News (5 June 2015). Atran, S. ‘The Devoted Actor: Unconditional Commitment and Intractable Conflict across Cultures', Current Anthropology, 57/S13 (2016), S192-S203. Brotton, J. The Sultan and the Queen: The Untold Story of Elizabeth and Islam (New York, 2017) Brown, H.F. Calendar of State Papers Relating To English Affairs in the Archives of Venice, Volume 9, 1592-1603 (London, 1897). Burian, O. The Report of Lello, Third English Ambassador to the Sublime Porte / Babıâli Nezdinde Üçüncü İngiliz Elçisi Lello'nun Muhtırası (Ankara, 1952). Butler, J.D. ‘Between Company and State: Anglo-Ottoman Diplomacy and Ottoman Political Culture, 1565-1607', unpubd. DPhil thesis, University of Oxford (2022). _________. ‘Lello, Henry', The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2023). Coulter, L.J.F. ‘The involvement of the English crown and its embassy in Constantinople with pretenders to the throne of the principality of Moldavia between the years 1583 and 1620, with particular reference to the pretender Stefan Bogdan between 1590 and 1612', unpubd. PhD thesis, University of London (1993). Foster, W. (ed.) The Travels of John Sanderson in the Levant (1584-1602) (London, 1931). Horniker, A.L. ‘Anglo-French Rivalry in the Levant from 1583 to 1612', The Journal of Modern History, 18/4 (1946), 289-305. Hutnyk, J. ‘Nuh Köklü. Statement from Yeldeğirmeni Dayanışması' (20 February 2015) at: https://hutnyk.wordpress.com/2015/02/20/nuh-koklu-statement-from-yeldegirmeni-dayanismasi/ (accessed 8 March 2025). Kowalczyk, T.D. ‘Edward Barton and Anglo-Ottoman Relations, 1588-98', unpubd. PhD thesis, University of Sussex (2020). MacLean, G. ‘Courting the Porte: Early Anglo-Ottoman Diplomacy', University of Bucharest Review, 10/2 (2008), 80-88. MacLean, G. & Matar, N. Britain & the Islamic World, 1558-1713 (Oxford, 2011). Newson, M. ‘Football, fan violence, and identity fusion', International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 54/4 (2019), 431-444. Newson, M., Buhrmester, M. & Whitehouse, H. ‘United in defeat: shared suffering and group bonding among football fans', Managing Sport and Leisure, 28/2 (2023), 164-181. Purchas, S. Hakluytus Posthumus or Purchas His Pilgrimes, viii (Glasgow, 1905). Sheikh, H., Gómez, Á. & Altran, S. ‘Empirical Evidence for the Devoted Actor Model', Current Anthropology, 57/S13 (2016), S204-S209. Unknown Artist. (c1604). The Somerset House Conference, 1604 (oil on canvas). London: National Portrait Gallery.
How can you write science-based fiction without info-dumping your research? How can you use AI tools in a creative way, while still focusing on a human-first approach? Why is adapting to the fast pace of change so difficult and how can we make the most of this time? Jamie Metzl talks about Superconvergence and more. In the intro, How to avoid author scams [Written Word Media]; Spotify vs Audible audiobook strategy [The New Publishing Standard]; Thoughts on Author Nation and why constraints are important in your author life [Self-Publishing with ALLi]; Alchemical History And Beautiful Architecture: Prague with Lisa M Lilly on my Books and Travel Podcast. Today's show is sponsored by Draft2Digital, self-publishing with support, where you can get free formatting, free distribution to multiple stores, and a host of other benefits. Just go to www.draft2digital.com to get started. This show is also supported by my Patrons. Join my Community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn Jamie Metzl is a technology futurist, professional speaker, entrepreneur, and the author of sci-fi thrillers and futurist nonfiction books, including the revised and updated edition of Superconvergence: How the Genetics, Biotech, and AI Revolutions Will Transform Our Lives, Work, and World. You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below. Show Notes How personal history shaped Jamie's fiction writing Writing science-based fiction without info-dumping The super convergence of three revolutions (genetics, biotech, AI) and why we need to understand them holistically Using fiction to explore the human side of genetic engineering, life extension, and robotics Collaborating with GPT-5 as a named co-author How to be a first-rate human rather than a second-rate machine You can find Jamie at JamieMetzl.com. Transcript of interview with Jamie Metzl Jo: Jamie Metzl is a technology futurist, professional speaker, entrepreneur, and the author of sci-fi thrillers and futurist nonfiction books, including the revised and updated edition of Superconvergence: How the Genetics, Biotech, and AI Revolutions Will Transform Our Lives, Work, and World. So welcome, Jamie. Jamie: Thank you so much, Jo. Very happy to be here with you. Jo: There is so much we could talk about, but let's start with you telling us a bit more about you and how you got into writing. From History PhD to First Novel Jamie: Well, I think like a lot of writers, I didn't know I was a writer. I was just a kid who loved writing. Actually, just last week I was going through a bunch of boxes from my parents' house and I found my autobiography, which I wrote when I was nine years old. So I've been writing my whole life and loving it. It was always something that was very important to me. When I finished my DPhil, my PhD at Oxford, and my dissertation came out, it just got scooped up by Macmillan in like two minutes. And I thought, “God, that was easy.” That got me started thinking about writing books. I wanted to write a novel based on the same historical period – my PhD was in Southeast Asian history – and I wanted to write a historical novel set in the same period as my dissertation, because I felt like the dissertation had missed the human element of the story I was telling, which was related to the Cambodian genocide and its aftermath. So I wrote what became my first novel, and I thought, “Wow, now I'm a writer.” I thought, “All right, I've already published one book. I'm gonna get this other book out into the world.” And then I ran into the brick wall of: it's really hard to be a writer. It's almost easier to write something than to get it published. I had to learn a ton, and it took nine years from when I started writing that first novel, The Depths of the Sea, to when it finally came out. But it was such a positive experience, especially to have something so personal to me as that story. I'd lived in Cambodia for two years, I'd worked on the Thai-Cambodian border, and I'm the child of a Holocaust survivor. So there was a whole lot that was very emotional for me. That set a pattern for the rest of my life as a writer, at least where, in my nonfiction books, I'm thinking about whatever the issues are that are most important to me. Whether it was that historical book, which was my first book, or Hacking Darwin on the future of human genetic engineering, which was my last book, or Superconvergence, which, as you mentioned in the intro, is my current book. But in every one of those stories, the human element is so deep and so profound. You can get at some of that in nonfiction, but I've also loved exploring those issues in deeper ways in my fiction. So in my more recent novels, Genesis Code and Eternal Sonata, I've looked at the human side of the story of genetic engineering and human life extension. And now my agent has just submitted my new novel, Virtuoso, about the intersection of AI, robotics, and classical music. With all of this, who knows what's the real difference between fiction and nonfiction? We're all humans trying to figure things out on many different levels. Shifting from History to Future Tech Jo: I knew that you were a polymath, someone who's interested in so many things, but the music angle with robotics and AI is fascinating. I do just want to ask you, because I was also at Oxford – what college were you at? Jamie: I was in St. Antony's. Jo: I was at Mansfield, so we were in that slightly smaller, less famous college group, if people don't know. Jamie: You know, but we're small but proud. Jo: Exactly. That's fantastic. You mentioned that you were on the historical side of things at the beginning and now you've moved into technology and also science, because this book Superconvergence has a lot of science. So how did you go from history and the past into science and the future? Biology and Seeing the Future Coming Jamie: It's a great question. I'll start at the end and then back up. A few years ago I was speaking at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, which is one of the big scientific labs here in the United States. I was a guest of the director and I was speaking to their 300 top scientists. I said to them, “I'm here to speak with you about the future of biology at the invitation of your director, and I'm really excited. But if you hear something wrong, please raise your hand and let me know, because I'm entirely self-taught. The last biology course I took was in 11th grade of high school in Kansas City.” Of course I wouldn't say that if I didn't have a lot of confidence in my process. But in many ways I'm self-taught in the sciences. As you know, Jo, and as all of your listeners know, the foundation of everything is curiosity and then a disciplined process for learning. Even our greatest super-specialists in the world now – whatever their background – the world is changing so fast that if anyone says, “Oh, I have a PhD in physics/chemistry/biology from 30 years ago,” the exact topic they learned 30 years ago is less significant than their process for continuous learning. More specifically, in the 1990s I was working on the National Security Council for President Clinton, which is the president's foreign policy staff. My then boss and now close friend, Richard Clarke – who became famous as the guy who had tragically predicted 9/11 – used to say that the key to efficacy in Washington and in life is to try to solve problems that other people can't see. For me, almost 30 years ago, I felt to my bones that this intersection of what we now call AI and the nascent genetics revolution and the nascent biotechnology revolution was going to have profound implications for humanity. So I just started obsessively educating myself. When I was ready, I started writing obscure national security articles. Those got a decent amount of attention, so I was invited to testify before the United States Congress. I was speaking out a lot, saying, “Hey, this is a really important story. A lot of people are missing it. Here are the things we should be thinking about for the future.” I wasn't getting the kind of traction that I wanted. I mentioned before that my first book had been this dry Oxford PhD dissertation, and that had led to my first novel. So I thought, why don't I try the same approach again – writing novels to tell this story about the genetics, biotech, and what later became known popularly as the AI revolution? That led to my two near-term sci-fi novels, Genesis Code and Eternal Sonata. On my book tours for those novels, when I explained the underlying science to people in my way, as someone who taught myself, I could see in their eyes that they were recognizing not just that something big was happening, but that they could understand it and feel like they were part of that story. That's what led me to write Hacking Darwin, as I mentioned. That book really unlocked a lot of things. I had essentially predicted the CRISPR babies that were born in China before it happened – down to the specific gene I thought would be targeted, which in fact was the case. After that book was published, Dr. Tedros, the Director-General of the World Health Organization, invited me to join the WHO Expert Advisory Committee on Human Genome Editing, which I did. It was a really great experience and got me thinking a lot about the upside of this revolution and the downside. The Birth of Superconvergence Jamie: I get a lot of wonderful invitations to speak, and I have two basic rules for speaking: Never use notes. Never ever. Never stand behind a podium. Never ever. Because of that, when I speak, my talks tend to migrate. I'd be speaking with people about the genetics revolution as it applied to humans, and I'd say, “Well, this is just a little piece of a much bigger story.” The bigger story is that after nearly four billion years of life on Earth, our one species has the increasing ability to engineer novel intelligence and re-engineer life. The big question for us, and frankly for the world, is whether we're going to be able to use that almost godlike superpower wisely. As that idea got bigger and bigger, it became this inevitable force. You write so many books, Jo, that I think it's second nature for you. Every time I finish a book, I think, “Wow, that was really hard. I'm never doing that again.” And then the books creep up on you. They call to you. At some point you say, “All right, now I'm going to do it.” So that was my current book, Superconvergence. Like everything, every journey you take a step, and that step inspires another step and another. That's why writing and living creatively is such a wonderfully exciting thing – there's always more to learn and always great opportunities to push ourselves in new ways. Balancing Deep Research with Good Storytelling Jo: Yeah, absolutely. I love that you've followed your curiosity and then done this disciplined process for learning. I completely understand that. But one of the big issues with people like us who love the research – and having read your Superconvergence, I know how deeply you go into this and how deeply you care that it's correct – is that with fiction, one of the big problems with too much research is the danger of brain-dumping. Readers go to fiction for escapism. They want the interesting side of it, but they want a story first. What are your tips for authors who might feel like, “Where's the line between putting in my research so that it's interesting for readers, but not going too far and turning it into a textbook?” How do you find that balance? Jamie: It's such a great question. I live in New York now, but I used to live in Washington when I was working for the U.S. government, and there were a number of people I served with who later wrote novels. Some of those novels felt like policy memos with a few sex scenes – and that's not what to do. To write something that's informed by science or really by anything, everything needs to be subservient to the story and the characters. The question is: what is the essential piece of information that can convey something that's both important to your story and your character development, and is also an accurate representation of the world as you want it to be? I certainly write novels that are set in the future – although some of them were a future that's now already happened because I wrote them a long time ago. You can make stuff up, but as an author you have to decide what your connection to existing science and existing technology and the existing world is going to be. I come at it from two angles. One: I read a huge number of scientific papers and think, “What does this mean for now, and if you extrapolate into the future, where might that go?” Two: I think about how to condense things. We've all read books where you're humming along because people read fiction for story and emotional connection, and then you hit a bit like: “I sat down in front of the president, and the president said, ‘Tell me what I need to know about the nuclear threat.'” And then it's like: insert memo. That's a deal-killer. It's like all things – how do you have a meaningful relationship with another person? It's not by just telling them your story. Even when you're telling them something about you, you need to be imagining yourself sitting in their shoes, hearing you. These are very different disciplines, fiction and nonfiction. But for the speculative nonfiction I write – “here's where things are now, and here's where the world is heading” – there's a lot of imagination that goes into that too. It feels in many ways like we're living in a sci-fi world because the rate of technological change has been accelerating continuously, certainly for the last 12,000 years since the dawn of agriculture. It's a balance. For me, I feel like I'm a better fiction writer because I write nonfiction, and I'm a better nonfiction writer because I write fiction. When I'm writing nonfiction, I don't want it to be boring either – I want people to feel like there's a story and characters and that they can feel themselves inside that story. Jo: Yeah, definitely. I think having some distance helps as well. If you're really deep into your topics, as you are, you have to leave that manuscript a little bit so you can go back with the eyes of the reader as opposed to your eyes as the expert. Then you can get their experience, which is great. Looking Beyond Author-Focused AI Fears Jo: I want to come to your technical knowledge, because AI is a big thing in the author and creative community, like everywhere else. One of the issues is that creators are focusing on just this tiny part of the impact of AI, and there's a much bigger picture. For example, in 2024, Demis Hassabis from Google DeepMind and his collaborative partner John Jumper won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry with AlphaFold. It feels to me like there's this massive world of what's happening with AI in health, climate, and other areas, and yet we are so focused on a lot of the negative stuff. Maybe you could give us a couple of things about what there is to be excited and optimistic about in terms of AI-powered science? Jamie: Sure. I'm so excited about all of the new opportunities that AI creates. But I also think there's a reason why evolution has preserved this very human feeling of anxiety: because there are real dangers. Anybody who's Pollyanna-ish and says, “Oh, the AI story is inevitably positive,” I'd be distrustful. And anyone who says, “We're absolutely doomed, this is the end of humanity,” I'd also be distrustful. So let me tell you the positives and the negatives, and maybe some thoughts about how we navigate toward the former and away from the latter. AI as the New Electricity Jamie: When people think of AI right now, they're thinking very narrowly about these AI tools and ChatGPT. But we don't think of electricity that way. Nobody says, “I know electricity – electricity is what happens at the power station.” We've internalised the idea that electricity is woven into not just our communication systems or our houses, but into our clothes, our glasses – it's woven into everything and has super-empowered almost everything in our modern lives. That's what AI is. In Superconvergence, the majority of the book is about positive opportunities: In healthcare, moving from generalised healthcare based on population averages to personalised or precision healthcare based on a molecular understanding of each person's individual biology. As we build these massive datasets like the UK Biobank, we can take a next jump toward predictive and preventive healthcare, where we're able to address health issues far earlier in the process, when interventions can be far more benign. I'm really excited about that, not to mention the incredible new kinds of treatments – gene therapies, or pharmaceuticals based on genetics and systems-biology analyses of patients. Then there's agriculture. Over the last hundred years, because of the technologies of the Green Revolution and synthetic fertilisers, we've had an incredible increase in agricultural productivity. That's what's allowed us to quadruple the global population. But if we just continue agriculture as it is, as we get towards ten billion wealthier, more empowered people wanting to eat like we eat, we're going to have to wipe out all the wild spaces on Earth to feed them. These technologies help provide different paths toward increasing agricultural productivity with fewer inputs of land, water, fertiliser, insecticides, and pesticides. That's really positive. I could go on and on about these positives – and I do – but there are very real negatives. I was a member of the WHO Expert Advisory Committee on Human Genome Editing after the first CRISPR babies were very unethically created in China. I'm extremely aware that these same capabilities have potentially incredible upsides and very real downsides. That's the same as every technology in the past, but this is happening so quickly that it's triggering a lot of anxieties. Governance, Responsibility, and Why Everyone Has a Role Jamie: The question now is: how do we optimise the benefits and minimise the harms? The short, unsexy word for that is governance. Governance is not just what governments do; it's what all of us do. That's why I try to write books, both fiction and nonfiction, to bring people into this story. If people “other” this story – if they say, “There's a technology revolution, it has nothing to do with me, I'm going to keep my head down” – I think that's dangerous. The way we're going to handle this as responsibly as possible is if everybody says, “I have some role. Maybe it's small, maybe it's big. The first step is I need to educate myself. Then I need to have conversations with people around me. I need to express my desires, wishes, and thoughts – with political leaders, organisations I'm part of, businesses.” That has to happen at every level. You're in the UK – you know the anti-slavery movement started with a handful of people in Cambridge and grew into a global movement. I really believe in the power of ideas, but ideas don't spread on their own. These are very human networks, and that's why writing, speaking, communicating – probably for every single person listening to this podcast – is so important. Jo: Mm, yeah. Fiction Like AI 2041 and Thinking Through the Issues Jo: Have you read AI 2041 by Kai-Fu Lee and Chen Qiufan? Jamie: No. I heard a bunch of their interviews when the book came out, but I haven't read it. Jo: I think that's another good one because it's fiction – a whole load of short stories. It came out a few years ago now, but the issues they cover in the stories, about different people in different countries – I remember one about deepfakes – make you think more about the topics and help you figure out where you stand. I think that's the issue right now: it's so complex, there are so many things. I'm generally positive about AI, but of course I don't want autonomous drone weapons, you know? The Messy Reality of “Bad” Technologies Jamie: Can I ask you about that? Because this is why it's so complicated. Like you, I think nobody wants autonomous killer drones anywhere in the world. But if you right now were the defence minister of Ukraine, and your children are being kidnapped, your country is being destroyed, you're fighting for your survival, you're getting attacked every night – and you're getting attacked by the Russians, who are investing more and more in autonomous killer robots – you kind of have two choices. You can say, “I'm going to surrender,” or, “I'm going to use what technology I have available to defend myself, and hopefully fight to either victory or some kind of stand-off.” That's what our societies did with nuclear weapons. Maybe not every American recognises that Churchill gave Britain's nuclear secrets to America as a way of greasing the wheels of the Anglo-American alliance during the Second World War – but that was our programme: we couldn't afford to lose that war, and we couldn't afford to let the Nazis get nuclear weapons before we did. So there's the abstract feeling of, “I'm against all war in the abstract. I'm against autonomous killer robots in the abstract.” But if I were the defence minister of Ukraine, I would say, “What will it take for us to build the weapons we can use to defend ourselves?” That's why all this stuff gets so complicated. And frankly, it's why the relationship between fiction and nonfiction is so important. If every novel had a situation where every character said, “Oh, I know exactly the right answer,” and then they just did the right answer and it was obviously right, it wouldn't make for great fiction. We're dealing with really complex humans. We have conflicting impulses. We're not perfect. Maybe there are no perfect answers – but how do we strive toward better rather than worse? That's the question. Jo: Absolutely. I don't want to get too political on things. How AI Is Changing the Writing Life Jo: Let's come back to authors. In terms of the creative process, the writing process, the research process, and the business of being an author – what are some of the ways that you already use AI tools, and some of the ways, given your futurist brain, that you think things are going to change for us? Jamie: Great question. I'll start with a little middle piece. I found you, Jo, through GPT-5. I asked ChatGPT, “I'm coming out with this book and I want to connect with podcasters who are a little different from the ones I've done in the past. I've been a guest on Joe Rogan twice and some of the bigger podcasts. Make me a list of really interesting people I can have great conversations with.” That's how I found you. So this is one reward of that process. Let me say that in the last year I've worked on three books, and I'll explain how my relationship with AI has changed over those books. Cleaning Up Citations (and Getting Burned) Jamie: First is the highly revised paperback edition of Superconvergence. When the hardback came out, I had – I don't normally work with research assistants because I like to dig into everything myself – but the one thing I do use a research assistant for is that I can't be bothered, when I'm writing something, to do the full Chicago-style footnote if I'm already referencing an academic paper. So I'd just put the URL as the footnote and then hire a research assistant and say, “Go to this URL and change it into a Chicago-style citation. That's it.” Unfortunately, my research assistant on the hardback used early-days ChatGPT for that work. He did the whole thing, came back, everything looked perfect. I said, “Wow, amazing job.” It was only later, as I was going through them, that I realised something like 50% of them were invented footnotes. It was very painful to go back and fix, and it took ten times more time. With the paperback edition, I didn't use AI that much, but I did say things like, “Here's all the information – generate a Chicago-style citation.” That was better. I noticed there were a few things where I stopped using the thesaurus function on Microsoft Word because I'd just put the whole paragraph into the AI and say, “Give me ten other options for this one word,” and it would be like a contextual thesaurus. That was pretty good. Talking to a Robot Pianist Character Jamie: Then, for my new novel Virtuoso, I was writing a character who is a futurist robot that plays the piano very beautifully – not just humanly, but almost finding new things in the music we've written and composing music that resonates with us. I described the actions of that robot in the novel, but I didn't describe the inner workings of the robot's mind. In thinking about that character, I realised I was the first science-fiction writer in history who could interrogate a machine about what it was “thinking” in a particular context. I had the most beautiful conversations with ChatGPT, where I would give scenarios and ask, “What are you thinking? What are you feeling in this context?” It was all background for that character, but it was truly profound. Co-Authoring The AI Ten Commandments with GPT-5 Jamie: Third, I have another book coming out in May in the United States. I gave a talk this summer at the Chautauqua Institution in upstate New York about AI and spirituality. I talked about the history of our human relationship with our technology, about how all our religious and spiritual traditions have deep technological underpinnings – certainly our Abrahamic religions are deeply connected to farming, and Protestantism to the printing press. Then I had a section about the role of AI in generating moral codes that would resonate with humans. Everybody went nuts for this talk, and I thought, “I think I'm going to write a book.” I decided to write it differently, with GPT-5 as my named co-author. The first thing I did was outline the entire book based on the talk, which I'd already spent a huge amount of time thinking about and organising. Then I did a full outline of the arguments and structures. Then I trained GPT-5 on my writing style. The way I did it – which I fully describe in the introduction to the book – was that I'd handle all the framing: the full introduction, the argument, the structure. But if there was a section where, for a few paragraphs, I was summarising a huge field of data, even something I knew well, I'd give GPT-5 the intro sentence and say, “In my writing style, prepare four paragraphs on this.” For example, I might write: “AI has the potential to see us humans like we humans see ant colonies.” Then I'd say, “Give me four paragraphs on the relationship between the individual and the collective in ant colonies.” I could have written those four paragraphs myself, but it would've taken a month to read the life's work of E.O. Wilson and then write them. GPT-5 wrote them in seconds or minutes, in its thinking mode. I'd then say, “It's not quite right – change this, change that,” and we'd go back and forth three or four times. Then I'd edit the whole thing and put it into the text. So this book that I could have written on my own in a year, I wrote a first draft of with GPT-5 as my named co-author in two days. The whole project will take about six months from start to finish, and I'm having massive human editing – multiple edits from me, plus a professional editor. It's not a magic AI button. But I feel strongly about listing GPT-5 as a co-author because I've written it differently than previous books. I'm a huge believer in the old-fashioned lone author struggling and suffering – that's in my novels, and in Virtuoso I explore that. But other forms are going to emerge, just like video games are a creative, artistic form deeply connected to technology. The novel hasn't been around forever – the current format is only a few centuries old – and forms are always changing. There are real opportunities for authors, and there will be so much crap flooding the market because everybody can write something and put it up on Amazon. But I think there will be a very special place for thoughtful human authors who have an idea of what humans do at our best, and who translate that into content other humans can enjoy. Traditional vs Indie: Why This Book Will Be Self-Published Jo: I'm interested – you mentioned that it's your named co-author. Is this book going through a traditional publisher, and what do they think about that? Or are you going to publish it yourself? Jamie: It's such a smart question. What I found quickly is that when you get to be an author later in your career, you have all the infrastructure – a track record, a fantastic agent, all of that. But there were two things that were really important to me here: I wanted to get this book out really fast – six months instead of a year and a half. It was essential to me to have GPT-5 listed as my co-author, because if it were just my name, I feel like it would be dishonest. Readers who are used to reading my books – I didn't want to present something different than what it was. I spoke with my agent, who I absolutely love, and she said that for this particular project it was going to be really hard in traditional publishing. So I did a huge amount of research, because I'd never done anything in the self-publishing world before. I looked at different models. There was one hybrid model that's basically the same as traditional, but you pay for the things the publisher would normally pay for. I ended up not doing that. Instead, I decided on a self-publishing route where I disaggregated the publishing process. I found three teams: one for producing the book, one for getting the book out into the world, and a smaller one for the audiobook. I still believe in traditional publishing – there's a lot of wonderful human value-add. But some works just don't lend themselves to traditional publishing. For this book, which is called The AI Ten Commandments, that's the path I've chosen. Jo: And when's that out? I think people will be interested. Jamie: April 26th. Those of us used to traditional publishing think, “I've finished the book, sold the proposal, it'll be out any day now,” and then it can be a year and a half. It's frustrating. With this, the process can be much faster because it's possible to control more of the variables. But the key – as I was saying – is to make sure it's as good a book as everything else you've written. It's great to speed up, but you don't want to compromise on quality. The Coming Flood of Excellent AI-Generated Work Jo: Yeah, absolutely. We're almost out of time, but I want to come back to your “flood of crap” and the “AI slop” idea that's going around. Because you are working with GPT-5 – and I do as well, and I work with Claude and Gemini – and right now there are still issues. Like you said about referencing, there are still hallucinations, though fewer. But fast-forward two, five years: it's not a flood of crap. It's a flood of excellent. It's a flood of stuff that's better than us. Jamie: We're humans. It's better than us in certain ways. If you have farm machinery, it's better than us at certain aspects of farming. I'm a true humanist. I think there will be lots of things machines do better than us, but there will be tons of things we do better than them. There's a reason humans still care about chess, even though machines can beat humans at chess. Some people are saying things I fully disagree with, like this concept of AGI – artificial general intelligence – where machines do everything better than humans. I've summarised my position in seven letters: “AGI is BS.” The only way you can believe in AGI in that sense is if your concept of what a human is and what a human mind is is so narrow that you think it's just a narrow range of analytical skills. We are so much more than that. Humans represent almost four billion years of embodied evolution. There's so much about ourselves that we don't know. As incredible as these machines are and will become, there will always be wonderful things humans can do that are different from machines. What I always tell people is: whatever you're doing, don't be a second-rate machine. Be a first-rate human. If you're doing something and a machine is doing that thing much better than you, then shift to something where your unique capacities as a human give you the opportunity to do something better. So yes, I totally agree that the quality of AI-generated stuff will get better. But I think the most creative and successful humans will be the ones who say, “I recognise that this is creating new opportunities, and I'm going to insert my core humanity to do something magical and new.” People are “othering” these technologies, but the technologies themselves are magnificent human-generated artefacts. They're not alien UFOs that landed here. It's a scary moment for creatives, no doubt, because there are things all of us did in the past that machines can now do really well. But this is the moment where the most creative people ask themselves, “What does it mean for me to be a great human?” The pat answers won't apply. In my Virtuoso novel I explore that a lot. The idea that “machines don't do creativity” – they will do incredible creativity; it just won't be exactly human creativity. We will be potentially huge beneficiaries of these capabilities, but we really have to believe in and invest in the magic of our core humanity. Where to Find Jamie and His Books Jo: Brilliant. So where can people find you and your books online? Jamie: Thank you so much for asking. My website is jamiemetzl.com – and my books are available everywhere. Jo: Fantastic. Thanks so much for your time, Jamie. That was great. Jamie: Thank you, Joanna.The post Writing The Future, And Being More Human In An Age of AI With Jamie Metzl first appeared on The Creative Penn.
Host Maxwell Porter is joined by two experts to explore the geological and tectonic evolution of the iconic Laramide Porphyry Copper Province, focusing on its complex geodynamic history and the key exploration criteria that define this world-class copper belt. Our guests share complementary academic and industry perspectives, offering insights drawn from decades of research and field experience.The Geological Framework and Exploration vectors in the Globe-Miami DistrictOur first guest is Dr. Robert Lee. Robert earned his PhD at Oregon State University studying the El Salvador porphyry copper deposit in Chile. He then joined Freeport-McMoRan as a greenfields exploration geologist working across North America, the Philippines, and Europe. In 2014, he moved to UBC's MDRU, leading and contributing to research projects on tools to vector towards economic ore deposits, across the Western Tethyan Belt to the Andes and British Columbia. Since 2022, Robert has been a Principal Geoscientist with BHP's Generative Porphyry Copper team. His expertise centers on porphyry copper formation, mineral chemistry, and innovative tools for exploration, including zircon as a vector to ore.Tectonic controls on porphyry deposit formation in ArizonaOur second guest is Professor Thomas Lamont. Thomas is a structural geologist and petrologist whose work links tectonics, crustal evolution, and the formation of major ore systems. His research combines field mapping with advanced analytical tools, from EPMA and thermobarometry to isotopic and geochronological techniques. He completed his DPhil at the University of Oxford, investigating how the Cycladic Islands in Greece evolved from a compressional to an extensional tectonic regime. In a later postdoctoral role, he focused on the Laramide porphyry province of the southwestern United States, showing how flat-slab subduction drove water-fluxed melting and porphyry copper formation. Thomas now leads research into how subduction geometry shapes the thermal and mechanical state of the lithosphere and its mineral endowment in addition to other topics, as an assistant professor of Structural Geology and Tectonics at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.Many thanks to VRIFY for sponsoring Season 5 of Discovery to Recovery.Theme music is Confluence by Eastwindseastwindsmusic.com
Join host and HRS Digital Education Committee Member Melissa Middeldorp, MPH, PhD and her guests Rod Passman, MD, FHRS, and Emma Svenberg, MD, PhD, live at HRX 2025. In this episode, we explore the AMALFI Randomized Clinical Trial, which evaluated whether remote, wearable-based screening can effectively detect asymptomatic atrial fibrillation in high-risk adults. The discussion breaks down the study design, key findings, and implications for population-level AF screening strategies. It also examines how emerging digital health tools may integrate into routine cardiovascular prevention. Learning Objectives Describe the design, patient population, and primary outcomes of the AMALFI Randomized Clinical Trial. Evaluate the effectiveness of remote wearable monitoring compared with usual care for detecting asymptomatic atrial fibrillation. Discuss the potential clinical and health-system implications of implementing large-scale remote AF screening in high-risk populations. Article Authors Rohan Wijesurendra, DPhil, Guilherme Pessoa-Amorim, DPhil, Georgina Buck, MSc,Charlie Harper, DPhil, Richard Bulbulia, MD, Alison Offer, PhD, Nicholas R. Jones, DPhil, Christine A'Court, MA, Rijo Kurien, MSc, Karen Taylor, MSc, Barbara Casadei, DPhil, Louise Bowman, MD. Podcast Contributors Melissa E. Middeldorp, MPH, PhD Rod S. Passman, MD, FHRS Emma Svennberg, MD, PhD Article for Discussion
What happened when the laws of Moses were translated into Greek? In this episode, we journey from Sinai to Alexandria with Dr Joel Korytko, whose book The Death of the Covenant Code uncovers how Jewish translators in the third century BCE re-imagined Israel's laws for a Greek-speaking world. Together with Helen Bond and Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones, Joel reveals how death penalties quietly disappeared in the Greek Exodus, and what these changes reveal about Jewish life under Greek rule. This is a story of law, language, and the authority of Scripture in a fast-changing world. Dr Joel Korytko is Assistant Professor of Biblical Studies at Northwest College | Seminary. He completed his DPhil at the University of Oxford, where his research explored how Jewish translators adapted biblical law for a Hellenistic audience. His book, The Death of the Covenant Code (Brill, 2022), examines how the laws of Exodus were reshaped in the Old Greek translation in light of Graeco-Egyptian legal traditions. Joel is also co-authoring a forthcoming commentary on Exodus for the Society of Biblical Literature Commentary on the Septuagint series.SUPPORT BIBLICAL TIME MACHINEIf you enjoy the podcast, please (pretty please!) consider supporting the show through the Time Travellers Club, our Patreon. We are an independent, listener-supported show (no ads!), so please help us continue to showcase high-quality biblical scholarship with a monthly subscription.DOWNLOAD OUR STUDY GUIDE: MARK AS ANCIENT BIOGRAPHYCheck out our 4-part audio study guide called "The Gospel of Mark as an Ancient Biography." While you're there, get yourself a Biblical Time Machine mug or a cool sticker for your water bottle.Support the showTheme music written and performed by Dave Roos, creator of Biblical Time Machine. Season 4 produced by John Nelson.
It's taken for granted by a surprisingly large number of American Christians today that their religious faith requires them to be Zionists and strong partisans of the current state of Israel. This view is at odds with the universal testimony of Christendom for 1800 years. Adam Francisco, our guest, is Director of Academics and Scholar in Residence at 1517. He earned his DPhil from the University of Oxford in 2006 and served as Professor of History, Dean, and Assistant Provost in the Concordia University System for nearly two decades. Sponsors: Incogni: Visit incogni.com/woods for 60% off your first year of privacy protection. CrowdHealth: Code: WOODS Monetary Metals Guest's Website: 1517.org Website Mentioned: Scott Horton Academy Show notes for Ep. 2704 The Tom Woods Show is produced by Podsworth Media. Check out the Podsworth App: Use code WOODS50 for 50% off your first order at Podsworth.com to clean up your voice recordings, sound like a pro, and also support the Tom Woods Show! My full Podsworth ad read BEFORE & AFTER processing: https://youtu.be/tIlZWkm8Syk
Today, we're speaking to Jadine Scragg, a researcher based at the University of Oxford, and Sabrina Keating about their recent paper published here in the BJGP.Title of paper: GPs' perspectives on GLP-1RAs for obesity management: a qualitative study in EnglandAvailable at: https://doi.org/10.3399/BJGP.2025.0065General practitioners (GPs) play a central role in managing obesity yet face significant challenges due to limited treatment options and resource constraints. GLP-1RAs are emerging as a promising treatment for obesity but access in primary care is limited. This study provides new insights into GPs' perspectives on the integration of GLP-1RAs into primary care, highlighting concerns around resource limitations, health equity, and misuse of the medications.TranscriptThis transcript was generated using AI and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Please be aware it may contain errors or omissions.Speaker A00:00:01.200 - 00:01:00.730Hello and welcome to BJGP Interviews. I'm Nada Khan and I'm one of the associate editors of the bjgp. Thanks for taking the time today to listen to this podcast.Today we're speaking to Judine Scragg, a researcher based at the University Oxford, and Sabrina Keating, a DPHIL student who's also based at the University of Oxford within the Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences.We're here to talk about their recent paper, published here in the BJJP, titled GP's Perspectives on GLP1 Receptor Agonists for Obesity Management A Qualitative Study in England. So, hi, Judine and Sabrina, it's great to meet you both for this chat.I guess the first thing to say is that this work is really topical at the moment, especially given current plans to increase the rollout of GLP1 receptor agonists into the community. But, Judine, I'll come to you first and I wonder if you could just tell us a bit more about what you wanted to do in this research and why.Speaker B00:01:01.510 - 00:02:25.330Yeah, absolutely. So, for a long time, as you've said, the GLP1s have been very topical, both in clinical groups and with patients as well.So I'm first and foremost, I'm a weight management researcher and I've done work in populations with people living with type 2 diabetes and polycystic ovary syndrome. And within those populations, one of the things they've constantly asked about is about GLP1s, when do I qualify? When do I get it around?And similarly with the gps GP groups as well, there's been a lot of questions, there's lots of media about, you know, both good and bad about GLPs and outlining different people's thought processes and are they good? Are they bad?So what we sought to do with this was to sort of more robustly work out what it is GPs actually feel about the perceived integration of the GLP1s into primary care to very kind of firmly focus on GP specifically.And this ended up coming at a really timely point, as midway through the study, the NICE guidance was brought out on outlining the plans for how tirepatide would be rolled out. So it was a really timely piece to find out exactly what they were thinking and feeling about how this may impact them and their patients.So that's really what we set out to do.Speaker A00:02:26.200 - 00:02:55.660Great.And this was a qualitative interview study of 25 GPs across England working across different roles, and they all had different experience in weight management services. But I really Just wanted to come on to what you found here.And let's start with an area that's quite a common issue right now, and I...
ABSTRACT What enables me to know that others exist? Natalie Duddington (PAS 1918-1919) offers two distinctive, and underexplored, insights into the question. She focusses on our capacity to perceive minds in perceiving animate beings, and on the ways in which we stand to be affected by others in knowing them. I will suggest a way of understanding what it is to see minds in action. I will also argue that ways we stand to be affected by others offers a resource for knowing others that takes us beyond perception, and is one that constitutes an antidote to the solipsist. ABOUT Lucy O'Brien is Richard Wollheim Professor of Philosophy at UCL. She has been at UCL since 1992. Her studies in Philosophy began with a BA Joint Hons in Pure Mathematics and Philosophy, and an MPhil in Philosophy, at the University of Sheffield. She went on to a DPhil in Oxford, followed by a post-doctoral position at King's London. Her research interests lie in the philosophy of mind and action, with a particular focus on various forms of self-consciousness, and self-knowledge. She is writing a book on interpersonal self-consciousness following receipt of a British Academy/Leverhulme Senior Research Fellowship. She has published papers in a range of journals and collections, she is the author of Self-Knowing Agents (OUP, 2007) and co-editor, with Matthew Soteriou, of Mental Actions (OUP, 2009). She served as Director and Treasurer of the Aristotelian Society 2007-2014, and Vice-Chair of the Royal Institute of Philosophy 2015-2020. She was awarded a Humboldt Forschungspreis in 2021, and was made a Fellow of the British Academy in 2024. She was co-editor, with A. W. Moore, of the journal MIND from 2015-2025. She has been Chair of the Royal Institute of Philosophy since 2020.
What does “meaningful work” really mean, and why is it so crucial not just for personal fulfilment but for building healthier, higher-performing organisations? In this thought-provoking episode, Helen Beedham is joined by Professor Ying Zhou, Director of the Future of Work Research Centre at the University of Surrey and a leading expert in job quality and employee wellbeing to unpack the latest research, challenge some big myths, and share actionable insights for leaders, managers and anyone curious about cultivating meaning in their working life.Together, Helen and Ying explore:⭐️ What meaningful work truly is including both the “self-realisation” (personal fulfilment) and “social justification” (positive societal impact) perspectives and how these ideas differ;⭐️ The latest UK data on how many of us actually find our work meaningful and where so-called “bullshit jobs” fit into the story;⭐️ The real drivers of meaningful work, why it's less about pay, and far more about intrinsic job quality;⭐ ️ The emerging role of AI and technology: is automation making work more or less meaningful, and how much does it really matter so far?⭐️ Simple, research-backed advice for managers to boost meaningfulness in their teams, whatever industry you're in.Tune in for an evidence-based yet practical episode pulling together robust research, real-world examples, and clear recommendations to help everyone from senior leaders to those just starting out build more meaningful, impactful working lives.About Professor Ying Zhou Ying Zhou is Professor of Human Resource Management and Director of the Future of Work Research Centre at the University of Surrey. Her research is focused on job quality, occupation, and employee well-being. She has won research grants from the Economic and Social Research Council, the UK Government, the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions, and the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (with a total of £4.3 million) to analyse job quality and employee well-being in the UK and Europe. Her research has been presented to the UK Cabinet Office, House of Commons, OECD, European Commission, European Council and cited in UK, French, Welsh and EU policy documents. Her research appears in leading academic journals such as the Journal of Applied Psychology, Journal of Organizational Behavior, Human Resource Management Journal, and the British Journal of Industrial Relations. Ying is a recipient of the Surrey Business School Impact Award and the Academy of Management Overall Best Paper Award. Ying received her MPhil and DPhil in Economic Sociology from Oxford University.Links:Visit Helen's website www.helenbeedham.com.Check out Helen's award-winning business book: The Future of Time: how 're-working' time can help you boost productivity, diversity and wellbeing.Leave a book review on Amazon here.Get in touch about Helen's Time-Intelligent Teams workshops or view/download a flier here.Join her mailing list here.What does freedom at work mean to you? Take my short survey here.Pre-order my new book People Glue: hold on to your best people by setting them free (out Jan 2026) and become a book supporter to gain exclusive book-related invitations and offers. Follow Professor Ying Zhou on Linked In here.FInd out more about the Future of Work Research Centre. Access the 2024 UK Skills Employment Survey.Loved this episode? Follow The Business of Being Brilliant, rate and review the show, and share it with friends and colleagues who care about building brighter, fairer workplaces.
Nathan Pinkoski, fellow at the Center for Renewing America, talks to Timon about postliberalism, the radical shifts of the 1990s, and right wing literature. Notes: Actually Existing Postliberalism - First Things The Camp of the Saints - Paperback – Itasca Books Spiritual Death of the West - First Things Nathan Pinkoski earned his BA (Hon) from the University of Alberta and his MPhil and DPhil in Politics from the University of Oxford. He's taught at Princeton University, the University of Toronto, and the University of Florida. Pinkoski's research and writings cover the decline of republican government and the rise of postconstitutionalism in the United States and Western Europe. He has published in a variety of academic and popular journals, including Compact, First Things, Perspectives on Political Science, and The Claremont Review of Books. His book project, Actually Existing Postliberalism, examines the transformation of the West since 1989. It is under contract with Basic Books. He is also translating Éric Zemmour's bestseller The Suicide of the French (Le Suicide français) into English for Encounter Books. Learn more about Nathan Pinkowski: https://americarenewing.com/team/nathan-pinkoski/ –––––– Follow American Reformer across Social Media: X / Twitter – https://www.twitter.com/amreformer Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/AmericanReformer/ YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/@AmericanReformer Rumble – https://rumble.com/user/AmReformer Website – https://americanreformer.org/ Promote a vigorous Christian approach to the cultural challenges of our day, by donating to The American Reformer: https://americanreformer.org/donate/ Follow Us on Twitter: Josh Abbotoy – https://twitter.com/Byzness Timon Cline – https://twitter.com/tlloydcline The American Reformer Podcast is hosted by Josh Abbotoy and Timon Cline, recorded remotely in the United States, and edited by Jared Cummings. Subscribe to our Podcast, "The American Reformer" Get our RSS Feed – https://americanreformerpodcast.podbean.com/ Apple Podcasts – https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-american-reformer-podcast/id1677193347 Spotify – https://open.spotify.com/show/1V2dH5vhfogPIv0X8ux9Gm?si=a19db9dc271c4ce5
Why Dictators Fear Open Minds with Edi Bilimoria Edi Bilimoria, DPhil, FIMechE, CEng, is a Consultant Engineer and has been Project Manager and Head of Design for major projects such as the Channel Tunnel. He is a Trustee of the Scientific and Medical Network, Adviser to the Galileo Commission of the Network, a Trustee and … Continue reading "Why Dictators Fear Open Minds with Edi Bilimoria"
Anthony Vahni Capildeo was born in Port of Spain, Trinidad, and lives in the UK. One finds a sacred wonder and delight in language in every poem in each of their nine collections and eight chapbooks. Capildeo studied Old Norse and translation while earning their DPhil at Oxford University. The recipient of many awards including Forward Prize for Best Collection for Measures of Expatriation (2016) and the Judith E. Wilson Poetry Fellowship (2014), Capildeo is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. They are currently a professor and writer-in-residence at the University of York. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Saiju Jacob, MD, DPhil, FRCP, FAAN - The Value of Disease Control in gMG: The Latest Data Evaluating Patient Needs and Treatment Outcomes as They Emerge From Helsinki
Saiju Jacob, MD, DPhil, FRCP, FAAN - The Value of Disease Control in gMG: The Latest Data Evaluating Patient Needs and Treatment Outcomes as They Emerge From Helsinki
The British hippie movement of the 1960s left an indelible mark on popular culture and woven into this counterculture was a fascination with Indian spiritual practices. When the Beatles went to India, for instance, what did they hope to find and to what extent were their hopes wrapped up in colonial thinking about Britain's former imperial territory? To explore this understudied element of the movement, Charlie Bowden, a History student at Jesus College, speaks to Robert James Taylor, a DPhil candidate at New College, about his doctoral research on cultural Indophilia and its relation to hippiedom.Host: Charlie BowdenEditor: Charlie BowdenLooking to make the most of Oxford's world-leading professors, we decided to set up a platform to interview these academics on the niche, weird and wonderful from their subjects. We aim to create thought-provoking and easily digestible podcast episodes, made for anyone with an interest in the world around them, and to facilitate university access and outreach for students aspiring to Oxford or Cambridge. To learn more about OxPods, visit our website www.oxpods.co.uk, or follow us on socials @ox.pods. If you would like an audio transcription of this episode, please do not hesitate to get in touch with us.OxPods is made possible through the support of our generous benefactors. Special thanks to: St Peter's College JCR, Jesus College JCR & Lady Margaret Hall JCR for supporting us in 2024.OxPods © 2023 by OxPods is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
From The Simpsons' Big Book of British Smiles to Austin Powers' ochre-tinged grin, American culture can't stop bad-mouthing English teeth. But why? Are they worse than any other nation's? June Thomas drills down into the origins of the stereotype, and discovers that the different approaches to dentistry on each side of the Atlantic have a lot to say about our national values. In this episode, you'll hear from historians Mimi Goodall, Mathew Thomson, and Alyssa Picard, author of Making the American Mouth; and from professor of dental public health Richard Watt. This episode was written by June Thomas and edited and produced by Evan Chung, Decoder Ring's supervising producer. Our show is also produced by Willa Paskin, Katie Shepherd, and Max Freedman. Merritt Jacob is Senior Technical Director. If you have any cultural mysteries you want us to decode, email us at DecoderRing@slate.com or leave a message on our hotline at (347) 460-7281. Sources for This Episode Goodall, Mimi. “Sugar in the British Atlantic World, 1650-1720,” DPhil dissertation, Oxford University, 2022. Mintz, Sidney. Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History, Penguin Books, 1986. Picard, Alyssa. Making the American Mouth: Dentists and Public Health in the Twentieth Century, Rutgers University Press, 2009. Thomson, Mathew. “Teeth and National Identity,” People's History of the NHS. Trumble, Angus. A Brief History of the Smile, Basic Books, 2004. Wynbrandt, James. The Excruciating History of Dentistry: Toothsome Tales & Oral Oddities from Babylon to Braces, St. Martin's Griffin, 2000. Watt, Richard, et al. “Austin Powers bites back: a cross sectional comparison of US and English national oral health surveys,” BMJ, Dec. 16, 2015. Get more of Decoder Ring with Slate Plus! Join for exclusive bonus episodes of Decoder Ring and ad-free listening on all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe from the Decoder Ring show page on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Or, visit slate.com/decoderplus for access wherever you listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
From The Simpsons' Big Book of British Smiles to Austin Powers' ochre-tinged grin, American culture can't stop bad-mouthing English teeth. But why? Are they worse than any other nation's? June Thomas drills down into the origins of the stereotype, and discovers that the different approaches to dentistry on each side of the Atlantic have a lot to say about our national values. In this episode, you'll hear from historians Mimi Goodall, Mathew Thomson, and Alyssa Picard, author of Making the American Mouth; and from professor of dental public health Richard Watt. This episode was written by June Thomas and edited and produced by Evan Chung, Decoder Ring's supervising producer. Our show is also produced by Willa Paskin, Katie Shepherd, and Max Freedman. Merritt Jacob is Senior Technical Director. If you have any cultural mysteries you want us to decode, email us at DecoderRing@slate.com or leave a message on our hotline at (347) 460-7281. Sources for This Episode Goodall, Mimi. “Sugar in the British Atlantic World, 1650-1720,” DPhil dissertation, Oxford University, 2022. Mintz, Sidney. Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History, Penguin Books, 1986. Picard, Alyssa. Making the American Mouth: Dentists and Public Health in the Twentieth Century, Rutgers University Press, 2009. Thomson, Mathew. “Teeth and National Identity,” People's History of the NHS. Trumble, Angus. A Brief History of the Smile, Basic Books, 2004. Wynbrandt, James. The Excruciating History of Dentistry: Toothsome Tales & Oral Oddities from Babylon to Braces, St. Martin's Griffin, 2000. Watt, Richard, et al. “Austin Powers bites back: a cross sectional comparison of US and English national oral health surveys,” BMJ, Dec. 16, 2015. Get more of Decoder Ring with Slate Plus! Join for exclusive bonus episodes of Decoder Ring and ad-free listening on all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe from the Decoder Ring show page on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Or, visit slate.com/decoderplus for access wherever you listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
From The Simpsons' Big Book of British Smiles to Austin Powers' ochre-tinged grin, American culture can't stop bad-mouthing English teeth. But why? Are they worse than any other nation's? June Thomas drills down into the origins of the stereotype, and discovers that the different approaches to dentistry on each side of the Atlantic have a lot to say about our national values. In this episode, you'll hear from historians Mimi Goodall, Mathew Thomson, and Alyssa Picard, author of Making the American Mouth; and from professor of dental public health Richard Watt. This episode was written by June Thomas and edited and produced by Evan Chung, Decoder Ring's supervising producer. Our show is also produced by Willa Paskin, Katie Shepherd, and Max Freedman. Merritt Jacob is Senior Technical Director. If you have any cultural mysteries you want us to decode, email us at DecoderRing@slate.com or leave a message on our hotline at (347) 460-7281. Sources for This Episode Goodall, Mimi. “Sugar in the British Atlantic World, 1650-1720,” DPhil dissertation, Oxford University, 2022. Mintz, Sidney. Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History, Penguin Books, 1986. Picard, Alyssa. Making the American Mouth: Dentists and Public Health in the Twentieth Century, Rutgers University Press, 2009. Thomson, Mathew. “Teeth and National Identity,” People's History of the NHS. Trumble, Angus. A Brief History of the Smile, Basic Books, 2004. Wynbrandt, James. The Excruciating History of Dentistry: Toothsome Tales & Oral Oddities from Babylon to Braces, St. Martin's Griffin, 2000. Watt, Richard, et al. “Austin Powers bites back: a cross sectional comparison of US and English national oral health surveys,” BMJ, Dec. 16, 2015. Get more of Decoder Ring with Slate Plus! Join for exclusive bonus episodes of Decoder Ring and ad-free listening on all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe from the Decoder Ring show page on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Or, visit slate.com/decoderplus for access wherever you listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
From The Simpsons' Big Book of British Smiles to Austin Powers' ochre-tinged grin, American culture can't stop bad-mouthing English teeth. But why? Are they worse than any other nation's? June Thomas drills down into the origins of the stereotype, and discovers that the different approaches to dentistry on each side of the Atlantic have a lot to say about our national values. In this episode, you'll hear from historians Mimi Goodall, Mathew Thomson, and Alyssa Picard, author of Making the American Mouth; and from professor of dental public health Richard Watt. This episode was written by June Thomas and edited and produced by Evan Chung, Decoder Ring's supervising producer. Our show is also produced by Willa Paskin, Katie Shepherd, and Max Freedman. Merritt Jacob is Senior Technical Director. If you have any cultural mysteries you want us to decode, email us at DecoderRing@slate.com or leave a message on our hotline at (347) 460-7281. Sources for This Episode Goodall, Mimi. “Sugar in the British Atlantic World, 1650-1720,” DPhil dissertation, Oxford University, 2022. Mintz, Sidney. Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History, Penguin Books, 1986. Picard, Alyssa. Making the American Mouth: Dentists and Public Health in the Twentieth Century, Rutgers University Press, 2009. Thomson, Mathew. “Teeth and National Identity,” People's History of the NHS. Trumble, Angus. A Brief History of the Smile, Basic Books, 2004. Wynbrandt, James. The Excruciating History of Dentistry: Toothsome Tales & Oral Oddities from Babylon to Braces, St. Martin's Griffin, 2000. Watt, Richard, et al. “Austin Powers bites back: a cross sectional comparison of US and English national oral health surveys,” BMJ, Dec. 16, 2015. Get more of Decoder Ring with Slate Plus! Join for exclusive bonus episodes of Decoder Ring and ad-free listening on all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe from the Decoder Ring show page on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Or, visit slate.com/decoderplus for access wherever you listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
In this episode, host Ellie Woodacre interviews the winner of the Royal Studies Journal PGR/ECR Article Prize Winner for 2025, Patrik Pastrnak. We discuss his research on bridal journeys, what can go wrong at royal weddings and his prize winning article (see link below).Article: Mechanics of Royal Generosity: The Gifts from the Wedding of King Matthias Corvinus and Beatrice of Aragon (1476), Speculum 98.3 (2023) https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/725011Guest Bio: Patrik Pastrnak is an assistant professor at the Department of History, Palacky University Olomouc (Czech Republic). He earned a DPhil degree at New College, Oxford, where he held the Robert Oresko Memorial Scholarship. He is interested in royal nuptials and wedding journeys in medieval and early modern times, as well as court, queenship, royal, festival, and Neo-Latin studies in Europe (mostly Central Europe and Italy). He is the author of Dynasty in motion. Wedding journeys in late medieval and early modern Europe (Routledge, 2023) and several other studies on the topic of travelling, wedding ceremonies, and rituals. His current project deals with Bohemian queenship in the late Middle Ages.
In today's conversation, we take a deep dive into creative rights governance across the African continent. Our guest, Maureen Fondo, Head of copyright and related rights at the African Regional Intellectual Property Organization (ARIPO), highlights how the surge in creative output—especially among young people—has underscored the urgent need for formal systems to recognize, protect, and help monetize their work. She has over 16 years of professional experience in legal and copyright matters. Having contributed to the adoption of the Kampala Protocol on Voluntary Registration of Copyright and Related Rights, the ARIPO Model Law on Copyrightand Related Rights and policy documents at ARIPO that were adopted by the Member States and various copyright publications. Ms. Fondo is a DPhil candidate in Intellectual Property at Africa University, Zimbabwe, and a lecturer for the Master's program in Intellectual Property at Africa University. Ms. Fondo is a holder of a Master's degree in Intellectual Property (MIP) from Africa University, a Post Graduate Diploma in Legal Practice from the Law School of Tanzania, an Advocate of the High Court of Tanzania and Courts Subordinate thereto, and a Bachelor of Laws Degree (LLB) from Tumaini University, Tanzania (now known as Iringa University). She previously served as a Senior Legal Officer, heading the Legal Service Unit at the Copyright Society of Tanzania (COSOTA), where she handled copyright cases, presided over dispute resolutions and negotiations among parties, drafted contracts, oversaw licensing of copyright and related rights to users, and raised awareness about copyright and related rights. Ms. Fondo volunteered as a Legal Officer at the Legal and Human Rights Centre (LHRC) Arusha Legal Aid Clinic. She worked as a part-time lecturer in Business Law at the Institute of Accountancy in Arusha, Tanzania. She is an artist and composer with at least thirteen titles, the author of a movie script titled “Dream is Alive – Ndoto Hai” and a children's story script titled “Creativity Lives”. Ms. Fondo has received leadership accolades.
In this interview, Lord Ridley examines the pervasive pessimism shaping climate narratives within the media and academia. He addresses the transformative power of affordable energy for developing nations and warns against beliefs about energy and climate that ignore the needs of those in poverty.Ridley also criticises the politicisation of science in both climate and Covid modelling, arguing it distorts evidence, suppresses debate, and drives harmful policies that undermine economic and social progress. He urges a shift towards optimism driven by innovation and evidence, advocating for rational energy policies and transparent scientific inquiry to foster prosperity and address global challenges effectively.Lord Matthew Ridley is a British science writer, journalist, and hereditary peer with a background in zoology and a distinguished career spanning academia, business, and public service. He holds a DPhil from Oxford University and is best known for his best-selling books on science, economics, and human progress, including The Rational Optimist, Genome, and How Innovation Works. Ridley served as chairman of the UK-based bank Northern Rock and was a member of the House of Lords from 2013 to 2021, where he contributed to debates on science, technology, and innovation policy. This interview was filmed at ARC London 2025.
The ‘East' has held a special place in the British cultural imagination. But how can we chart this historically? And how useful are frameworks of ‘East' and ‘West' within a modern world connected by technology? I'm Robert Taylor, a first-year History DPhil student at New College, researching the post-1945 British counterculture's interest in India. Today I'm joined by Dr Christopher Harding, who completed his BA, MSt and DPhil at Oxford, and is now a Senior Lecturer in Asian History at the University of Edinburgh. We will be discussing Chris' excellent recent book The Light of Asia: A History of Western Fascination with the East. You can follow his substack here (https://www.historywithchrisharding.com/), and find out more about Robert's research as it progresses here (https://history.web.ox.ac.uk/people/robert-taylor). Host: Robert TaylorProducer: Florence AllenLooking to make the most of Oxford's world-leading professors, we decided to set up a platform to interview these academics on the niche, weird and wonderful from their subjects. We aim to create thought-provoking and easily digestible podcast episodes, made for anyone with an interest in the world around them, and to facilitate university access and outreach for students aspiring to Oxford or Cambridge. To learn more about OxPods, visit our website www.oxpods.co.uk, or follow us on socials @ox.pods. If you would like an audio transcription of this episode, please do not hesitate to get in touch with us.OxPods is made possible through the support of our generous benefactors. Special thanks to: St Peter's College JCR, Jesus College JCR & Lady Margaret Hall JCR for supporting us in 2024.OxPods © 2023 by OxPods is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
In this episode Sylvia Owusu-Ansah, MD, FAAP, discusses her experience as a medical consultant on the hit television series The Pitt. Hosts David Hill, MD, FAAP, and Joanna Parga-Belinkie, MD, FAAP, also talk to Bhooma Aravamuthan, MD, DPhil, about standardizing the diagnosis of cerebral palsy. For resources go to aap.org/podcast.
Guest Bio: An award-winning author, popular professor, and international speaker on the intersections of faith, literature, and culture, Dr. Carolyn Weber, a Commonwealth Scholar, holds her BA Hon. from Huron University College, Canada and her MPhil and DPhil from Oxford University, England. She has taught students across continents and now enjoys teaching at New College Franklin and working with the creative community in the Nashville, Tennessee, area. Her book Surprised by Oxford, which won the Grace Irwin Award, the largest prize for best Christian writing in Canada, was made into a feature film. She resides in the country with her husband, four spirited children, and animal menagerie. Show Summary: Did you go to college and experience a complete change in your faith? Are you preparing to send a beloved child or children to college? During this God Hears Her conversation, guest Dr. Carolyn Weber relives her time of choosing faith at Oxford University while she prepares to send her daughter off to college. Join hosts Eryn Eddy Adkins and Vivian Mabuni as they dig into Dr. Carolyn's faith and her current feelings about sending her daughter off. Notes and Quotes: “We have to doubt as wisely as we have to believe.” —Dr. Carolyn Weber “What I was drawn to in some ways with the Christian faith was that it was not fair-weather. There wasn't a sense of only loving people when you're in the mood. Love was a verb and a decision. There isn't a grace that can be earned.” —Dr. Carolyn Weber “[On the image of Christians] It's not a personality; it's just a glow of a surrendered life.” –Vivian Mabuni “There is so much messaging about self-worth and women, objectifying women and them not having a voice—which is completely the opposite of how Jesus treated women in the Bible, and that is all the more radical given the timeframe.” —Dr. Carolyn Weber “Take and eat—not take and think—take and eat in remembrance of me. Put your body back together that''s been pulled apart by so many things, remember in me and undo the first lie in the garden that you're not good enough.” —Dr. Carolyn Weber “There's something deeper [with fellowship] because you know that you can go to them with repentance, truth, pain, sorrow, joy, questions, and they are called to walk with you and you with them.” —Dr. Carolyn Weber “You are a daughter of the King. He is the lifter of your head and your shield. There are going to be times in life when you think you have to follow someone, but you have to follow Jesus.” —Dr. Carolyn Weber Verses: Women being the first to witness the resurrection: Luke 24:1-12 The woman at the well: John 4 Eve in the garden (the lie of not being good enough): Genesis 3 Related Episodes: GHH Ep 26 – Big Decisions and Crossroads: https://godhearsher.org/podcast/big-decisions-and-crossroads/ GHH Ep 66 – Dreams and Fears with Jade Gustafson: https://godhearsher.org/podcast/dreams-and-fears/ GHH Ep 147 – Mentoring the Next Generation with Ericka Porter: https://godhearsher.org/podcast/mentoring-the-next-generation/ GHH Ep 157 – Upheaval and Transition with Katherine Catlett: https://godhearsher.org/podcast/upheaval-and-transition/ Links: Dr. Carolyn's Book, Surprised By Oxford: https://www.amazon.com/Surprised-Oxford-Memoir-Carolyn-Weber/dp/084992183X Dr. Carolyn's website: https://www.carolynweber.com/about/ God Hears Her website: https://godhearsher.org/ Watch the Video Podcast Here: https://www.youtube.com/@GodHearsHerODBM God Hears Her email sign-up: https://www.godhearsher.org/sign-upsfmc Subscribe on iTunes! https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/god-hears-her-podcast/id1511046507?utm_source=applemusic&utm_medium=godhearsher&utm_campaign=podcast Elisa's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/elisamorganauthor/ Eryn's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/eryneddy/ Vivian's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vivmabuni/ Our Daily Bread Ministries website: https://www.odbm.org/
With more than 70% of its surface covered in water, Earth is rightly known as the "blue planet". But where did this water - so essential to life - originate? While some theories suggest that hydrogen was delivered to Earth from space via asteroids, new research indicates that the building blocks for water may have been present on our planet all along. We chat to Tom Barrett from Oxford's Department of Earth Sciences to find out more.
By Jonathan Selling Author Andrew Boyd joins the podcast to discuss his book, Arms for Russia and the Naval War in the Arctic, 1941-1945. He discusses the importance of Lend-Lease to the Soviet Union and the importance of the Arctic route in supplying them. Andrew Boyd CMG, OBE, DPhil was educated at Britannia Royal Naval … Continue reading Sea Control 572: Arms for Russia with Andrew Boyd →
Dr Benjamin Pope is an Associate Professor in Statistical Data Science at Macquarie University at the Astrophysics and Space Technologies Research Centre. Since being awarded a DPhil in Astrophysics from the University of Oxford, Ben has been a NASA Sagan Postdoctoral Fellow and an ARC Decra Fellow among other accomplishments. Ben is active in public science communication and other meaningful civil society engagement. This is a great introduction to concepts related to Astrostatistics and Astrophysics and data science, This is a great introduction to concepts related to Astrostatistics and Astrophysics and data science, and Ben's approach of combining flexible statistical models with rigorous physical models. There are discussions of astronomical imaging, philosophy of science debates in statistical inference reasoning, and some history of radio astronomy in Australia including the pioneering work of Ruby Payne-Scott.
One in two people will be affected by dementia in their lifetime - whether that is as a patient, or somebody caring for a loved one. But what happens after a dementia diagnosis? Is there a clear pathway ahead? We chat to Jasmine Blane, a DPhil researcher at the Oxford Brain Health Clinic, about the work she is doing to help support patients in the midst of a dementia diagnosis, and into the future.
The Tropical Turn: Agricultural Innovation in the Ancient Middle East and the Mediterranean (University of California Press, 2023) chronicles the earliest histories of familiar tropical Asian crops in the ancient Middle East and the Mediterranean, from rice and cotton to citruses and cucumbers. Drawing on archaeological materials and textual sources in over seven ancient languages, The Tropical Turn unravels the breathtaking anthropogenic peregrinations of these familiar crops from their homelands in tropical and subtropical Asia to the Middle East and the Mediterranean, showing the significant impact South Asia had on the ecologies, dietary habits, and cultural identities of peoples across the ancient world. In the process, Sureshkumar Muthukumaran offers a fresh narrative history of human connectivity across Afro-Eurasia from the Bronze Age to the late centuries BCE. Sureshkumar Muthukumaran is a lecturer in History at the National University of Singapore. Sureshkumar received his BA in history at University College London, a Masters in Greek and Roman History at the University of Oxford and a DPhil in History at University College London. He won the American History Association's 2024 Jerry Bentley Prize in World History for The Tropical Turn. Jessie Cohen is an editor for the New Books Network. She earned her Ph.D. in History from Columbia University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network
The Tropical Turn: Agricultural Innovation in the Ancient Middle East and the Mediterranean (University of California Press, 2023) chronicles the earliest histories of familiar tropical Asian crops in the ancient Middle East and the Mediterranean, from rice and cotton to citruses and cucumbers. Drawing on archaeological materials and textual sources in over seven ancient languages, The Tropical Turn unravels the breathtaking anthropogenic peregrinations of these familiar crops from their homelands in tropical and subtropical Asia to the Middle East and the Mediterranean, showing the significant impact South Asia had on the ecologies, dietary habits, and cultural identities of peoples across the ancient world. In the process, Sureshkumar Muthukumaran offers a fresh narrative history of human connectivity across Afro-Eurasia from the Bronze Age to the late centuries BCE. Sureshkumar Muthukumaran is a lecturer in History at the National University of Singapore. Sureshkumar received his BA in history at University College London, a Masters in Greek and Roman History at the University of Oxford and a DPhil in History at University College London. He won the American History Association's 2024 Jerry Bentley Prize in World History for The Tropical Turn. Jessie Cohen is an editor for the New Books Network. She earned her Ph.D. in History from Columbia University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/middle-eastern-studies
The Tropical Turn: Agricultural Innovation in the Ancient Middle East and the Mediterranean (University of California Press, 2023) chronicles the earliest histories of familiar tropical Asian crops in the ancient Middle East and the Mediterranean, from rice and cotton to citruses and cucumbers. Drawing on archaeological materials and textual sources in over seven ancient languages, The Tropical Turn unravels the breathtaking anthropogenic peregrinations of these familiar crops from their homelands in tropical and subtropical Asia to the Middle East and the Mediterranean, showing the significant impact South Asia had on the ecologies, dietary habits, and cultural identities of peoples across the ancient world. In the process, Sureshkumar Muthukumaran offers a fresh narrative history of human connectivity across Afro-Eurasia from the Bronze Age to the late centuries BCE. Sureshkumar Muthukumaran is a lecturer in History at the National University of Singapore. Sureshkumar received his BA in history at University College London, a Masters in Greek and Roman History at the University of Oxford and a DPhil in History at University College London. He won the American History Association's 2024 Jerry Bentley Prize in World History for The Tropical Turn. Jessie Cohen is an editor for the New Books Network. She earned her Ph.D. in History from Columbia University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/archaeology
The Tropical Turn: Agricultural Innovation in the Ancient Middle East and the Mediterranean (University of California Press, 2023) chronicles the earliest histories of familiar tropical Asian crops in the ancient Middle East and the Mediterranean, from rice and cotton to citruses and cucumbers. Drawing on archaeological materials and textual sources in over seven ancient languages, The Tropical Turn unravels the breathtaking anthropogenic peregrinations of these familiar crops from their homelands in tropical and subtropical Asia to the Middle East and the Mediterranean, showing the significant impact South Asia had on the ecologies, dietary habits, and cultural identities of peoples across the ancient world. In the process, Sureshkumar Muthukumaran offers a fresh narrative history of human connectivity across Afro-Eurasia from the Bronze Age to the late centuries BCE. Sureshkumar Muthukumaran is a lecturer in History at the National University of Singapore. Sureshkumar received his BA in history at University College London, a Masters in Greek and Roman History at the University of Oxford and a DPhil in History at University College London. He won the American History Association's 2024 Jerry Bentley Prize in World History for The Tropical Turn. Jessie Cohen is an editor for the New Books Network. She earned her Ph.D. in History from Columbia University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
In this exciting episode of Condensed History, host Jem Duducu interviews Steve Foot from MegaBeast Games and Claire Marr, a DPhil student from Oxford University, about their new dinosaur board game called 'MegaBeast' launching on Kickstarter. The conversation highlights the game's scientific foundations, the collaboration between game design and paleontology, and interesting debates on dinosaur behavior and evidence. They also delve into the game's mechanics and inspirations, and answer fascinating questions about dinosaurs' behaviors, feathers, and evolutionary traits. Perfect for board game enthusiasts and dinosaur aficionados alike!00:00 Introduction to Condensed History's Podcast01:10 Meet Steve and Claire: The Minds Behind MegaBeasts03:10 The Science Behind the Game06:13 Creating Realistic Dinosaur Behaviors20:47 The Role of Feathers in Dinosaur Evolution27:34 The Evolution of Flight in Dinosaurs28:50 Game Mechanics and Dinosaur Encounters32:11 Scientific Accuracy and Time Periods in the Game33:54 Hypothetical Dinosaur Battle39:17 Fossil Discoveries and Behavioral Insights45:02 Kickstarter Campaign and Final ThoughtsSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/condensed-histories. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Dr. Lamma Mansour, a Christian Palestinian from Nazareth, holds a DPhil and MPhil in Social Policy and Intervention from the University of Oxford, where she studied as a Rhodes Scholar. She also earned a BSc in Psychology from the University of Haifa. Her research, which centers on young people in Israel-Palestine, has been featured in leading academic journals. In addition to her scholarly work, Dr. Mansour actively serves in her local church in Nazareth and contributes to conversations on the intersection of faith and society through various local and global platforms as a writer and speaker.
We speak with Sakana AI, who are building nature-inspired methods that could fundamentally transform how we develop AI systems.The guests include Chris Lu, a researcher who recently completed his DPhil at Oxford University under Prof. Jakob Foerster's supervision, where he focused on meta-learning and multi-agent systems. Chris is the first author of the DiscoPOP paper, which demonstrates how language models can discover and design better training algorithms. Also joining is Robert Tjarko Lange, a founding member of Sakana AI who specializes in evolutionary algorithms and large language models. Robert leads research at the intersection of evolutionary computation and foundation models, and is completing his PhD at TU Berlin on evolutionary meta-learning. The discussion also features Cong Lu, currently a Research Scientist at Google DeepMind's Open-Endedness team, who previously helped develop The AI Scientist and Intelligent Go-Explore.SPONSOR MESSAGES:***CentML offers competitive pricing for GenAI model deployment, with flexible options to suit a wide range of models, from small to large-scale deployments. Check out their super fast DeepSeek R1 hosting!https://centml.ai/pricing/Tufa AI Labs is a brand new research lab in Zurich started by Benjamin Crouzier focussed on o-series style reasoning and AGI. They are hiring a Chief Engineer and ML engineers. Events in Zurich. Goto https://tufalabs.ai/**** DiscoPOP - A framework where language models discover their own optimization algorithms* EvoLLM - Using language models as evolution strategies for optimizationThe AI Scientist - A fully automated system that conducts scientific research end-to-end* Neural Attention Memory Models (NAMMs) - Evolved memory systems that make transformers both faster and more accurateTRANSCRIPT + REFS:https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/gflcyvnujp8cl7zlv3v9d/Sakana.pdf?rlkey=woaoo82943170jd4yyi2he71c&dl=0Robert Tjarko Langehttps://roberttlange.com/Chris Luhttps://chrislu.page/Cong Luhttps://www.conglu.co.uk/Sakanahttps://sakana.ai/blog/TOC:1. LLMs for Algorithm Generation and Optimization [00:00:00] 1.1 LLMs generating algorithms for training other LLMs [00:04:00] 1.2 Evolutionary black-box optim using neural network loss parameterization [00:11:50] 1.3 DiscoPOP: Non-convex loss function for noisy data [00:20:45] 1.4 External entropy Injection for preventing Model collapse [00:26:25] 1.5 LLMs for black-box optimization using abstract numerical sequences2. Model Learning and Generalization [00:31:05] 2.1 Fine-tuning on teacher algorithm trajectories [00:31:30] 2.2 Transformers learning gradient descent [00:33:00] 2.3 LLM tokenization biases towards specific numbers [00:34:50] 2.4 LLMs as evolution strategies for black box optimization [00:38:05] 2.5 DiscoPOP: LLMs discovering novel optimization algorithms3. AI Agents and System Architectures [00:51:30] 3.1 ARC challenge: Induction vs. transformer approaches [00:54:35] 3.2 LangChain / modular agent components [00:57:50] 3.3 Debate improves LLM truthfulness [01:00:55] 3.4 Time limits controlling AI agent systems [01:03:00] 3.5 Gemini: Million-token context enables flatter hierarchies [01:04:05] 3.6 Agents follow own interest gradients [01:09:50] 3.7 Go-Explore algorithm: archive-based exploration [01:11:05] 3.8 Foundation models for interesting state discovery [01:13:00] 3.9 LLMs leverage prior game knowledge4. AI for Scientific Discovery and Human Alignment [01:17:45] 4.1 Encoding Alignment & Aesthetics via Reward Functions [01:20:00] 4.2 AI Scientist: Automated Open-Ended Scientific Discovery [01:24:15] 4.3 DiscoPOP: LLM for Preference Optimization Algorithms [01:28:30] 4.4 Balancing AI Knowledge with Human Understanding [01:33:55] 4.5 AI-Driven Conferences and Paper Review
Acclaimed novelist and academic Tabish Khair argues that literature as a distinct mode of thinking can counteract fundamentalism. Literature is a mode of thinking, stories being one of the oldest thinking 'devices' known to humankind. The ways in which literature enables us to think are distinctive and necessary, because of the relationships between its material ('language') and its subject matter ('reality'). Although present in oral literature, these relationships are exposed in their full complexity with the rise of literature as a distinct form of writing. Literature Against Fundamentalism (Oxford UP, 2024) argues that literature enables us to engage with reality in language and language in reality, where both are mutually constitutive, constantly changing, and partly elusive. Tabish Khair defines this mode of engagement as essentially an agnostic one, resistant to simple dogma. Hence, literature can provide an antidote to fundamentalism. Khair argues that reading literature as literature--and not just as material for aesthetic, sociological, political, and other theoretical discourses--is essential for humanity. In the process, he offers a radical re-definition of literature, an illuminating engagement with religion and fundamentalism, a revaluation of the relationship between the sciences and humanities, and, finally, a call to literature as in 'a call to arms'. Tabish Khair is an Indian writer, academic and journalist, born (1966) and educated in the small town of Gaya in Bihar, India. After finishing his MA from Gaya, he completed a PhD at Copenhagen University and a DPhil at Aarhus University, Denmark, where he is now an Associate Professor. He has been a visiting professor or research fellow at various universities and has received Carlsberg, Leverhulme, and other academic grants. Khair is also an internationally published novelist. Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube channel. Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network
Acclaimed novelist and academic Tabish Khair argues that literature as a distinct mode of thinking can counteract fundamentalism. Literature is a mode of thinking, stories being one of the oldest thinking 'devices' known to humankind. The ways in which literature enables us to think are distinctive and necessary, because of the relationships between its material ('language') and its subject matter ('reality'). Although present in oral literature, these relationships are exposed in their full complexity with the rise of literature as a distinct form of writing. Literature Against Fundamentalism (Oxford UP, 2024) argues that literature enables us to engage with reality in language and language in reality, where both are mutually constitutive, constantly changing, and partly elusive. Tabish Khair defines this mode of engagement as essentially an agnostic one, resistant to simple dogma. Hence, literature can provide an antidote to fundamentalism. Khair argues that reading literature as literature--and not just as material for aesthetic, sociological, political, and other theoretical discourses--is essential for humanity. In the process, he offers a radical re-definition of literature, an illuminating engagement with religion and fundamentalism, a revaluation of the relationship between the sciences and humanities, and, finally, a call to literature as in 'a call to arms'. Tabish Khair is an Indian writer, academic and journalist, born (1966) and educated in the small town of Gaya in Bihar, India. After finishing his MA from Gaya, he completed a PhD at Copenhagen University and a DPhil at Aarhus University, Denmark, where he is now an Associate Professor. He has been a visiting professor or research fellow at various universities and has received Carlsberg, Leverhulme, and other academic grants. Khair is also an internationally published novelist. Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube channel. Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literary-studies
Acclaimed novelist and academic Tabish Khair argues that literature as a distinct mode of thinking can counteract fundamentalism. Literature is a mode of thinking, stories being one of the oldest thinking 'devices' known to humankind. The ways in which literature enables us to think are distinctive and necessary, because of the relationships between its material ('language') and its subject matter ('reality'). Although present in oral literature, these relationships are exposed in their full complexity with the rise of literature as a distinct form of writing. Literature Against Fundamentalism (Oxford UP, 2024) argues that literature enables us to engage with reality in language and language in reality, where both are mutually constitutive, constantly changing, and partly elusive. Tabish Khair defines this mode of engagement as essentially an agnostic one, resistant to simple dogma. Hence, literature can provide an antidote to fundamentalism. Khair argues that reading literature as literature--and not just as material for aesthetic, sociological, political, and other theoretical discourses--is essential for humanity. In the process, he offers a radical re-definition of literature, an illuminating engagement with religion and fundamentalism, a revaluation of the relationship between the sciences and humanities, and, finally, a call to literature as in 'a call to arms'. Tabish Khair is an Indian writer, academic and journalist, born (1966) and educated in the small town of Gaya in Bihar, India. After finishing his MA from Gaya, he completed a PhD at Copenhagen University and a DPhil at Aarhus University, Denmark, where he is now an Associate Professor. He has been a visiting professor or research fellow at various universities and has received Carlsberg, Leverhulme, and other academic grants. Khair is also an internationally published novelist. Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube channel. Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory
In this episode of The International Risk Podcast, we explore China's evolving role in Africa's energy landscape with Fikayo Akeredolu, a DPhil candidate at Oxford specializing in the political economy of energy in Nigeria.We discuss:China's growing influence in Africa's renewable energy sector and its long-term implications.The complexities of Sino-African climate diplomacy and Africa's role in shaping China's environmental agenda.The challenge of balancing economic growth with sustainability in Africa's energy sector.How African nations can assert their interests in China-led infrastructure and energy projects.The risks of debt distress and how green energy investments can be structured sustainably.Join us as we analyze the opportunities and challenges shaping Africa's energy future and the strategic role China plays in this dynamic space. The International Risk Podcast is a must-listen for senior executives, board members, and risk advisors, this weekly podcast dives deep into international relations, emerging risks, and strategic opportunities. Hosted by Dominic Bowen, Head of Strategic Advisory at one of Europe's top risk consulting firms, the podcast brings together global experts to share insights and actionable strategies. Dominic's 20+ years of experience managing complex operations in high-risk environments, combined with his role as a public speaker and university lecturer, make him uniquely positioned to guide these conversations. From conflict zones to corporate boardrooms, he explores the risks shaping our world and how organizations can navigate them.The International Risk Podcast – Reducing risk by increasing knowledge.Follow us on LinkedIn for all our great updates.Tell us what you liked!
William Gallois joins the podcast to discuss his latest book, Qayrawān: The Amuletic City, published by The Pennsylvania State University Press in 2024. Qayrawān: The Amuletic City investigates the fascinating history of the Tunisian city of Qayrawān, which in the last years of the nineteenth century found itself covered in murals. Concentrated on and around the city's Great Mosque, these monumental artworks were only visible for about fifty years, from the 1880s through the 1930s. This book investigates the fascinating history of who created these outdoor paintings and why. Using visual archaeological methods, Qayrawān highlights the ‘unknown artist' as an actor of ‘unnoticed agency' and a practitioner of living traditional arts. Locating pictorial records of the murals from the backdrops of photographs, postcards, and other forms of European ephemera, Gallois identifies a form of religious painting that transposed traditional aesthetic forms such as house decoration, embroidery, and tattooing―which lay exclusively within the domains of women―onto the body of a conquered city. Gallois argues that these works were created by women as a form of “emergency art,” intended to offer amuletic protection for the community, and demonstrates how they differ markedly from “classical” Islamic antecedents and modern modes of Arab cultural production in the Middle East and North Africa. The book challenges tacit assumptions of foreign categories and standards of aesthetics imposed upon Islamic and African art. It contributes to further explorations of the exploration of the ways in which Islam was interwoven with preexisting cultures and forms of expression, particularly in calling for a continued reimagining of the study of “Islamic art.” The book makes welcome contributions to Islamic, African, and Middle Eastern studies, particularly in relation to colonial and art histories. It will be welcomed by scholars of Islamic Studies, African Studies, and Art History. William Gallois is Professor of the Islamic Mediterranean in the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies at the University of Exeter, in England. In addition to Qayrawān: The Amuletic City, Prof Gallois is the author of A History of Violence in the Early Algerian Colony (2013) and The Administration of Sickness (2008), among other works. Yaseen Christian Andrewsen is a DPhil candidate at the University of Oxford, specialising in Islamic intellectual history in West Africa focusing on issues in Sufism, theology, renewal, and authority. Yaseen is a co-host for the New Books in Islamic Studies podcast. He can be reached by email at: christian.andrewsen@pmb.ox.ac.uk Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network
William Gallois joins the podcast to discuss his latest book, Qayrawān: The Amuletic City, published by The Pennsylvania State University Press in 2024. Qayrawān: The Amuletic City investigates the fascinating history of the Tunisian city of Qayrawān, which in the last years of the nineteenth century found itself covered in murals. Concentrated on and around the city's Great Mosque, these monumental artworks were only visible for about fifty years, from the 1880s through the 1930s. This book investigates the fascinating history of who created these outdoor paintings and why. Using visual archaeological methods, Qayrawān highlights the ‘unknown artist' as an actor of ‘unnoticed agency' and a practitioner of living traditional arts. Locating pictorial records of the murals from the backdrops of photographs, postcards, and other forms of European ephemera, Gallois identifies a form of religious painting that transposed traditional aesthetic forms such as house decoration, embroidery, and tattooing―which lay exclusively within the domains of women―onto the body of a conquered city. Gallois argues that these works were created by women as a form of “emergency art,” intended to offer amuletic protection for the community, and demonstrates how they differ markedly from “classical” Islamic antecedents and modern modes of Arab cultural production in the Middle East and North Africa. The book challenges tacit assumptions of foreign categories and standards of aesthetics imposed upon Islamic and African art. It contributes to further explorations of the exploration of the ways in which Islam was interwoven with preexisting cultures and forms of expression, particularly in calling for a continued reimagining of the study of “Islamic art.” The book makes welcome contributions to Islamic, African, and Middle Eastern studies, particularly in relation to colonial and art histories. It will be welcomed by scholars of Islamic Studies, African Studies, and Art History. William Gallois is Professor of the Islamic Mediterranean in the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies at the University of Exeter, in England. In addition to Qayrawān: The Amuletic City, Prof Gallois is the author of A History of Violence in the Early Algerian Colony (2013) and The Administration of Sickness (2008), among other works. Yaseen Christian Andrewsen is a DPhil candidate at the University of Oxford, specialising in Islamic intellectual history in West Africa focusing on issues in Sufism, theology, renewal, and authority. Yaseen is a co-host for the New Books in Islamic Studies podcast. He can be reached by email at: christian.andrewsen@pmb.ox.ac.uk Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history
William Gallois joins the podcast to discuss his latest book, Qayrawān: The Amuletic City, published by The Pennsylvania State University Press in 2024. Qayrawān: The Amuletic City investigates the fascinating history of the Tunisian city of Qayrawān, which in the last years of the nineteenth century found itself covered in murals. Concentrated on and around the city's Great Mosque, these monumental artworks were only visible for about fifty years, from the 1880s through the 1930s. This book investigates the fascinating history of who created these outdoor paintings and why. Using visual archaeological methods, Qayrawān highlights the ‘unknown artist' as an actor of ‘unnoticed agency' and a practitioner of living traditional arts. Locating pictorial records of the murals from the backdrops of photographs, postcards, and other forms of European ephemera, Gallois identifies a form of religious painting that transposed traditional aesthetic forms such as house decoration, embroidery, and tattooing―which lay exclusively within the domains of women―onto the body of a conquered city. Gallois argues that these works were created by women as a form of “emergency art,” intended to offer amuletic protection for the community, and demonstrates how they differ markedly from “classical” Islamic antecedents and modern modes of Arab cultural production in the Middle East and North Africa. The book challenges tacit assumptions of foreign categories and standards of aesthetics imposed upon Islamic and African art. It contributes to further explorations of the exploration of the ways in which Islam was interwoven with preexisting cultures and forms of expression, particularly in calling for a continued reimagining of the study of “Islamic art.” The book makes welcome contributions to Islamic, African, and Middle Eastern studies, particularly in relation to colonial and art histories. It will be welcomed by scholars of Islamic Studies, African Studies, and Art History. William Gallois is Professor of the Islamic Mediterranean in the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies at the University of Exeter, in England. In addition to Qayrawān: The Amuletic City, Prof Gallois is the author of A History of Violence in the Early Algerian Colony (2013) and The Administration of Sickness (2008), among other works. Yaseen Christian Andrewsen is a DPhil candidate at the University of Oxford, specialising in Islamic intellectual history in West Africa focusing on issues in Sufism, theology, renewal, and authority. Yaseen is a co-host for the New Books in Islamic Studies podcast. He can be reached by email at: christian.andrewsen@pmb.ox.ac.uk Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/islamic-studies
William Gallois joins the podcast to discuss his latest book, Qayrawān: The Amuletic City, published by The Pennsylvania State University Press in 2024. Qayrawān: The Amuletic City investigates the fascinating history of the Tunisian city of Qayrawān, which in the last years of the nineteenth century found itself covered in murals. Concentrated on and around the city's Great Mosque, these monumental artworks were only visible for about fifty years, from the 1880s through the 1930s. This book investigates the fascinating history of who created these outdoor paintings and why. Using visual archaeological methods, Qayrawān highlights the ‘unknown artist' as an actor of ‘unnoticed agency' and a practitioner of living traditional arts. Locating pictorial records of the murals from the backdrops of photographs, postcards, and other forms of European ephemera, Gallois identifies a form of religious painting that transposed traditional aesthetic forms such as house decoration, embroidery, and tattooing―which lay exclusively within the domains of women―onto the body of a conquered city. Gallois argues that these works were created by women as a form of “emergency art,” intended to offer amuletic protection for the community, and demonstrates how they differ markedly from “classical” Islamic antecedents and modern modes of Arab cultural production in the Middle East and North Africa. The book challenges tacit assumptions of foreign categories and standards of aesthetics imposed upon Islamic and African art. It contributes to further explorations of the exploration of the ways in which Islam was interwoven with preexisting cultures and forms of expression, particularly in calling for a continued reimagining of the study of “Islamic art.” The book makes welcome contributions to Islamic, African, and Middle Eastern studies, particularly in relation to colonial and art histories. It will be welcomed by scholars of Islamic Studies, African Studies, and Art History. William Gallois is Professor of the Islamic Mediterranean in the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies at the University of Exeter, in England. In addition to Qayrawān: The Amuletic City, Prof Gallois is the author of A History of Violence in the Early Algerian Colony (2013) and The Administration of Sickness (2008), among other works. Yaseen Christian Andrewsen is a DPhil candidate at the University of Oxford, specialising in Islamic intellectual history in West Africa focusing on issues in Sufism, theology, renewal, and authority. Yaseen is a co-host for the New Books in Islamic Studies podcast. He can be reached by email at: christian.andrewsen@pmb.ox.ac.uk Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/middle-eastern-studies
In this episode, I talk with Dr. Eleanor McLaughlin, author of Unconscious Christianity and Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Late Theology. We discuss Bonhoeffer's influence on modern theology, the concept of unconscious Christianity, Bonhoeffer's changing views, and the relevance of his work today. Eleanor shares her journey into Bonhoeffer studies, the challenges of interpreting his work, and her insights into his lesser-known fiction and poetry. The conversation also touches on topics like the theology of the cross, religionless Christianity, and Bonhoeffer's ethical commitments in facing the challenges of his time. Spend a week with Tripp & Andrew Root in Bonhoeffer's House in Berlin this June as part of the Rise of Bonhoeffer Travel Learning Experience. INFO & DETAILS HERE Join me this DECEMBER for our open online class exploring the 'Theologians of Crisis' - Breaking into the Broken World. Join us to learn about Karl Barth, Paul Tillich, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and Rudolph Bultmann as we explore their thoughts and timely reflections in their Advent/Christmas sermons. Want to learn more about Bonhoeffer? Join our open online companion class, The Rise of Bonhoeffer, and get access to full interviews from the Bonhoeffer scholars, participate in deep-dive sessions with Tripp and Jeff, unpack curated readings from Bonhoeffer, send in your questions, and join the online community of fellow Bonhoeffer learners. The class is donation-based, including 0. You can get more info here. Dr. McLaughlin is Tutor in Theology at Ripon College Cuddesdon, with a focus on doctrine and ethics. She holds theology degrees from the University of Oxford (BA and DPhil) and the University of Geneva (Maîtrise en Théologie). Her research interests include the life and thought of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, theological anthropology and disability theology. She contributed to BBC Radio 4's programme 'In Our Time' on Bonhoeffer in 2018, and is a trustee of the charity Project Bonhoeffer. Ellie's publications include Unconscious Christianity in Bonhoeffer's Late Theology: Encounters with the Unknown Christ. Foreword by Rowan Williams (Lexington Books/Fortress Academic, 2020), and ‘Disability, Technology, and Human Flourishing,' in Human Flourishing in a Technological World: A Theological Vision, edited by Jens Zimmermann and Michael Burdett (Oxford University Press, forthcoming 2021). Previously, Dr. McLaughlin worked at Cuddesdon from Sarum College, where she ran the postgraduate programmes in Theology, Imagination and Culture. She co-ordinated the MTh at the Faculty of Theology and Religion at the University of Oxford, and was Lecturer in Theology and Ethics at Regent's Park College. Ellie lives in Oxford with her husband Luke and her cat Bertie. She enjoys good food with friends, reading and travelling. You can WATCH the conversation on YouTube _____________________ This DECEMBER, we will be exploring the 'Theologians of Crisis' in our online Advent class - Breaking into the Broken World. Join us to learn about Karl Barth, Paul Tillich, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and Rudolph Bultmann as we explore their thoughts and timely reflections in their Advent/Christmas sermons. Join my Substack - Process This! Join our class - THE RISE OF BONHOEFFER, for a guided tour of Bonhoeffer's life and thought. Go with me to Berlin to spend a week in Bonhoeffer's House! Follow the podcast, drop a review, send feedback/questions or become a member of the HBC Community. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Os Guinness is an author and social critic. Yes, he is related to the Guinness brewing family. He has an incredible life story, being born in China to medical missionaries and living through the communist takeover there. He has a DPhil from Oxford and has been involved with many eminent organizations ranging from the Brookings Institution to the Trinity Forum. He's also the author of many books, including his latest Our Civilizational Moment: The Waning of the West and the War of the Worlds, which he joined me to discuss today. What is a "civilizational moment"? Why did Christianity lose its purchase on the West? Why have some contenders to replace it fared better than others? What should Christians in the Wes be doing today?But Our Civilizational Moment: https://www.amazon.com/Our-Civilizational-Moment-Waning-Worlds/dp/B0DL3LW558/?&_encoding=UTF8&tag=theurban-20Subscribe to my newsletter: https://www.aaronrenn.com/
Understanding Your Karma with Edi Bilimoria Edi Bilimoria, DPhil, FIMechE, CEng, is a Consultant Engineer and has been Project Manager and Head of Design for major projects such as the Channel Tunnel. He is a Trustee of the Scientific and Medical Network, Adviser to the Galileo Commission of the Network, a Trustee and a Council … Continue reading "Understanding Your Karma with Edi Bilimoria"
"Masking Mistakes: Lessons from the Science, Policy, and Coverage of COVID-19", the 2024 Brian Shields Lecture on Institutional Ethics which took place on Monday, October 7, 2024 for the Emory Center for Ethics. A conversation with Carlos Del Rio, MD and Vinay Prasad, MD MPH with moderation by Gerard Vong, DPhil, Director of the MA in Bioethics program.
Precision medicine — the approach to health care that involves tailoring medical interventions to an individual's genetic makeup, environment and lifestyle — promises to deliver the right treatment to the right person at the right time. From preventing diseases decades before they appear, to specially designed cocktails of cancer drugs, to genetic modification of rare diseases, many of these applications sound straight out of science fiction. At the forefront of precision medicine and medical genomics is Euan Ashley, MBChB, DPhill, Chair of Medicine at Stanford University Medical Center. A cardiologist and intensive care physician by training, Dr. Ashley has pioneered the use of genetic sequencing to identify risk factors for heart disease and new treatments for rare diseases. He is also the author of The Genome Odyssey: Medical Mysteries and the Incredible Quest to Solve Them (2021).Over the course of our conversation, we discuss his path from growing up in a small Scottish town to now working at the cutting edge of medicine, the excitement and fulfillment he experiences as a clinician in the cardiac intensive care unit, remarkable patient stories of healing and resilience, the future of precision medicine, why he is optimistic about the development of artificial intelligence, and more.In this episode, you'll hear about: 2:24 - Dr. Ashley's path to medicine and to cardiology 7:19 - What life is like working in the CCU21:34 - How the Undiagnosed Diseases Network was founded and what it does33:22 - An overview of precision medicine38:09 - The impact that genetic testing and genomic medicine is having on modern medicine and where it could go from here 45:00 - Dr. Ashley's thoughts on how AI will change the field of medicine 51:40 - Making access to medical advancements in AI and genomics more equitable 1:04:39 - Dr. Ashley's advice for healthcare professionals in training Dr. Euan Ashley can be found on Twitter/X at @euanashley. Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review our show, available for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you know of a doctor, patient, or anyone working in health care who would love to explore meaning in medicine with us on the show, feel free to leave a suggestion in the comments or send an email to info@thedoctorsart.com.Copyright The Doctor's Art Podcast 2024