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Paris 2024 will see the debut of the competitive street dance, Breaking.From the streets of the Bronx in the 70s to sport's biggest stage, we hear from the pioneers and the athletes hoping to turn their passion into a lucrative career.Breaking isn't currently on the list for the next games in LA in 2028, so could it be a one-hit wonder?(Image: Man doing a headstand outside with his crew cheering in the background. Credit: Getty Images)Presented and produced by Matt Lines
What happens when your favourite movies and TV shows fall off streaming sites? We find out why, speaking to industry insiders, and those preserving our film and TV titles. Plus, we speak to a US-based writer whose programme has disappeared to find out what the impact is on creators when their work no longer exists online.(Image: Man watching TV next to a dog. Credit: Getty Images)Presented and produced by Matt Lines
Paul Lay and Alastair Benn are joined by Times columnist James Marriott to discuss whether Artificial Intelligence poses an existential threat to the arts. Image: Man as Industrial Palace, a poster commissioned by German physician and author Fritz Kahn in 1926. Credit: JJs / Alamy Stock Photo
From dumping raw sewage into rivers to littering the streets with our trash, humans don't have a great track record when it comes to dealing with our waste. It's something that CrowdScience listener and civil engineer Marc has noticed: he wonders if humans are particularly prone to messing up our surroundings, while other species are instinctively more hygienic and well-organised. Are we, by nature, really less clean and tidy than other animals? Farming and technology have allowed us to live more densely and generate more rubbish - maybe our cleaning instincts just aren't up to the vast quantities of waste we spew out? CrowdScience digs into the past to see if early human rubbish heaps can turn up any answers. We follow a sewer down to the River Thames to hear about The Great Stink of Victorian London; turn to ants for housekeeping inspiration; and find out how to raise hygiene standards by tapping into our feelings of disgust and our desire to follow rules. Presented by Marnie Chesterton and produced by Cathy Edwards for the BBC World Service. [Image: Man on beach with rubbish. Credit: Getty Images]
Imagine spending six months of every year living in total shade. That's what life is like for residents of the Norwegian town of Rjukan, set so low in a valley that they see no direct sunshine at all from October to March. Marnie Chesterton heads there to hear about an ingenious solution: giant mirrors that beam rays down into the town square, where locals gather to feel the reflected heat. The man behind the project was motivated by a need for winter sun – but how much difference does it really make to our health and happiness? That's the question posed by this week's Crowdscience listener Michael, who has noticed living in the rainy Australian city of Melbourne is taking its toll. Many pensioners claim sunshine relieves achiness as well as conditions like arthritis but one of the biggest scientific studies found temperature actually has no impact on reported pain levels, while factors like air pressure and humidity may play a role. When it comes to our mood, it seems that spending time outside is more important than feeling the heat and the optimum temperature for wellbeing is around cool 19 degrees centigrade, while excessive warm weather has been linked to an increase in violence and crime. Contributors: Dr Anna Beukenhorst, University of Manchester Professor Oscar Ybarra, University of Illinois Professor Solomon Hsiang, University of California, Berkeley Martin Andersen, artist (Image: Man with smoke coming out of ears. Credit: Getty Images)
We look back on some of the stories we covered in 2021 – from age appropriate design to protect children, through internet shutdowns, a remote air traffic control tower and a WhatsApp school in Zimbabwe to a virtual reality opera. The podcast has even more stories: comparing Mars locations to Earth locations, a smart phone test to detect malaria, how technology can help prep for a date at home if you're blind and controlling our devices with a muscle in our ear! Available on BBC Sounds. The programme is presented by Gareth Mitchell with expert commentary from Angelica Mari, Bill Thompson and Ghislaine Boddington. Image: Man using mobile phone Credit: Chaiwat Chaythawin/EyeEm/Getty Images Studio Manager: Donald MacDonald Producer: Ania Lichtarowicz
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CrowdScience listener Simon has a problem. He’s always bumping into things, dropping tools and knocking stuff over. And he’s sick of it. He wants to know what is going on. Was he born like this? Or is it contagious? And most importantly, can he doing anything about it or is he going to be the proverbial ‘bull in a china shop’ for the rest of his life? Host Anand Jagatia gets on the case, investigating the complex coordination needed for the simplest movements, like throwing a ball and catching it. With help from Dr Andrew Green, an exercise physiologist from Johannesburg University, he delves into our secret “sixth sense” – proprioception, which helps us locate our limbs without looking. Anand discovers that an easy task, like kicking a football, needs multiple parts of the brain to coordinate in order to work smoothly. Assistant Professor Jessica Bernard from Texas AMU studies the brain, particularly the cerebellum, a part that controls smooth movements. Dr Bernard explains how tiny glitches and larger lesions in different parts of the brain can make us clumsy in different ways. And how we use our thinking powers to stay balanced; a reason why, as your memory goes with old age, you’re more prone to falling over. Our listener is not alone. Around the world, there is an under- diagnosed condition that affects millions of us. Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD), also known as dyspraxia is a motor coordination condition that affects 5% of the global population. As Professor Amanda Kirby from the University of South Wales and CEO of Do-It solutions explains, if you can’t tie shoelaces, catch a ball and your handwriting is awful, there’s a chance that you have DCD. There’s a large genetic component, so you are likely to come from a clumsy family. There’s no cure for DCD/Dyspraxia but all of us are capable of becoming better at a chosen task, and there’s a common pathway to mastery, whether that’s bike mechanics or open heart surgery. Professor Roger Kneebone is the author of Becoming Expert, and he talks to Simon about possible solutions to clumsiness, including accepting and living with it. [Image: Man slipping on banana. Credit: Getty Images]
From dumping raw sewage into rivers to littering the streets with our trash, humans don’t have a great track record when it comes to dealing with our waste. It’s something that CrowdScience listener and civil engineer Marc has noticed: he wonders if humans are particularly prone to messing up our surroundings, while other species are instinctively more hygienic and well-organised. Aasre we, by nature, really less clean and tidy than other animals? Farming and technology have allowed us to live more densely and generate more rubbish - maybe our cleaning instincts just aren’t up to the vast quantities of waste we spew out? CrowdScience digs into the past to see if early human rubbish heaps can turn up any answers. We follow a sewer down to the River Thames to hear about The Great Stink of Victorian London; turn to ants for housekeeping inspiration; and find out how to raise hygiene standards by tapping into our feelings of disgust and our desire to follow rules. Presented by Marnie Chesterton and produced by Cathy Edwards for the BBC World Service. [Image: Man on beach with rubbish. Credit: Getty Images]
McDonald's restaurants in the US are issuing pages of guidance to restaurants to ensure customer and staff safety as they open up after the coronavirus lockdown. Heather Haddon of the Wall Street Journal talks us through them and the concerns of franchisees. We have the latest jobs figures from the US and hear how undocumented workers may be putting their lives at risk with little protection from the pandemic. Also on the programme we examine the race to be the first to produce a coronavirus vaccine. With nations pressuring corporations to make them first in line, Kalipso Chalkidou, Director of Global Health Policy and Senior Fellow at the Center for Global Development reminds us that this is a global emergency that requires all of us to act together. The BBC's Victoria Craig reports on efforts under way to save Britain's cheese industry from collapsing under the weight of coronavirus with Jason Hinds of cheese retailer Neal's Yard Dairy, Joe Schneider, owner of Stichelton Dairy, and Miguel Gomez, associate professor at Cornell University. Rob Young is joined throughout by Paddy Hirsch of NPR in Los Angeles and Stefanie Yuen Thio at TSMP Law in Singapore. (Image: Man wearing face mask walking in front of New York McDonald's, Credit: Getty Images)
How tech will help to get people back to work safely. Plus, the UK’s Covid-19 contact tracking app begins trials. And how to get started making hardware projects at home including an automated cocktail mixer. Presented by Rory Cellan-Jones, with BBC tech reporter Jane Wakefield. Produced by Jat Gill. (Image: Man in a suit looking at his smartphone in front of a modern building. Credit: Getty Images).
My new book about Gabriel of Urantia is available for preorder on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/New-Age-Grifter-Gabriel-Urantia/dp/1627311106 This is the final episode of the series (for now) and probably the best one yet. It's definitely the most upsetting. Topics covered include incidents of sexual abuse and the mistreatment of children in the GCCA. I also take a trip to the guru's childhood home and recount the story of his former son-in-law (and how he wound up in prison).Thanks for listening. And don't unsubscribe, as I'll be uploading plenty of bonus content into the near future.Warning: this episode includes discussion of sexual abuse.
Yeshua (Jesus) destroyed the works of Satan
Can we trust the political adverts in our news feeds? Who is sending them, why are we being targeted and are they even true? This week we're looking at the thorny issue of political advertising on social media. Is regulation needed to ensure fair and trustworthy election campaigns or would restrictions endanger free speech and limit voter choice? Ed Butler is joined by Rory Cellan-Jones, BBC technology correspondent, data rights lawyer Ravi Naik, Lisa-Maria Neudert, doctoral researcher at the Oxford Internet Institute and Michael Duncan partner and digital media lead at Cavalry, an issue management firm in Washington DC. (Image: Man looking at phone on a bus. Image credit: Getty Images)
Technology has the potential to change all our lives for the better, yet many of us are often reduced to hitting screens in frustration. So why does technology feel so complicated? In this edition of the Why Factor, Kate Lamble explores why we get so exasperated with new technology and whether we should be concerned about increasingly complex solutions to simple problems. Is poor design to blame? Stupidity on the users part? Or is it part of our natural psychological response to artificial devices? (Image: Man hiding under laptop, Credit: Kaspars Grinvalds/Shutterstock)
You've swallowed many of them throughout your life without realising, and some look like aliens: we look at plankton, the sea's smallest living creatures that have a big global impact. At the centre of the food web, and responsible for most of the air we breathe, these microscopic plants and animals are eaten by fish in our seas, which are eaten by bigger creatures, and eventually eaten by humans. But what happens when new problems hit these ancient critters, which have existed for millions of years? And how does it affect our health - and our plates? We speak to Jeff Herman in the US, whose skin was left crawling and in sweats after he got Ciguatera food poisoning from eating a hogfish. He tells us how his nightmarish symptoms were linked to toxins created by plankton. We share a voyage with the crew in charge of the world's oldest plankton recorder in Plymouth, England. They have been monitoring the world's seas since the 1930s to check on the health of these tiny creatures so vital to our food chain. Plankton scientists tell the BBC's Emily Thomas that new types of plankton not seen since the Ice Age are moving in - prompting questions around how plankton will adapt to new challenges like pollution and climate change. And what would you do if the sea around you turned bright red? So-called red tides can blight seasides and devastate fishing industries from Florida to the South China Sea. Hong Kong journalist Ernest Kao tells us about the devastation created by an overpopulation of algae, another kind of plankton. And Professor Lora Fleming tells us about the movements and patterns of these tiny creatures, how toxins from some can skew with your sense of hot and cold, and how new research is helping us to harness the power of plankton in a more sustainable way. (Image: Man swimming towards a 'red tide' or algal bloom in Sydney. Credit: William West/ ThinkStock )
Church of the Apostles- Dawsonville, GA
Research last month claimed to show that e-cigarettes harm your chances of quitting smoking. The paper got coverage world-wide but it also came in for unusually fierce criticism from academics who spend their lives trying to help people quit. It's been described as "grossly misleading" and "not scientific". We look at what is wrong with the paper and ask if it should have been published in the first place.(Image: Man smoking e-cigarette. Credit: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)
The Illusion of Continuity: What is perceptual constancy and how does the illusion of continuity pull a fast one over our brains? Find out in this episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind as Robert and Julie discuss the science behind Dancing Spider-Man, the whole Pink Floyd/Wizard of Oz thing and the roots of magical thinking. About the Image: Man doing back flip on a trampoline by Eadweard Muybridge, 1881, in his Attitudes of Animals in Motion P&P Case © CORBIS Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers
Lorna Stewart reports on the new and growing phenomenon of electronic cigarettes and asks if they really help smokers to stop smoking and if they are as safe as their manufacturers suggest. One billion people smoke worldwide and tobacco shortens the lives of half of all users. With consumption of tobacco products increasing globally, finding a way to help smokers to quit is vital. Electronic cigarettes, which contain nicotine in water vapour, are one new approach, but there is very little research into whether they have any harmful effects. As legislators worldwide start to rule on how to regulate them, there are concerns over who might use e-cigarettes; in some places they are proving popular with young people. Issues surrounding nicotine use and addiction have led regulatory bodies around the globe to act, and e-cigarettes are now banned in Brazil, Canada, Singapore, Panama and Lebanon.In this episode of Discovery for the BBC we hear from public health experts, psychologists, and e-cigarette enthusiasts about what e-cigarettes offer and what the risks are.Image: Man exhaling fumes. Credit: Atif Tanvir from ukecigstore
It's the summer of 1976 and the England cricket team is preparing for a series against the West Indies. The England captain, the South African-born Tony Greig, says in a pre-series interview that he intends to make his opponents "grovel". This was a highly provocative remark, made about a team of mainly black cricketers from the Caribbean in the era of apartheid; and a remark that Greig was made to regret once the teams took the field. (Image: Man of the match Michael Holding acknowledging the crowd after the fifth test for the Wisden Trophy at the Oval in 1976. Credit: Getty Images)