The world has waited decades for a malaria vaccine, and now two have come along in quick succession. On October 2, the World Health Organization (WHO) recommended that a new malaria vaccine developed by the University of Oxford be rolled out for the prevention of malaria in children, just two years after another vaccine, the RTS,S, got their endorsement. We find out why it's been so hard to find a malaria vaccine – and hear from the scientists behind the new breakthrough. We’ve been waiting for ...
Oct 03, 2023•38 min
Spanish women are having fewer and fewer children, and yet the country has become the egg donation capital of Europe. We find out about the experiences of women who decide to donate their eggs, and whether there are enough protections in place to prevent them from being exploited. Featuring Anna Molas , research fellow in anthropology at Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona in Spain. This episode was produced and written by Katie Flood with assistance from Mend Mariwany. Eloise Stevens does our sou...
Sep 28, 2023•20 min
In part 3 of Inside the Oslo Accords we explore the legacy of the Oslo peace process and the future of a two-state solution for Israel-Palestine. Hanan Ashrawi is a Palestinian political and civil society leader and in the 1990s was the official spokesperson of a joint Palestinian-Jordanian delegation to the Middle East peace process. Yossi Beilin was Israel's deputy foreign minister and one of the key participants during the secret negotiations in Oslo. This series is made in collaboration with...
Sep 26, 2023•32 min
In part 2 of Inside the Oslo Accords , a special series marking the 30th anniversary of the signing of the 1993 Oslo Accords between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization, we hear from two negotiators about what happened in the years after the famous handshake on the White House lawn. Hanan Ashrawi is a Palestinian political and civil society leader and in the 1990s was the official spokesperson of a joint Palestinian-Jordanian delegation to the Middle East peace process. Yossi Beilin...
Sep 19, 2023•38 min
Inside the Oslo Accords is a three-part series marking the 30th anniversary of the signing of the 1993 Oslo Accords between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization. It's hosted in collaboration with James Rodgers, reader in international journalism and Amnon Aran, professor of international politics, both at City, University of London in the UK. They'll revisit the history of this moment in history, through conversations with leading participants in the Oslo process. In part 1, we hear ...
Sep 12, 2023•26 min
Around half of all life on Earth is on the move because of climate change. It's another staggering statistic from the recent synthesis report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and a shift explored in a recent episode of Fear & Wonder, a new podcast from The Conversation. We're running that full episode through our channel this week. It features Finnish fisherman scientist Tero Mustonen and Australian marine ecologist Gretta Pecl from the University of Tasmania. Fear and...
Aug 31, 2023•47 min
The Conversation Weekly will be taking a production break in August and will be back in September with new episodes. Stay tuned and subscribed!
Jul 27, 2023•37 sec
Based on Michael Crichton's novel by the same name, Jurassic Park told the story of an ambitious theme park that used resurrected dinosaurs as its attractions. But as the story unfolds, things start to go wrong. We speak to Travis Holland, who researches media and fan studies,at the popular and scientific cultural impact Jurassic Park continues to have today. Featuring Travis Holland , Senior Lecturer in Communication at Charles Sturt University in Australia. This episode was written and produce...
Jul 20, 2023•20 min
The human body is a complex organism, made up of trillions of cells. But not all of them are human. About half of them are fungi, microbes and bacteria. Scientists are starting to understand how and why these communities — referred to as microbiomes — are crucial to the functioning of various body systems. We speak to three experts who study the gut microbiome: a gastroenterologist, a neuroscientist and a biological engineer. Their research considers how these microbiomes are important, what the...
Jul 13, 2023•37 min
The history of restaurants, food and, especially, fine dining, is deeply tied to the history of immigration to the U.S. and French cultural power in the early 20th century. Not surprisingly, the story that leads to Yelp and Anthony Bourdain is not without its share of racism that the modern food world and its taste makers are still grappling with today. We speak to three experts who study food culture and fine dining about the perceptions and definitions of what’s considered good food. We explor...
Jul 06, 2023•44 min
Around the world, borders between countries are getting tougher. Governments are making it more difficult to move, especially for certain groups of vulnerable people . This comes with a message, subtle or not: that people are moving to higher-income countries to take advantage of the welfare system, or the jobs of people already living there. But research shows that much of what we think about migration in the Global North is wrong, and political narratives shape the conversation and public atti...
Jun 29, 2023•39 min
Modern protest movements, like the ongoing protests in Iran, often center around women who have been killed or harmed by agents of authoritarian governments. While it can be easy to chalk up this consistent, state-sponsored abuse of women to simple sexism, researchers say there is a deeper story at play. We speak to three experts who have studied protests and the role of gendered ideology, images and social media as tools of resistance as well as of oppression. Parichehr Kazemi is a Ph.D. candid...
Jun 22, 2023•39 min
Over the past few decades, countries across Latin America have witnessed a surge in demands by its people for increased political participation and representation. Colombia and Chile stand out as notable examples of countries responding to these calls through constitutional reform. We speak with two researchers about Latin America’s ongoing democratic transition, with a particular focus on the involvement of populations in democratic processes in Colombia and Chile. We examine how countries are ...
Jun 15, 2023•38 min
Making yourself more beautiful can result in tangible, material rewards. Pretty privilege, as it is called, can lead to greater access to money and social capital, resulting in a better quality of life. In Brazil, this understanding that beauty is important to one’s social status and mental and emotional wellbeing has prompted the state to subsidize cosmetic surgery. But this pursuit of beauty carries a dark side, and can often mean exposure to harm. We speak to an anthropologist and a cancer re...
Jun 08, 2023•32 min
A number of activist groups, mostly from developing nations already facing the realities of a changing climate, are taking a new legal approach to climate action. They are arguing that climate change cases are human rights cases and in doing so are wading into unprecedented legal waters. We speak with three scholars about current legal cases tying climate change and human rights together, what these cases might mean for the climate movement and how human rights law can produce real change on the...
Jun 01, 2023•41 min
In countries across the Global South, the launch of IMF programs often sparks considerable concern. This is because of the IMF’s reputation: during the 1980s, many nations in Africa, Asia and Latin America turned to the IMF seeking loans to mitigate economic challenges. These loans were accompanied by stringent conditions, and countries faced pressure to reduce public subsidies and social spending, downsize the public sector workforce, and increase taxes. We speak with two researchers about the ...
May 25, 2023•36 min
One of the key findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) Synthesis Report is that there are solutions available right now, across all sectors of the economy, that could at least halve greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. “The problem is getting worse,” explains Greg Nemet, a Canadian renewable policy expert and IPCC author. “But we’ve got solutions now that are so much more affordable than they were.” Fear & Wonder is a new podcast from The Conversation that takes you i...
May 18, 2023•45 min
Ten years ago this month, much attention turned to the global garment industry when a group of garment factories collapsed at Rana Plaza near Dhaka, Bangladesh. The accident, called a “mass industrial homicide” by unions in Bangladesh, killed 1,124 people and injured at least 2,500 more. Most of the people who went to work that day were young women, almost all were supporting families with their wages and all were at the bottom of the global production chain. We feature an episode from our colle...
May 11, 2023•43 min
Small amounts of rain can mean the difference between struggle and success. For nearly 80 years, an approach called cloud seeding has, in theory, given people the ability to get more rain and snow from storms and make hailstorms less severe. But only recently have scientists been able to peer into clouds and begin to understand how effective cloud seeding really is. We speak with three researchers about the simple yet murky science of cloud seeding, the economic effects it can have on agricultur...
May 04, 2023•43 min
In countries across Africa and Latin America, old used cars from places like the U.S. and Europe provide vital access to transportation to people who would otherwise be unable to afford their own vehicles. While this process extends the lives of these cars, the practice is not without problems, in particular with regards to pollution and passenger safety. We speak with two researchers about why richer countries export used cars, what impacts they have in developing nations and whether import res...
Apr 27, 2023•31 min
Last month the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its Synthesis Report of the Sixth Assessment Report. It showed global temperatures are now 1.1℃ above pre-industrial levels. This warming has driven widespread and rapid global changes, including more frequent and intense weather extremes that are now impacting people and ecosystems all over the world. But when an extreme weather event hits, how certain can we be that it was made more likely by climate chang...
Apr 20, 2023•50 min
Conserving or protecting natural resources, like landscapes or products, can involve limiting people's access or use. When natural resources are connected to cultural, religious or spiritual practices, conservation needs to consider both biological and cultural diversity. Indian or red sandalwood, highly valued for its wood and oil, is a natural resource with significant economic and cultural value. The fragrant wood is used for carvings, furniture and in buildings, while the oil distilled from ...
Apr 13, 2023•32 min
We speak with three researchers who study how climate research is funded to find out whether the pomp and circumstance of high-profile climate innovation prizes outweighs the actual research they fund, or whether they actually play an important role in the larger effort to find climate solutions. Featuring David Reiner , University Senior Lecturer in Technology Policy at the Cambridge Judge Business School; Abbas Abdul , Researcher at the Science Policy Research Unit at the University of Sussex;...
Apr 06, 2023•34 min
In an era of ceaseless notifications from apps, devices and social media platforms, as well as access to more information than we could possibly consider, how do we find ways to manage? And is the way that we think, focus and process information changing as a result? We speak with three researchers who study human-computer interaction, technology design and literacy about how all of these demands on our attention are affecting us, and what we could possibly do about it. Featuring Maryanne Wolf ,...
Mar 30, 2023•44 min
Both the U.S. and China have plans to establish a permanent human presence on the Moon. You might be wondering: why now? The answer to that is the relatively recent discovery of water on the Moon. The question of how humanity will establish a Moon base is perhaps a deeper and more important one. We speak with two people, a planetary scientist who studies lunar geology and a scholar who works on space law and politics, about the challenges facing nations as humanity heads to the Moon. Featuring M...
Mar 23, 2023•45 min
On March 19, 2003, the United States led an unlawful invasion into Iraq, occupying the country for over eight years until the official withdrawal of troops throughout 2011. It is estimated that around 405,000 deaths occurred as a direct result. Most of these deaths were of Iraqi civilians, hundreds of thousands of others were injured, and over nine million displaced. The invasion was followed by the rise of sectarian violence that followed between 2006 and 2010, and the Islamic State group’s occ...
Mar 16, 2023•48 min
Without a sense of time, leading us from cradle to grave, our lives would make little sense. But on the most fundamental level, physicists aren't sure whether the sort of time we experience exists at all. We talk to three experts and find out if time could potentially be moving backwards as well as forwards. Featuring Sean Carroll , Homewood professor of natural philosophy at Johns Hopkins University, Emily Adlam , postdoctoral associate of the philosophy of physics at Western University and Nat...
Mar 09, 2023•46 min
When ChatGPT burst onto the technology world in November 2022, it gained 100 million users within just two months after its launch. The technology itself is fascinating, but part of what makes ChatGPT uniquely interesting is the fact that essentially overnight, most of the world gained access to a powerful generative artificial intelligence that they could use for their own purposes. We speak with researchers who study computer science, technology and economics to explore how the rapid adoption ...
Mar 02, 2023•42 min
An international team of biologists has discovered a tiny new species of owl, called the Príncipe scops owl, living in a remote forest on an island off the west coast of Africa. Featuring Bárbara Freitas, a Ph.D. fellow who studies bird evolution at the National Museum of Natural Sciences in Madrid. This episode was written and produced by Katie Flood and hosted by Dan Merino. The interim executive producer is Mend Mariwany. Eloise Stevens does our sound design, and our theme music is by Neeta S...
Feb 27, 2023•22 min
Our dependence on fossil fuels is one of the biggest challenges to overcome in the fight against climate change. But production and consumption of fossil fuels is on the rise, and expected to peak within the next decade. We speak to two researchers who examine the political challenges of transitioning to a world after oil, and what it means for those states who rely on oil for resources. Featuring Caleb Wellum , Assistant Professor of U.S. History, at the University of Toronto in Canada, and Nat...
Feb 23, 2023•38 min
