Ologies With Alie Ward
Alie Ward “asks good individuals silly questions” with humour and curiosity, grilling scientists on all the things from “procyonology” (raccoons) to “genicular traumatology” (dangerous knees). The enjoyment of this podcast is sitting in on a dialog between a wise layperson and a passionate professional. Ward’s enthusiasm is infectious and interviewees gentle up beneath the beam of her curiosity. A latest episode explores screaming with enter from the world’s solely “screamologist”: which animals scream? What distinguishes a scream from a yell? Why can we scream once we’re completely satisfied, or asleep? And the way do screamologists soundproof their places of work? As Ward warns, it’s “completely not soothing by any means” – nevertheless it’s sometimes fascinating. Curiosity Each day, with episodes of about quarter-hour, provides extra bite-size science.
EconTalk
Economist Russ Roberts, of Stanford College’s Hoover Establishment, hosts this long-running (since 2006: geriatric, in podcast years) “dialog for the curious”, distinguished by its magpie-minded scope. In any given month, Roberts may flip his consideration to astrophysics, reforming authorities and underground fungi, usually however not all the time by means of an economics lens. A latest interview with the film-maker Penny Lane about her documentary on the smooth-jazz saxophonist Kenny G is fascinating as an perception into what artwork we worth and what we deride. You’ll finish every hour-long episode with a wise tackle a topic you may beforehand have thought little about. In case you get pleasure from EconTalk, attempt Freakonomics Radio and The Ezra Klein Present, that are equally expert-led and horizon-broadening.
Travels By Time
A number one historian or knowledgable visitor is requested: if they may journey again by means of time, which yr would they go to? Billed as a mix of “critical historical past and playful parlour recreation”, the power of this podcast is within the slender slice of the previous it presents, from the Athens of 450BC to London in AD62, India in 1837 and the moon in 1969. Usually these tales make clear an unsung historic determine, and nonetheless have resonance immediately. As co-host Artemis Irvine says of the episode concerning the “hidden case” of trans man Ewan Forbes half a century in the past, Travels By Time is a reminder of “why learning historical past is so vital for understanding the current”. Additionally beneficial are Dan Snow’s Historical past Hit (broader in scope, with much less storytelling) and, from throughout the pond, Revolutions (detailed play-by-plays of historic uprisings – now: the French revoluti).
Upkeep Section
Michael Hobbes and Aubrey Gordon maintain this energetic dialog pod debunking the junk science “behind well being fads, wellness scams and nonsensical vitamin recommendation”. The hour-long episodes are fastidiously researched however evenly delivered, with cautious consideration to the scientific literature and inclusivity. The latest episodes on the fallacies underpinning the reported “sleep loss epidemic”, the modern tradition of protein and the “scientif-ish” physique mass index will open your thoughts to the hole foundation of a lot typical wellness knowledge. Listening to Upkeep Section is like listening to your good, straight-talking pal reply to you idly questioning for those who ought to attempt a keto food plan. One other pod, No Silly Questions from the makers of Freakonomics, takes an analogous conversational format to a broader vary of matters, in a extra compact format.
Extra or Much less: Behind the Stats
Amid on a regular basis chaos, there’s one thing anchoring about turning to the numbers. From Radio 4, Extra Or Much less takes a sober, succinct view of cases of “statistical trouble” within the information – together with, generally, the BBC’s personal output. A latest episode reviewed Boris Johnson’s repeated claims to parliament about much less crime and extra jobs and located them to be, uh, missing. Or, because the mild-mannered and infrequently drily humorous host Tim Harford put it: “Crikey, that’s an enormous quantity to miss.” Different episodes discover the five-second rule when dropping meals, falling fertility charges and the placebo impact. (Harford’s different, equally edifying podcast, Cautionary Tales – tales to “delight you, scare you, but in addition make you wiser” – is returning quickly.) If you end up simply overwhelmed by the information cycle, Tortoise Media’s every day Sensemaker presents an episode “to make sense of the world” in beneath 10 minutes.
