Do you really know?

Who is Rosalia? Following the release of her latest album Motomami, Rosalia Vila Tobella was called a visionary and compared to artists like M.I.A. and Madonna by the Wall Street Journal. It’s fair to say she seems destined to be one of the biggest pop stars of her generation. So let’s take a moment to discuss the career of a singer who is winning critical and popular acclaim with everything she d...

What is deepfake democracy? On 9th March, opposition leader Yoon Suk Yeol won the 2022 South Korean presidential election. His campaign stood out through a fascinating and creative use of deepfake technology. Think back to our previous episode on the subject of deepfakes. You’ll remember it’s an online media technique which consists of creating realistic but fake visual content through deep learni...

What is dissociative identity disorder? Still to this day, this psychological condition is most often referred to by its previous name: multiple personality disorder. That’s in particular down to exaggerated representations in popular culture like books, TV or cinema. Some prominent examples are the story of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho or, more recently, Split. Experts have cr...

What is environmental racism? We’ve covered a lot of environmental issues on Do You Really Know? so regular listeners will be well aware of how the climate crisis is affecting the whole planet. But it’s important to also note how these problems don’t affect everyone equally. People in developing countries, particularly in the Southern Hemisphere, are already feeling the impact on their income, phy...

What are plant milks? Plant milks have been all the rage for a number of years now, and they’re gradually taking up more and more space on supermarket shelves, to the detriment of animal milks. In 2020, British shoppers spent £100m more on plant milks compared to the previous year, according to research from Mintel. That was a rise of over 30%, demonstrating their growing popularity. But these pro...

What is HAARP ? The acronym HAARP stands for High Frequency Auroral Research Program. It’s an American research project dedicated to analysing the ionosphere. HAARP is funded by the American armed forces, and has been the target of conspiracy theorists since the 1990s. They believe the program is responsible for natural disasters and mind-controlling radio waves. The ionmmm osphere is a layer of t...

What is hay fever? The start of spring is often synonymous with the appearance of hay fever and you may have already started feeling the first signs. Also known as seasonal allergic rhinitis, it’s caused by exposure to certain pollen in the air. Hay fever affects over 15% of the population according to New Scientist magazine, and incidence has reached as high as 30% among adults in the UK. Further...

Who is Scrooge McDuck? In 2022, the richest, brightest and wiliest of all ducks is celebrating the 75th anniversary of his creation. Uncle Scrooge is one of the most well-known Disney characters, and brings back childhood memories of watching cartoons for many of us. What's so unique about Scrooge McDuck? When did Disney create the Scrooge character? In under 3 minutes, we answer your questions! T...

What is permafrost? Permafrost is ground that remains frozen for two years or more. It’s made up of soil, rocks and sand, and held together by ice. In some places, this ground layer formed over 100,000 years ago, and can reach several miles in depth. Around 24% of land in the Northern Hemisphere has permafrost underneath it, according to the US National Snow and Ice Data Center. It’s mostly found...

Who are the Red Hot Chili Peppers?   With their new album Unlimited Love having been released on 1st April, let’s talk about the famous Californian funk rock group. The band has cited many influences, and they have been associated with a number of musical genres, including funk rock, alternative rock and rap rock. The Red Hot Chili Peppers unique style is precisely one of their distinctive charact...

What is survivalism? This social movement is all about proactively preparing for a wide range of emergencies. You could call it a pessimistic outlook, thinking it’s necessary to prepare for the worst. But there are more and more survivalists out there, with profiles and political views that vary radically. Survivalism first emerged in 1960s America, when against the backdrop of the Cold War, and t...

What is Swedish neutrality? Sweden’s neutrality policy is well-known in the field of international relations. It has allowed the country to go over two centuries without being at war. That makes it the nation which has had the longest period of peace. So Sweden isn’t part of any military alliance, and doesn’t take sides when wars break out. Other European countries like Austria and Switzerland als...

What is conversion therapy? Boris Johnson's UK government on March 31, 2022 dropped its ban on conversion therapies, which claim to change a person's sexual orientation or gender identity. In the midst of the scandal surrounding pedocriminality within the Catholic Church, conversion therapies have been voted to be banned in France on October 5, 2021. Conversion therapy, also known as homotherapy,...

What is the Blue Marble? It’s been fifty years since humans last went to the moon, as part of the Apollo 17 space mission. The mission also brought one of the world’s most iconic and widely reproduced photographs, the Blue Marble. It was taken by one of the crew members using a Hasselblad Data Camera on 7th December 1972 capturing Planet Earth from over 25,000 miles away. How did it get the name?...

What is the Ukrainian International Legion? Since the invasion of Ukraine began on 24th February 2022, governments have been reluctant to send troops into the warzone, despite expressing outrage at Russian aggression. Nevertheless, media reports have shed light on the thousands of foreign citizens, mostly men, leaving worried families behind to travel to Ukraine. On the ground, they’re fighting, p...

Who is Sonic? As fast and cocky as ever before, Sonic is set to return to cinema screens this week with the release of Sonic 2. We all know that the small blue hedgehog originally started out as a video game star. So just how did the face of Japanese game studio SEGA end up becoming such a major figure in pop culture? Tell me about Sonic the Hedgehog’s beginnings. How was he created? Was the first...

What is sign singing? Deafness is known for being an invisible disability, which can lead to exclusion and loneliness. According to a Human Rights Watch article from 2019, 70 million deaf people across the world use sign language to communicate. Well sign singers take that one step further, by adapting song lyrics into sign language for the deaf and hard of hearing. How do sign singers translate m...

What is temporary protection? According to United Nations estimates from just over a week ago, more than 10 million Ukrainians have fled their homes since the start of the Russian invasion in February 2022. 3.4 million of them have left Ukraine, with 90% being women and children given that all men under 60 are required to stay and defend their country. It’s been described as the “fastest growing r...

What are the Minsk Agreements? The main aim of the 2014 and 2015 Minsk Agreements was to prevent war in Europe, but they were repeatedly breached over the years, and eventually became obsolete when Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. Fighting broke out in Ukraine’s Donbas region in early 2014, opposing pro-Russian separatists and the Ukrainian army. How did the Agreements come to be signed? W...

Who is Alexei Navalny? Alexei Navalny was sentenced on Tuesday 22 March 2022 to an additional nine years in prison after being found guilty of fraud and contempt of court. In late March 2021, Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny began a hunger strike in his prison cell. A few weeks later he was transferred to a prison hospital, with his allies declaring he was “close to dying”. Thousands of pr...

What is an oil shock? The day Russian forces invaded Ukraine in February 2022, the price of crude oil surged over the $100 a barrel mark for the first time since 2014. Soon, economic sanctions would be announced against Russia, with buyers shunning exports from the world’s third largest oil producing country. For over a century, oil has been both a fuel and a barometer for the world economy. But i...

What is Wernicke-Korsakoff Syndrome? According to the World Health Organisation, harmful use of alcohol accounts for 3 million deaths each year. Indeed, it’s the third leading cause of preventable death, and causes a large burden for societies across the world. Of course regular alcohol consumption doesn’t always kill, but it can lead to other health problems, including neurological disorders. Wer...

What is myopia? According to a 2019 study from the Investigative Ophthalmology and Visual Science journal, almost 60% of all humans will have some form of myopia by 2050. That means as many as 5 billion people will be short-sighted, unable to clearly see objects more than 5 yards away. And that’s not at all; already one in three people suffer from myopia, a figure which rises to nearly 50% in some...

What is nuclear deterrence? Three days after his army invaded Ukraine, Russian president Vladimir Putin announced he was raising his country’s military nuclear deterrence threat level. He justified the move by citing the economic sanctions placed on Russia by the West, as well as what he called “aggressive statements” from NATO.  Isn’t the idea of deterrence forces a contradiction? Which countries...

What is the Wagner Group? In late February 2022, The Times revealed that members of Russian paramilitary Wagner Group had been sent to Ukrainian capital Kyiv with the mission of assassinating president Volodymyr Zelensky. Indeed, Zelensky himself claimed that he was the number one target during a speech on 25th February, just a day after the Russian invasion had begun. The Times said 400 private m...