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On September 16th 2021, Australia announced it had signed a strategic pact with the United States and United Kingdom. The aim is to ensure stability in the Indo-Pacific, which consists of several important seaways between India, Japan and Australia. The recent pact was named AUKUS, to include the initials of the three signatory countries. It will see the United States provide Australia with at lea...

Digital nomads earn a living working online, while moving freely around the world.  Since the first COVID-19 lockdowns in 2020, remote work has become commonplace in companies around the world. Working from home offers many advantages, and “work from anywhere” policies take this freedom one step further. Many employees have said “yes, please” and packed their bags to become digital nomads. Has the...

Mouth taping involves putting tape over your mouth. It's supposed to improve your sleep by forcing you to breathe through your nose rather than your mouth. Regular listeners will be aware that we’ve discussed a number of Tiktok trends on this podcast. Not long ago, we covered the Blackout challenge after it led to the tragic deaths of a number of young children. As of yet the mouth taping trend we...

It’s been twenty-one years since the 9/11 attacks which shocked the entire world, killing 2977 people. As part of the commemorations, President Biden is due to visit the three plane crash sites in New York City, Pennsylvania and at the Pentagon.  Part of the memorial at Ground Zero in New York includes the 9/11 Museum, which was inaugurated in May 2014 by then President Barack Obama. Its construct...

There are an increasing number of trends and products out there to rid your body of toxins, such as infrared saunas, liver-purifying supplements and detox diets. But what exactly are toxins? According to the Cambridge Dictionary, a toxin is “a poisonous substance, especially one produced by bacteria, that causes disease.” However, today we tend to use the word toxin to refer to all the harmful sub...

Queen Elizabeth II died on 8 September 2022 at the age of 96. The operation that accompanies her death is called London Bridge. A major procedure that will punctuate the next ten days. We explain what London Bridge is in this episode. Who will be the first to hear the news? How quickly will the rest of us find out? What are the practical arrangements for Operation London Bridge? In under 3 minutes...

FN Meka is the world’s first AI rapper. At the time of recording, he had accrued a whopping 10.3 million followers on TikTok. We’ve seen all sorts of social media trends in recent years, including the rise of influencers, and even virtual influencers. Some have accrued mind-boggling followings on social media, like Lil Miquela for example, a model and singer who has over 3 million fans on Instagra...

Former Foreign Secretary Liz Truss has been chosen as the new Prime minister, beating former Chancellor Rishi Sunak to replace Boris Johnson.  Although this has been a mediatised campaign that everyone in the UK  was aware of, less than 1% of the British public actually got a say in who would be the next PM as voting was only open Conservative party members.  How was Liz Truss Chosen? What will ha...

Feet carry our body weight and bear the impact of every step we take. Furthermore, they play an active role in balance control, thanks to sensors located along our tendons.  Whether you’re on the bus, relaxing at home, or taking a walk while listening to your favourite podcast, take a moment to look at your feet. Believe it or not, they account for a quarter of the bones in your body. Each foot ha...

Ever checked the time on your phone or TV set and seen a quirky number like 13:13, 11:11 or 20:20? Well of course you have, but what you may not know is there’s actually a name for such numbers: mirror hours! Basically, when you’re looking at a digital time display, you see a mirror time if the minute number and the hour number are the same. It refers to the symmetry you see on either side of the...

Not getting a good night’s sleep can certainly leave you feeling grumpy and groggy, but can it also make you selfish? Sleep experts at the University of California, Berkeley certainly seem to think so, and  apparently even losing just one hour of sleep is enough to make you less generous towards others and that includes friends and family.    How did they discover this? What impact could this have...

With the summer holiday season drawing to a close, many university students are preparing to leave home for the first time and head to campus accommodation. While they’re enjoying freshers week, chances are their parents may be finding it unsettling that their child is no longer present at home. That’s even more likely when it’s their last child who’s just left home. This form of grief is known as...

"Quiet quitting" has been getting a lot of attention of late. So many young people have been rejecting “hustle culture”, which puts work at the centre of a person’s life and can lead to burnout. On this podcast, we’ve talked about a lot of factors affecting young workers and their mental health in recent times. It’s pretty well established that the Covid pandemic was a game changer, in that flexib...

Woofing consists of working on a farm while travelling to reduce costs. These volunteers help out their hosts for five half-days per week during their stay. The world is still in the middle of a health crisis. And while travel has resumed with the reopening of borders, more sustainable tourism practices have come to the fore in the past two years. One such example is wwoofing, which started growin...

To understand where white spots come from, we must first explain how nail growth works. If you’ve ever had white spots on your nails before, you may have been dismissively told that it's down to a lack of calcium or zinc. Basically, some mineral-deficiency. But this popular belief doesn’t really have any basis in fact. According to Healthline, nails grow an average of 3 millimeters per month. Thei...

Periods can greatly impact sleep, which has led to what’s known as the period sleep gap. Periods are different for everyone. Some people might have painful cramps, feel fatigued, or in some cases have no symptoms at all. But periods don’t just happen during the daytime. Periodsomnia is referring to the effect that menstruation can have on sleep. During menstruation, insomnia is far more frequent,...

The windscreen phenomenon is the observation of the gradual disappearance of insects on the planet. If you regularly use your car for long trips, you’re probably accustomed to seeing squashed flies, wasps and gnats on your windscreen from time to time. This is totally normal, but in recent years, it’s become a much rarer sight for drivers, and the significance is greater than you might first think...

HouseParty is a video chat app that was created in the United States in 2016 and became particularly popular among millennials. Those who download it use it for an average of 51 minutes per day. That’s comparable to Facebook and higher than other popular apps like Instagram, Messenger and Snapchat.  What is HouseParty? The coronavirus-related lockdowns have led to a resurgence in the app’s popular...

High blood sugar can make your mouth dry, make you feel thirsty, give you blurred vision and make you need to pee often. This is known as hyperglycemia. When we think of those who have high blood sugar, we tend to think of people with diabetes, as they often have to monitor their levels and sometimes undergo insulin treatment. But actually everybody can have blood sugar spikes, and many of us do w...

One of the most rapidly increasing synthetic cathinones is 3-Methylmethcathinone, or 3-MMC for short. In March 2022, the European Commission announced new measures to control the substance. The UK MDMA drug market has seen great change following Brexit and the Covid pandemic. A study carried out by non-profit The Loop found that there was a surprising decrease in MDMA detection between 2019 and 20...

In the days following the start of the invasion, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky created the country’s International Legion and appealed to foreign nationals to join.  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...

We all yawn regularly, without giving it much thought most of the time. Harvard Health Publishing says that people yawn between 5 and 20 times per day on average. Indeed, it’s a completely involuntary reflex which sets in very early on in our existence, as fetuses in our mother’s womb. Yawning mobilizes the respiratory, face and neck muscles, and is often associated with a feeling of relaxation an...

The term cyclothymia was coined in the late 19th century by German psychiatrist Karl Ludwig Kahlbaum. It describes a clinical situation which has many similarities with bipolar disorder, although its symptoms are less severe. We talk about something being a disorder when it has an impact on everyday life, and that’s the case with cyclothymia. It usually comes on during adolescence or early adultho...

From 28th August to 5th September 2022, Burning Man is set to return to the Black Rock Desert in Nevada for the first time since 2019, with an authorised population of 87,000 people. This event sees artists, creators and community-makers gather to celebrate self-expression. Every August, a temporary real city is set up to accommodate the festival. It actually becomes one of the most populated citi...

One of the unsuspected consequences of a global pandemic is a re-evaluation not only of how we work but what work means to us. For some the flexibility was a breath of fresh air, others missed the office and even the commute but with employee happiness more important than ever and people feeling overwhelmed and stressed at work the question of how to achieve a work-life balance has never been more...