The Conversation Weekly

Amid the flurry of billboards promoting cut price deals in the run up to Black Friday, some activists have slipped in the odd spoof advert. By subverting public advertising space, they’re risking legal action to try and make serious points about the excesses of consumer culture and the perilous state of the environment. In this episode, we find out about the subvertising movement and its links to...

The rise of drug-resistant infections is one of the biggest global threats to health, food security and development. Antibiotic-resistant superbugs were estimated to kill 1.27 million people in 2019, and the UN projects that drug-resistant diseases could cause 10 million deaths a year by 2050. In this episode, we hear from a microbiologist at a hospital in Nigeria working on the frontlines against...

Two months after the earthquake, we hear why Marrakech and its medina are so important to Islamic heritage – and why some researchers are worried that the expertise of the city's traditional artisans could being overlooked in the reconstruction. Featuring Abbey Stockstill , assistant professor of art history at Southern Methodist University in the US; Nour Eddine Nachaoune , professor of heritage...

In recent years, Californians have had to deal with some deadly and destructive wildfires. But in fact, this part of the western United States has been shaped by fire for millennia. And in this episode we hear about new research from California into a decades-old mystery about the extinction of large animals at the end of the Ice Age, which is providing some worrying lessons from history about the...

Homs was once the centre of the Syrian revolution. Today, 12 years on, much of the city remains scarred and deserted after years of siege and heavy bombardment. In this episode we speak to an architect from Homs about what the deliberate destruction of homes and neighbourhoods, known as domicide, does to people displaced by conflict – and his perspective on the Israeli bombardment of Gaza. &n...

We’re bringing you an extra episode this week to share an interview from Don’t Call Me Resilient , another podcast from The Conversation. Hosted by Vinita Srivastava at The Conversation in Canada, Don’t Call Me Resilient is your weekly dose of news and current events through a sharply-focused anti-racist lens. In this episode which we're running in full, Vinita talks to Daniel Martinez HoSang...

Imagine a particle so small that it’s the same relative size to a soccer ball as that football is to the planet Earth. That’s the size of a quantum dot – a type of nanocrystal that changes colour depending on its size, and was once thought impossible to actually make. Now, three scientists who helped discover and synthesise these quantum dots have been awarded the 2023 Nobel prize in chemistry. In...

For generations, Neanderthals have been a source of fascination for scientists. This species of ancient hominim inhabited the world for around 500,000 years until they suddenly disappeared 42,000 years ago. Today, the cause of their extinction remains a mystery. Archaeologist Ludovic Slimak at the University of Toulouse III, Paul Sabatier in France and his team have spent three decades excavating...

Australia goes to the polls on October 14 in a referendum on whether to enshrine an Indigenous advisory body, known as the Voice to Parliament, into the country's constitution.  In this episode, a political theorist from the Torres Strait Islands, an archipelago between Australia and Papua New Guinea, explains the background to the Voice and the arguments for and against it. Plus, we hear a v...

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...

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...

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 th...

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 spo...

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 mo...

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...

The Conversation Weekly will be taking a production break in August and will be back in September with new episodes. Stay tuned and subscribed!

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 Lect...

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 neuroscienti...

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 cul...

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 mig...

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...

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 inv...

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 car...

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 the...

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...