The Conversation Weekly

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 a...

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 w...

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...

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 ri...

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 whe...

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 valu...

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 Busine...

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...

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 sp...

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 t...

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...

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...

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 executi...

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...

Social isolation and loneliness are increasingly becoming a societal problem, as they increase polarization and impact on our physical health. In 2018, two years before the pandemic, the United Kingdom created a ministerial portfolio for loneliness . Japan, where nearly 40 per cent of the population report experiencing loneliness , began a similar position in 2021. We speak to three researchers wh...

Despite the many biological differences between people of different sexes, races, ages and life histories, chances are that if two people walk into a doctors office with the same symptoms, they are going to get the same exact treatment. As you can imagine, a whole range of treatments – from drugs to testing – could be much more effective if they were designed to work with many different kinds of b...

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the demographics of cities shifted. As stay-at-home orders, remote work and bubbling reduced social interaction, and restaurants, venues and arts destinations shut down temporarily, people started reconsidering their decision to remain in a big city. We spoke with two urban theorists about why people were leaving larger cities for smaller ones, how authenticity was ma...

Whether you’re looking at tropical forests in Brazil, grasslands in California or coral reefs in Australia, it’s hard to find places where humanity hasn't left a mark. The scale of the alteration, invasion or destruction of natural ecosystems can be mindbogglingly huge. Thankfully, researchers, governments and everyday people around the world are putting more effort and money into conservation and...

During the years of suffering and tragedy that defined the Warsaw Ghetto in the midst of World War II, a team of Jewish doctors secretly documented the effects of starvation on the human body when the Nazis severely limited the amount of food available in the Jewish ghetto. Featuring Merry Fitzpatrick , an assistant professor at Tufts University who studies food security and malnutrition. This epi...

Across the globe, health-care workers have gone on strike to protest the stress placed on them by the global COVID-19 pandemic and economic downturn, pushing already-strained services beyond their limits. These labour actions are part of the challenges faced by countries attempting to provide welfare services to their populations. We talk to three experts about why social welfare services are bein...

Reindeer's noses may not glow red, but these cold-loving creatures have evolved the ability to change the color of their eyes to help them thrive in northern winters. A neuroscientist explains how he discovered that a part of the reindeer eye called the tapetum lucidum is perfectly adapted to the dim, blue in the Arctic. Featuring Glen Jeffery, a professor of neuroscience at the Institute of Optha...

If you want to know what happened in the earliest years of the universe, you are going to need a very big, very specialized telescope. Much to the joy of astronomers and space fans everywhere, the world has one – the  James Webb Space Telescope . In this episode, we talk to three experts about what astronomers have learned about the first galaxies in the universe and how just six months of da...

How do you get a country to change its national diet? That’s what China has been trying by introducing potato as a staple as part of an effort to improve food security. In this episode, we talk to three experts about why countries need to shift what their citizens eat, and what the optimum diet for our planet might be.  Featuring Xiaobo Xue Romeiko , assistant professor of Environmental Healt...

In the latest episode of Discovery, an ongoing series where we explore the stories behind new research discoveries from around the world, we hear about how a Muslim celebrity footballer helped reduce Islamophobia. In this episode, Salma Mousa , assistant professor of political science at Yale University in the US, explains how she found a "Mo Salah effect" and why she's now testing how durable it...

The amount of alcohol young people drink in many high-income countries has seen a marked decline since the early 2000s. But in many developing countries, the opposite is happening. In this episode we talk to three experts studying trends in youth drinking to find out why and explore the questions this raises about the way young people see themselves and their place in the world.  Featuring Am...