Sleep and ASMR by The French Whisperer

My talk tonight is about ""uncontacted peoples"": tribes that maintain minimal or no contact at all with the rest of the world. Situations vary: in Amazonia, uncontacted peoples generally retreated to remote parts of the rainforest as a survival strategy, and we will see an example with the Nomole (also called Mashco Piro) from Peru. In other cases like the Shompen of Great Nic...

Here are four more stories of lost cities from the past, that will take us around the world and from Antiquity to our days: - Dunwich (UK) was a thriving medieval city that grew during the Anglo-Saxon period on the North Sea coast, and peaked in the 14th century. But centuries of coastal erosion led to the disappearance of most of its buildings and houses. - Heracleion was Egypt's most active...

Forbidden Islands are places where visitors are strictly banned, for a variety of reasons. In tonight's episode, I tell you about four different examples:- North Sentinel, where one of the last uncontacted people in the world (the Sentinelese) keeps living in the neolithic;- Poveglia, an island that previously served as a lazaret (a quarantine site) in the Lagoon of Venice;- Surtsey, a volcanic is...

Where does money come from, and what is it, exactly? Depending on how we look at it, it is at the same time a means of exchange, an unit of account, a language (the language of economic value), or a synonym for wealth. The term is also loaded with aspirations and emotions: having enough or a lot of money is connected to freedom, security, status, power, or peace of mind. We will explore these vari...

Let's explore scientific topics tonight, with this compilation of four episodes:- part 1 is about the shapes and patterns in nature. Why do certain shapes come back, rather than others, what are these favoured shapes, and what is the golden ratio?- part 2 is a presentation about bees: species, anatomy and social life.- part 3 deals with the decay of structures and artifacts built by civilizations,...

"Gamification" describes a strategy: introducing gaming elements and mechanics into everyday activities - like learning, consuming, or producing - to make them more engaging, or even mildly addictive. It is also a phenomenon. From loyalty programs and budgeting apps to social media and ride-sharing, we play more games than we realize. In this episode, I examine this situation, starting from my own...

What could space colonization in the next few decades look like, if it ever happens? Is it possible and does it make sense to establish bases on the Moon, mine asteroids, or build a "star bridge", also known as a space elevator? These are some of the questions I will tell you about in this episode. We will talk about the limitations of rockets, high-performance materials such as carbon nanotubes,...

Bestiaries were medieval compendiums that contained information and illustrations of real and legendary animals. Following this ancient tradition, I have put together talks about the origins of different legendary and fantasy creatures. Make yourself comfortable, this will be a long historical, anthropological and mythological journey around the world. Timestamps: 0:00 Bestiaries 1:37 Elf 27:37 Dw...

Alexander the Great is a name that sounds almost more legendary than real. In tonight's episode, we will dive into his time, his life and his conquests. Born from King Philip II of Macedon and Olympias of Epirus, educated by Aristotle, Alexander takes the lead of the League of Corinth, a coalition of Greek states. He leads his army into the conquest of the greatest empire of the time: the empire o...

Machines and humans live in a symbiosis, something we are so accustomed to that we barely think about it. You are using a machine to read this, and your headset or speakers, your clothes, your chair or your bed, most of the objects around you, were made with machines or are machines. We create them and they bring extraordinary advantages. They free us, but we also adapt to them. Think about how ou...

What are the origins of well-known legendary figures, such as the phoenix, the unicorn and the mermaid? From ancient symbols and myths to medieval bestiaries, we are going to explore their appearance and evolution, and try to dig a bit deeper. Why do certain motifs such as the phoenix appear across various cultures? What are the Physiologus and the illustrated bestiaries from the Middle Ages? What...

We all know of modern fantasy creatures, and also that they owe a lot to J.R.R. Tolkien, other fantasy authors of the last 60 years, Dungeons & Dragons, or different franchises like Warhammer or Warcraft. But how did these different figures actually form: what are the mythologies, the folklores and the more recent elements that gave birth to them? This is what we are going to examine in this episo...

In this new story, we will explore the cultural history of three colours: yellow, black and white. How were pigments for art and crafts, or dyes, obtained? What were the meanings, symbolisms and status of these colours, across various ancient cultures and to our days? Let's find out. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use...

This new compilation of episodes will take you to several stories taken from or inspired by Germanic myths and legends. I have equalised the sound and there are no ads during the entire episode. As always, I tell you the stories and also take a bit of time to explain the historical and cultural context. Here are the episodes I put together: - The Ring of the Nibelung - Beowulf - Norse Mythology Ho...

Nature creates certain patterns that seem to appear spontaneously, on different scales: spirals, hexagons, fractals, symmetries... Why is that? To what forces, needs or underlying order does this correspond? Why do they speak to our sense of aesthetics? These are the questions we are going to examine in simple terms in this episode. This poetic and scientific journey will take us to a multiplicity...

This long compilation of episodes will accompany you for hours, as you relax, sleep, work, or are just curious about the topics. I have equalised the sound and there are no ads during the entire episode. Here are the themes I put together: History of Timekeeping, History of Astrology, History of Colours, History of Alchemy, History of Rooms in Homes Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See ht...

Tonight I take you to two wonders of the World. First we will discover the Taj Mahal, maybe the most extraordinary mausoleum ever built. It was commissioned by the fifth emperor of the Mughal Empire, Shah Jahan, for his beloved wife Mumtaz Mahal, and is a jewel of Mughal architecture, blending Indian, Persian, Central Asian and Islamic influences. After that, we will go to the two temples of Abu S...

The silurian hypothesis is not a theory, but rather a thought experiment: what if a civilization had existed on Earth millions of years ago? After such a long time, could it have left any trace, taking into account the natural decay of all materials, sedimentation and plate tectonics? This video is not about an actual ancient civilization of which we have zero evidence. It is about how long the re...

Let's go back to Prehistory tonight! Behavioral modernity is a concept created to describe a series of traits and behaviors that our species, Homo Sapiens, adopted over the past 100,000 years. The list of these traits, their timelines, their maps and the way archaeological records reflects them are still debated among paleontologists and paleoanthropologists. However, there is no doubt the phenome...

In tonight's episode, I invite you to an overview of rooms, since humankind started to build homes. For much of our history, most people lived in single-room dwellings and multiple-room homes were a privilege for the happy few. This started to change after the 16th Century, and rooms multiplied for almost everyone, often influenced by aristocratic and bourgeois homes. From medieval long houses and...

What is this subjective experience, this awareness of existence, that we call consciousness? In tonight's episode, we will examine some of the aspects of this philosophical, scientific and spiritual question. Is consciousness a binary thing, or is it a kind of continuum with different "levels"? Do animals experience a degree of consciousness and how can it be infered of measured? Is it reductible...

Our episode tonight takes us way back to 252 million years ago, at the end of the Permian geologic period. We will discover what marine life was like in the gigantic ocean called Panthalassa, as well as the flora and fauna of the supercontinent Pangea. In the last millions of years of the Permian, marine and land species began to go extinct in larger and larger numbers, culminating in the last mil...

For tonight, I take you to two "lost" cities, because they were deserted or replaced with another one, but their stories are windows on chapters of human history. First we will go to Mycenae, a city-state and palace from the second millenium BC, that represents well the rise of Bronze Age palatial culture in Greece, long before the more familiar periods of Classical or Hellenistic Greece. Then we...

In this soft spoken ASMR video, I tell you about the Wars of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars. We explore the transformation of society, politics, diplomacy and warfare that made Napoleon's destiny possible, and we follow him from his birthplace in Corsica to Toulon, Paris, Italy, Egypt until the coup that made him access to supreme power. But this was just a start: multiple conflicts...

Tonight's episode is an overview of the history of gold and other precious metals: how much is there on Earth? Where is it? How was gold discovered and how did it acquire its powerful symbolism as a symbol of wealth and power, that make it a store of value? From the tombs of ancient pharaohs to the reserves of central banks, let's delve into this history. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company....