105 | Ann-Sophie Barwich on the Science and Philosophy of Smell

The space age officially began in 1957 with the launch of the Sputnik 1 satellite. But recent years have seen the beginning of a boom in the number of objects orbiting Earth, as satellite tracking and...

15 Apr 201959min

One of the most important insights in the history of science is the fact that complex behavior can arise from the undirected movements of small, simple systems. Despite the fact that we know this, we'...

8 Apr 20191h 14min

The modern world is full of technology, and also with anxiety about technology. We worry about robot uprisings and artificial intelligence taking over, and we contemplate what it would mean for a comp...

1 Apr 20191h 3min

Consciousness has many aspects, from experience to wakefulness to self-awareness. One aspect is imagination: our minds can conjure up multiple hypothetical futures to help us decide which choices we s...

25 Mar 20191h 19min

Let's say, for sake of argument, that you don't believe in God or the supernatural. Is there still a place for talking about transcendence, the sacred, and meaning in life? Some of the above, but not ...

18 Mar 20191h 16min

When many of us think "Ancient Rome," we think of the Empire and the Caesars. But the Empire was preceded by the Roman Republic, which flourished for a full five centuries. Why, after such a long and ...

11 Mar 20191h 31min

Quantum mechanics is our best theory of how reality works at a fundamental level, yet physicists still can't agree on what the theory actually says. At the heart of the puzzle is the "measurement prob...

4 Mar 20191h 42min

Everything we think about the world outside our immediate senses is shaped by information brought to us by other sources. In the case of what's currently happening to the human race, we call that info...

25 Feb 20191h 8min