The Spreadsheet of Life and Death
Clive had a deadly form of cancer, but fortunately there was a new drug to treat it. Imagine his anger when he was told the treatment was too expensive. He’d entered a world where unique human lives a...
26 Juni 202024min
A Tsunami of Misery
A monstrous wave and then a nuclear disaster forced Mikio and Hamako Watanabe from their home. But being saved from the potential dangers of a radiation leak destroyed their lives in a different way. ...
19 Juni 202021min
Fire at The Beverly Hills Supper Club
Flames are spreading through a Cincinnati hotel. The staff know it, the fire department is coming, and the people in the packed cabaret bar have been told to evacuate… and yet they hesitate to leave. ...
12 Juni 202021min
Cautionary Tales Presents: TED Talk Daily
In this special episode of Cautionary Tales, we feature Cautionary Tales host Tim Harford's TED Talk Daily from 2018. What can we learn from the world's most enduringly creative people? They "slow-mot...
31 Jan 202018min
You Have Reached Your Destination
We may mock our ancestors for seeking the advice of oracles, soothsayers and psychics, but today we rely heavily on computer programs and math formulas to help us navigate our world. If we continue to...
27 Dec 201932min
Bowie, Jazz and the Unplayable Piano
It was the biggest concert of Keith Jarrett's career - but the pianist was in for a shock when he entered Koln's opera house. The only piano at the venue was a broken-down wreck. Should he risk humili...
20 Dec 201930min
How Britain Invented, Then Ignored, Blitzkrieg
In 1917, a brilliant British officer developed a way to use an emerging military technology: the tank. The British army promptly squandered the idea – but the Germans did not. Blitzkrieg, the devastat...
13 Dec 201936min
Buried by the Wall Street Crash
Both of the world’s greatest economists, Irving Fisher and John Maynard Keynes, thought they could see into the future and make a killing on the stock market - and then both were wiped out by the Wall...
6 Dec 201936min
