Cash for sharks: the unintended consequences of paying fishermen to release sharks caught in their nets – podcast: As Jaws marks its 50th anniversary this year, sharks continue to get a bad rap. Film after film portrays them as terrifying hunters, the bane of surfers and swimmers. But in Indonesia, sharks are the hunted. It’s …
Why the global tax system needs fixing – podcast: Cagkan Sayin/Shutterstock For decades, multinational corporations have used sophisticated strategies to shift profits away from where they do business. As a result, countries around the world lose an estimated US$ 500 billion annually in unpaid taxes, with developing nations hit particularly hard. In the first of …
Birkin vs Wirkin: the backlash against the global elite and their luxury bags – podcast: Tony Neil Thompson/Shutterstock The Birkin bag made by French luxury retailer Hermès has become a status symbol for the global elite. Notoriously difficult to obtain, the world’s rich obsess over how to get their hands on one. But when US …
COVID modelling reveals new insights into ancient social distancing – podcast: lindasky76/Shutterstock Five years since COVID emerged, not only has the pandemic affected the way we live and work, it’s also influencing the way researchers are thinking about the past. In this episode of The Conversation Weekly podcast, archaeologist Alex Bentley explains how the pandemic …
?A ‘Google maps for the sea’, sails ?and alternative fuels: ?the technologies steering shipping towards ?lower emissions – podcast: petrugusa94/Shutterstock ?Ships transport around 80% of the world’s cargo. From your food, to your car to your phone, chances are it got to you by sea. The vast majority of the world’s container ships burn fossil …
A glimpse into a surreal abyss: how COVID ravaged a remote city in the Amazonian jungle – podcast: When the first cases of COVID began to spread around the world in early 2020, people in Iquitos, a remote city in the Peruvian Amazon, weren’t unduly worried. They assumed their isolation would protect them. It didn’t. …
Taung child: the controversial story of the fossil discovery that proved humanity’s common origins in Africa – podcast: The cast of the Taung child skull found in South Africa in 1924. Didier Descouens/Wikipedia Commons, CC BY-SA One hundred years ago, a paper was published in the journal Nature that would radically shift our understandings of …
‘I thought about escaping every day’: how survivors get out of Southeast Asia’s cybercrime compounds – Scam Factories podcast, Ep 3: Every day that he was locked up in a scam compound in Southeast Asia, George thought about how to get out. “We looked for means of escaping, but it was hard,” he told The …
‘Your life becomes a nightmare’: how scam operations exploit those trapped inside – Scam Factories podcast, Ep 2: A few weeks after Ben Yeo travelled to Cambodia for what he thought was a job in a casino, he found himself locked up in a padded room. “It’s a combination between a prison and a madhouse,” …
Decentralised social media offers an alternative to big tech platforms like X and Meta. How does it work? Podcast: Koshiro K/Shutterstock When Elon Musk acquired Twitter in 2022, many users looked for alternatives, fuelling a wave of online migration from the social media platform. Musk says he’s using Twitter, now named X, to champion free …
How close are quantum computers to being really useful? Podcast: Audio und verbung/Shutterstock Quantum computers have the potential to solve big scientific problems that are beyond the reach of today’s most powerful supercomputers, such as discovering new antibiotics or developing new materials. But to achieve these breakthroughs, quantum computers will need to perform better than …
Silicon Valley’s bet on AI defence startups and what it means for the future of war – podcast: From Gaza to Ukraine, today’s war zones are being used as testing grounds for new systems driven by artificial intelligence. Billions of dollars are now being pumped into AI weapons technology, much of it from Silicon Valley …
How the world fell in love with plastic without thinking through the consequences – podcast: Joaquin Traverso Traverso/Shutterstock Every year, 400 million tons of plastic are produced worldwide, and every year, approximately 57 million tons of plastic pollution is created. And yet in November, the latest round of negotiations on the first legally binding international …
Brain implants, agentic AI and answers on dark matter: what to expect from science in 2025 – podcast: ZinetroN/Shutterstock In a special episode of The Conversation Weekly podcast to start 2025, we’ve brought together three science editors from The Conversation’s editions around the world to discuss what to look out for in the world of …
Why distrust in powerful politicians is part of a functioning democracy – podcast: Surveys suggest that in many western democracies, political trust is at rock bottom. Scandals, corruption, faltering economies, conspiracy theories and swirling disinformation are all playing their part. But is it really such a bad thing for people living in a democracy to …
Fifty years after the discovery of Lucy, it’s time to ‘decolonise paleoanthropology’ says leading Ethiopian fossil expert – podcast: On November 24 1974, renowned American paleoanthropologist Donald Johanson spotted “a piece of elbow with humanlike anatomy” poking out of a rocky hillside in northern Ethiopia. It was the first fossil of a partial skeleton belonging …
What does class mean today in Britain? Podcast: Gig economy workers take a break in Chinatow, London. Shutterstock/Grant Rooney Social class continues to influence British people’s opportunities and the way they think about them, even if the boundaries between those classes have shifted. In the third part of Know Your Place: what happened to class …
The emotional toll of dating apps and why they’re no longer about finding love – podcast: Nicoleta Ionescu/Shutterstock Dating apps are having a rocky moment. In February, Bumble said it would lay off 30% of its workforce after disappointing results in 2023. Match Group, which has struggled to maintain paying subscribers for its most popular …