Today in Podcast - 6 June 2011

The State We're In
BE A MAN
Men grappling with what it means to be a man, including the story of the father of a murdered teenager who counselled his son's friends against seeking revenge. The son of former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl talks about getting out from his father's shadow. And a man who found making the coffin for his distant father, an odd gesture of love.
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Today in Podcast - 5 June 2011

History According to Bob
French Indochina War 1952-1953
This show is about the next phase in the French Indochina War during 1952-1953.
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Veertien Achttien
Sir Herbert Plumer en de devotie van Zero Hour
Op 7 juni 1917, midden in de nacht, zijn negentien knallen tot in Parijs en Londen te horen. De Mijnenslag bij Mesen is losgebroken. Het wordt een triomf voor Sir Herbert Plumer, een kundig generaal.
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Today in Podcast - 4 June 2011

Philosophy Bites
John Mikhail on Universal Moral Grammar
Do we have an innate predisposition to form certain sorts of moral judgements? John Mikhail thinks we do. In this episode of the Philosophy Bites podcast, in an interview with David Edmonds, he explains why.
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Office Hours
Annette Lareau on Unequal Childhoods
This week on Office Hours: Annette Lareau, who was at the University of Minnesota a few weeks back to give a talk at the Sociology Department’s annual Sociological Research Institute. While Lareau was in town, we had a chance to chat with her about her current research on how parents decide where to live and where to send their kids to school, and on the success of her bestselling book, Unequal Childhoods, as well as giving us a preview of the forthcoming second edition.
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Today in Podcast - 3 June 2011

Witness
Early days of HIV/Aids
On the 30th anniversary of the medical identification of HIV, Alan Johnston talks to one woman about her experience of having the virus in its early days.
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NeuroPod
NeuroPod: May 2011
Neuroscience in recession, manipulating attention, and the effects of childhood adversity on DNA.
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Het Marathoninterview
Douwe Draaisma, psycholoog
Douwe Draaisma (1953) is hoogleraar geschiedenis van de psychologie aan de Rijksuniversiteit te Groningen. Hij schreef talrijke boeken over het geheugen. In zijn nieuwste boek, Het Vergeetboek, probeert hij antwoord te geven op de meest lastige vragen over het fenomeen vergeten. Wij zijn nog niet vergeten dat hij op 4 januari 2002 met A.J. Heerma van Voss sprak.
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EHEC and the history of emerging diseases since 1600

Following the news about the outbreak of EHEC infections and looking for relevant podcasts, I found that I had just been listening in the past weeks to a very relevant series of history lectures.

A little over a month ago Yale published a 2010 course Epidemics in western society since 1600 in which Professor Frank Snowden takes us through the past centuries with great inflictions such as Plague, Asiatic Cholera and the Spanish Flu that suddenly emerged and left their mark on history, as well as endemic diseases that had their epidemic and pandemic waves such as Small Pox, Malaria, Polio and others. In addition to the medical background and the medical history around these and other epidemics, Snowden also looks at the effects on society, cultural as well as political in how the diseases were perceived and what were the reactions especially in the field of public health measures and the (scientific) quest for cures. (feed)

Along the way we meet interesting and unknown figures such as the German scientist Max von Pettenkofer (lecture about Contagionism versus Anticontagionism) who, unlike the much more famous Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch, did not believe in germs and was proven wrong in his life time. Snowden's lecture shows how Von Pettenkofer, in spite of having the wrong theory about Cholera, as was shown, still made a tremendous contribution to the fight against the disease and you somehow learn to appreciate the anticontagionistic ideas about disease.

As the series closes in on the present and Snowden lectures about SARS, Aviatic Flu and Swine Flu, much of what we witness today with EHEC appears on the scene.

I was thrilled by this series and once started I couldn't stop listening until I had finished. 26 academic hours of very informative and very engaging matter that, as it turns out, in case I had not already realized it before the EHEC outbreak, is extremely relevant in current affairs. Aside new afflictions, such as this mutated strain of E.coli, I was especially struck by the impact of Malaria, which is still rampant today. Eventually the whole series carries but one shining triumph: the eradication of Small Pox. Other than that we still face the old diseases as much as we face the new ones.

Today in Podcast - 2 June 2011

KQED's Forum
A Changing Cuba
Back from a recent trip to Cuba, Michael Krasny hosts a discussion about the changes afoot on the island nation. He is joined by his tour leader from the San Francisco Jewish Community Center and other experts, who will talk about the shift in Cuba's geopolitics and dynamism within its own borders.
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Thinking Allowed
Katrina and Communist Memories
What impact did Hurricane Katrina have on family break up in New Orleans? Laurie speaks to Michael Rendall. Also how have the former communist countries of Eastern Europe deal with the memories of their history? James Mark and Jovan Byford discuss.
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The Bitterest Pill
I Wanna Be a Car Wash Mogul
I don’t like talking about money, but I do like listening about money, and if I listen too much about money, eventually I’m gonna have to talk about it, right? I reveal my no-longer-secret desire to be a wealthy man, we discuss neighborhood safety, the University of Texas in Austin findings about stay-at-home dads (SHOCKING!), and I read two passages from my former (future?) book project: “How to Meet Any Woman You Want” and “A Letter from Another Father about His Einstein Baby.”
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In Our Time
The Battle of Stamford Bridge
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the Battle of Stamford Bridge. In the first week of 1066 the English king, Edward the Confessor, died. A young nobleman, Harold Godwinson, claimed that Edward had nominated him his successor, and seized the throne. But he was not the only claimant: in France the powerful Duke of Normandy, William, believed that he was the rightful king, and prepared to invade England. As William amassed his forces on the other side of the Channel, however, an army led by the Norwegian king Harald Hardrada invaded from the North Sea. Harold quickly marched north and confronted the Norsemen, whose leaders included his own brother Tostig. The English won an emphatic victory; but barely three weeks later Harold was dead, killed at Hastings, and the Norman Conquest had begun.
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