Listening ideas for 7 April 2011

Exploring Environmental History
Energy utopia or dystopia? - A historical perspective on nuclear energy
For the past decade nuclear energy has been increasingly promoted as a carbon neutral source of energy. The Japanese Tsunami of March 2011 threw a spanner in the works when the Fukushima One nuclear power plant was flooded destroying its cooling system. The accident highlighted the potential hidden risks of nuclear technologies and fuelled fear of radiation and contamination of the environment with nuclear materials among the general public. Considering past nuclear incidents it is doubtful if the Fukushima emergency will prevent the construction nuclear plants in the long run. On this episode of the podcast Horace Herring of the Open University in Britain will explore the utopian origins of nuclear energy and how it became a dystopian illusion. He argues that economics and distrust in science and big government undermined nuclear energy more than environmental or health concerns.
(review, feed)

Science Talk aka Scientific American Podcast
Can It Be Bad To Be Too Clean?: The Hygiene Hypothesis
Johns Hopkins School of Medicine researcher Kathleen Barnes talks about the Hygiene Hypothesis, which raises the possibility that our modern sterile environment may contribute to conditions such as asthma and eczema.
(review, feed)

Elucidations
Ben Laurence discusses collective action
In this episode, Ben Laurence discusses the difference between what an individual person does and what a group of people does.
(review, feed)

Fresh Air
Why The Future Of Yemen Is So Important
Story: New Yorker writer Dexter Filkins recently returned from Yemen, where he met with demonstrators who have called for President Ali Abdullah Saleh's immediate resignation. Filkins explains why Yemen's uprisings are particularly worrisome for U.S. counterterrorism officials.
(review, feed)

The Economist
Ginny Hill on Yemen's uprising
Despite a bloody crackdown, protests against President Ali Abdullah Saleh continue across Yemen. Could democracy emerge from the unrest?
(review, feed)



London School of Economics: Public lectures and events
The End of Remembering
Once upon a time remembering was everything. Today, we have endless mountains of documents, the Internet and ever-present smart phones to store our memories. As our culture has transformed from one that was fundamentally based on internal memories to one that is fundamentally based on memories stored outside the brain, what are the implications for ourselves and for our society? What does it mean that we've lost our memory? Joshua Foer studied evolutionary biology at Yale University and is now a freelance science journalist, writing for the National Geographic and New York Times among others. Researching an article on the U.S. Memory Championships, Foer became intrigued by the potential of his own memory. After just one year of training and learning about the art and science of memory, he won the following year's Championship. Foer is the founder of the Athanasius Kircher Society, an organization dedicated to 'all things wondrous, curious and esoteric' and the Atlas Obscura, an online travel guide to the world's oddities. Moonwalking with Einstein is his first book.
(review, feed)

New Books in Public Policy

One of the new podcasts that come out of the recently instituted New Books Network is New Books in Public Policy. On this show that has produced three interesting issues already, Tevi Troy interviews the authors of recently published books in this field. (feed)

The first two issues immediately reveal a theme that Troy is engaged in: the dangerous consequences of unscientific medicine in general and the anti-vaccine movement in particular. He had first Robert Goldberg on the show to talk about his research into the workings of the internet as a source for medical information. Although also the scientifically supported medicine is described on the internet, the medium is giving equal footing to quackeries. At best this gives the uninformed public an illusion of two equally valuable perspectives, but frequently, the unscientific is propagated if only for the attention effect it can resort. Goldberg's opinion is that this is done for profit and for fear mongering.

The other interview was with Dr. Paul Offit which explicitly looks at the anti-vaccine movement. His point is that among specialists there is not a shadow of a doubt that vaccines are much needed and basically harmless. He describes the awful consequences of the diminishing percentages of people who have their children not vaccinated. Not only do these children get sick and often suffer terrible long-term handicaps or even death, but in general the population is less well protected than a decade ago. Diseases that could have been exterminated by now are in fact returning.

Troy is a very engaged interviewer which makes this podcast a valuable addition to the NBN.

Listening ideas for 6 April 2011

Entitled Opinions
The Human Brain - Stuart Edelstein
A conversation with Stuart Edelstein, Professor Emeritus of biology and neuroscience (University of Geneva) and member of the French Académie des Sciences.
(review, feed)

Witness
The Rwandan genocide
A wave of killing in Rwanda started on April 6 1994. Almost a million Tutsis and moderate Hutus lost their lives. Jean-Francois Gisimba lived through it all, expecting to die on a daily basis.
(review, feed)

Indicast
Point Blank with Nitin Chandrakant Desai
In our film industry, what Amitabh Bachchan or Dilip Kumar is to acting, Nitin Chandrakant Desai is to art direction. The winner of four national awards and many successful movies such as Lagaan, Devdas, Jodha Akbar, Hum Dil Dechuke Sanam, Munnabhai, etc talks about his craft and the challenges of his everyday job. He takes us through his experiece of working with directors like Vidhu Vinod Chopra, Sanjay Leela Bhansai, Danny Boyle and Ashutosh Gowarikar. His job demands him to think on his feet and deliver results in open sets where temperature can soar up to 45 degrees.This podcast charts the journey of the man who once lived in a 10X10 Worli chawl and today is Indias most respected Art Director who still maintains the modesty of a newcomer.
(review, feed)

Radio Open Source
For a New Moral Map of the Middle East
Imagine Professor Melani McAlister at home in North Carolina, breaking down this Arab spring for a grandmother who’s not entirely convinced that President Obama is not Muslim.
(review, feed)

Rear Vision
Ivory Coast
In Ivory Coast, the world's major source of cocoa, there are two men claiming to be president. But only one of them won the recent presidential election and the tense four month stand-off threatens to plunge the country into civil war.
(review, feed)

De oren van mijn vader

Zo begint Martin Simek het interview met de psycholoog Nico Frijda: "Laat me even goed naar u kijken. U heeft precies dezelfde oren als mijn vader." Wie anders dan Simek zou dit zo doen? In 2009, toen dit interview als podcast verscheen, heb ik er een recensie over geschreven, zie Nico Frijda - Simek 's Nachts.

Nico Frijda en Martin Simek

Tien jaar eerder was Frijda te beluisteren bij de VPRO in het marathon interview, dat zojuist ook per podcast is verschenen. (feed) Dat interview is ook zeer de moeite waard, al was het maar om samen met het Simek interview te beluisteren, maar ik wil nu eerst iets meer over Simek 's Nachts in het algemeen schrijven.

Simek 's Nachts was tot 2007 of 2008 een van de meest fascinerende interviewprogramma's op de Nederlandse radio en toen het een podcast werd, mijn vaste stop op de iPod. Ik begrijp nog steeds niet waarom de RVU het programma stopte. Want Simek was goed en Simek wilde zelf niet stoppen. Bij Elsevier heeft hij in 2009 nog dertien afleveringen op het internet gedaan, maar toen was het uit. En niet alleen is daarmee het programma verdwenen, de feeds zijn ook opgedoekt en dat is al helemaal doodzonde. Samen met lezers van dit blog ben ik voortdurend op zoek naar downloads van oude Simek interviews en via Huffduffer heb ik er een feed voor gemaakt. Neem een abonnement op deze Simek via Anne is a Man feed en je krijgt alle interviews die ik heb weten te vinden, met als nieuwste het interview met Nico Frijda. Help ook bij het vinden van meer. Weet je een opname van Simek te vinden, laat me weten waar die te downloaden is en ik voeg hem toe aan de feed.

Meer Simek 's Nachts:
Ernst van de Wetering,
Wachtkamer van de dood - Anne-Mei The,
Pieter Winsemius,
Jan Lenferink,
Sjoerd Kooistra.

Listening ideas for 5 April 2011

Religions of the Ancient Mediterranean
Podcast 6.1: Introduction to Associations in the Greco-Roman World
In this first episode of the series, I discuss our evidence for associations and guilds in the Greco-Roman world and outline the various types of these groups, including family-based, occupation-based, cultic-based, and ethnic-based groups. This is part of series 6 (Associations in the Greco-Roman World) of the Religions of the Ancient Mediterranean podcast.
(review, feed)

The Roundtable
Joseph Lelyveld - Great Soul
Joe speaks with Joseph Lelyveld about his book, Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and His Struggle with India.
(review, feed)

Mahabharata Podcast
Krishna comes to Town
Episode 51 - Sanjay's mission clearly did not accomplish much, so this time Krishna offers to go to Hastinapur as the Pandavas' chief negotiator. When the Kauravas hear he is coming, Dhrtarastra plans on bribing him, while Duryodhana hopes to imprison him.
(review, feed)

Inspired Minds
Giora Feidman- The King of Klezmer turns 75
Be it in classical, jazz, tango or klezmer, Giora Feidman has developed a unique musical language. Indeed Leonard Bernstein once said "Long live Giora, his clarinet and his music! He builds bridges between generations, cultures and classes and he does it with perfect artistry"
(review, feed)

Fraunhofer Podcast
Weniger Rohstoffe – mehr Gewinn
Die Rohstoff- und Energiekosten steigen rapide an. Längst bestimmen sie maßgeblich den Preis des Endprodukts. Künftig können sich nur Unternehmen auf dem Markt behaupten, die Materialien und Energie effizient nutzen. Neue Technologien und Verfahren helfen, Ressourcen zu sparen.
(review, feed)

450 podcasts reviewed on Anne is a Man

Yesterday I updated my Podcast List. By now I have reviewed 450 different podcasts. There are near 2000 posts on the blog and with this I hope I can continue to offer you a good source for finding new good podcasts.

New podcasts that were reviewed in the past period are:

Biocast
An Israeli podcast has begun to publish: BioCast which does fifteen minute biographies of the most divergent characters - from scientists to pop musicians, biocast does them all. In addition, it has two tiny rubrics at the end of each show, one in which for half a minute little children associate on the theme of the show (for example on the question what is an explosion after the bio of Robert E. Oppenheim) and after that something that sounds like a Rabbi giving his Judaism inspired take on the same theme.
(review, feed)

Christian Humanist Podcast
An openly confessional, but still open-minded podcast.
(review, feed)

Harvard thinks big 2
Have a scientist with a great idea to summarize it in a ten minute lecture.
(review, feed)

Human Behavioral Biology (Stanford)
Biology's take on Human behavior - Sapolsky's provocative and sometimes humorous entry into tough science.
(review, feed)

Mormon Stories
While Mormon Stories is a podcast for and about LDS Church members, it does not shy away from tackling the subject of members leaving that faith.
(review, feed)

Mr. Deity
God and his feeble attempts to manage a universe.
(review, feed)

Notes on History
Paul Stoetzel telling history his own way
(review, feed)

Torah Threads
Rabbi Paula introducing Torah, per portion.
(review, feed)

World Literature (HACC)
Rick Albright takes the Norton Anthology of World literature and sort of chronologically travels the world and its ages.
(review, feed)