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Oliver Sacks: "Romantic, in the sense of the romantic poets"
Health, Sports & Psychology

Oliver Sacks: "Romantic, in the sense of the romantic poets"

...world. Despite Sacks’s popularity now, he had a slow start, with his first book Migrainenot raising much interest either with his medical colleagues or the reading public. Not least, perhaps, because compared to his later works, it struggled to throw off some of the technical writing habits of academic medicine. It wasn’t until his 1973 book Awakenings that he became...
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Article 5 mins
Do sperm whales speak with local accents?
Science, Maths & Technology

Do sperm whales speak with local accents?

...world. One thing that has always struck me is that while these dolphins tend to do the same thing – such as hunt fish or play together – the way they do this can differ quite drastically between populations. In the late 1990s, Andy Whiten best articulated this “feeling” that field biologists have had for a long time in his study of chimpanzees, the first...
View article Do sperm whales speak with local accents?
Article 5 mins
A future for languages in schools?
Languages

A future for languages in schools?

...World Service (a transcript is available by clicking here). The second keynote of the day was a varied and often humorous speech delivered by Oliver Miles, former British Ambassador to Libya, Luxembourg and Greece, about his life as a serial language-learner. Delegates also heard from Kathryn Board and Teresa Tinsley – authors of the British Council and CfBT’s...
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Article 5 mins
How Volkswagen got caught cheating emissions tests by a clean air NGO
Science, Maths & Technology

How Volkswagen got caught cheating emissions tests by a clean air NGO

...world experience of many car owners, even in terms of fuel consumption, did not come anywhere near to the official figures that resulted from emissions testing. The question arises of why it takes underfunded NGOs to discover these problems, rather than the regulators themselves. It is also unclear whether this technique was only used to deal with the particularly tight...
View article How Volkswagen got caught cheating emissions tests by a clean air NGO
Article 10 mins
Professor Andrew Watson - Stories of Change
Nature & Environment

Professor Andrew Watson - Stories of Change

...world think we’ll go much beyond that. AW: There is a risk. It simplifies and oversimplifies the debate, because if you concentrate, for example, on the average rise in temperature, that’s not actually very significant. It’s not what causes the climate impacts, which is more the change in extremes, changes in things other than temperature such as precipitation,...
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Audio 5 mins
Reeta Chakrabarti on language and culture
Languages

Reeta Chakrabarti on language and culture

...world there, most of them part of the Indian diaspora, but not all. Er, and I loved it, I really loved it. I loved the fact that there were different nationalities, different languages, we all spoke English but there was a certain amount of Bengali as well, and for me it was a nice buffer really between, you know, leaving the UK and arriving in this exciting, but very...
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Audio 5 mins
First, they came for the Marmite... but what next as the pound falls?
Money & Business

First, they came for the Marmite... but what next as the pound falls?

...world. Cross-border commercial contracts specify the currency in which payments are due to be made. What happens, however, when the value of the specified currency changes drastically and the amount to be paid no longer reflects the value of the goods to be supplied? To return to the recent headlines, Unilever, the owner of Marmite, produces a number of products overseas...
View article First, they came for the Marmite... but what next as the pound falls?
Article 5 mins
Who is Donald Trump?
Society, Politics & Law

Who is Donald Trump?

...world’s attention.” Rebooted for Netflix But if Trump has a rock star persona, others said his pitch to the electorate was straight out of a TV show. As James Poniewozik of the New York Times wrote: His tale has remained a kind of ‘80s prime-time soap of aspiration and ego … he cited his TV ratings the way another candidate might boast of balancing a state budget....
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Article 5 mins