German surrender brought the Second World War in Europe to an end. But all feared that war with Japan would drag on and on. Behind the scenes, the US had been working on a secret weapon – the most powerful ever devised – and by August 1945… it was no longer such a secret. These films explore A-Bomb in Pop Culture or: How The West Has Changed its Portrayal of the Atomic Bomb Through Time, from the dropping of the very first atomic bomb, through to the Cold War and right up to the present day. The films conclude by asking whether or not these types of weapon should have existed in the first place, and questioning what the future holds for the A-Bomb.
The films relate to the Open University Course A327 Europe 1914-1989: war, peace, modernity

This album contains fascinating and engrossing interviews with several leading philosophers concerning, primarily, the exploration of four topics: emotion; thought and language; imagination and creativity; consciousness. The interviews contain lively debates from differing philosophical viewpoints, discussions about theoretical thought experiments and the examination of theories developed by philosophers such as Aristotle, Decartes, Galileo, and Hume as well as predictions regarding the future of philosophy. This material forms part of the course AA308 Thought and experience.

Are you interested in learning more about one of Europe's oldest languages? Or would you simply like to brush up on your Welsh? Then look no further. This collection of audio material features a variety of speakers, talking about their interests, holidays, opinions, likes and dislikes. A short historical account can also be found here. There is even a conversation between two people from Patagonia who speak Welsh as their first language. We also look at greetings as well as past and future events.

This material is taken from The Open University course L196 Croeso: beginners' Welsh.

How do emotions affect financial decisions? Is their impact always bad, or are emotions an important part of making good financial decisions? Can a better understanding of emotion help us avert future financial crises? These are some of the questions being asked by the xDelia project: a European Commission funded research programme being conducted by The Open University and other partners. The project is using leading edge physiological sensors and computer game technologies to explore the impact of emotions on financial decision-making and to develop new approaches to learning, which can support effective choices. In this podcast Professor Mark Fenton-O'Creevy of The Open University Business School looks at the work of this research programme and explores the ways in which emotions affect how we all (from investment bankers to the wider public) think and decide about money.

xDelia is funded by the European Commission under the 7th Framework Programme.

What does the future hold for our working lives? This album explores the ways in which organisations are changing; the breaking down of traditional hierarchical structures, the increasing emphasis on self-management, customer-orientated teams, the use of technology to enable more remote working and the blurring of boundaries between organisations, as they form partnerships with each other. It also asks how these changes will affect the way managers will work in the future. This material forms part of The Open University course B822 Creativity, innovation and change.

As The Bottom Line celebrates its 10 year anniversary, we look back over the past decade in the world of business.

Leading cosmologist Professor Martin Rees once famously said that the human race has only a 50 per cent chance of surviving the 21st century. Current President of the Royal Society, Sir Rees cites natural disasters, nuclear war and global warming among the challenges facing future generations. The Open University's Dr Stephen Serjeant interviewed him ahead of the 2010 Reith Lectures to find out what the future of humanity might be and whether we can really estimate the chance of life in space.

Can Darwin's theory of evolution be applied to languages? If so what are the analogues for natural selection and species diversification? What truths does this approach reveal and what problems does it throw up? In this album Professor Mark Pagel of Reading University and Quentin Atkinson, an evolutionary biologist at Oxford, discuss the pitfalls and the up-sides to approaching language through a Darwinian model. Focussing on Indo-European languages, they show how mathematical and statistical models can be used to study the development of both particular words and of grammatical terms. Looking to the future they speculate on how language will develop in the new globalised culture.
The tracks on this album were produced by The Open University in collaboration with the British Council. They form part of Darwin Now, a global initiative celebrating the life and work of Charles Darwin and the impact his ideas about evolution continue to have on today’s world. © British Council 2009.

2009 is the 40th anniversary of the first computer network - the precursor of the internet - and the 20th anniversary of the brilliant idea that led to the creation of the world wide web. What exactly is the internet, and how does it differ from the world wide web? Who were its pioneers, and what technological surprises has it sprung? This album opens with a specially recorded interview with John Naughton, Professor of the Public Understanding of Technology at The Open University and author of 'A brief history of the future - the origins of the internet'. He explores some of the key moments in the short but spectacular history of an extraordinary phenomenon, the people who made them happen, and some of the problems that have emerged. The album also features archive interviews with Tim Berners-Lee, Vint Cerf, Donald Davies and other pioneers of the internet age, recorded in the late 1990s. The album is completed by a newly recorded interview with Rodney Harrison, lecturer in Heritage Studies at The Open University, in which he talks about his research into Second Life: Cyber-Archaeologies, Heritage and Virtual Communities. The interviews are presented by radio journalist Penny Boreham.