Today, we go back many millennia in order to protect ourselves for the coming centuries: Emily Hart speaks to two Colombian scientists, Carlos Jaramillo and Camila Martínez, time-travellers of the smallest imaginable time machines: fossilised pollen and tree cells.&nbsp; &nbsp;  Climate change has been a constant feature of Planet Earth: at points in history, the planet has been both much cooler and much warmer than it is today - if we know which plants occupied an ecosystem the last time the Earth was a certain temperature or had a certain level of CO2 in the atmosphere, we can predict what our ecosystems will look like in the conditions that&nbsp;we will soon be living in.&nbsp; Using tiny fossilised clues, Carlos and Camila are doing exactly this.&nbsp; The climate change we are currently living through is unprecedented in speed – and water and rain cycles are a major concern for humanity’s continued existence on the planet, so one focus of this work is the Amazon rainforest – both Colombia’s slice of it and further afield.&nbsp;  Predictive models currently disagree about where the Amazon is headed as the earth warms – some models predict it will get wetter, others say it will become grasslands or scrub.&nbsp;One way to find out is to work out which plants lived in the area the last time conditions changed in the ways they are currently changing, and look at how that ecosystem and its inhabitants changed and adapted during that time.&nbsp; &nbsp; Drilling deep into the earth to find fossil records from 12 million years ago, Carlos is now studying the fingerprints left by Amazonian life from that time – particularly pollen. Camila is studying fossilised trees, whose cells – frozen in time – can show us how much water was in the environment. &nbsp; &nbsp; But pollen and other microscopic clues are in such abundance in places like Colombia that there simply isn’t enough time in a human life to study and identify all of the species being found. Luckily, artificial intelligence is opening up huge possibilities – Carlos has been digitalising massive fossil collections and training AI to identify and catalogue samples. &nbsp; So today, we travel from the microscopic fingerprints of a distant ecological past resting in rocks and trees deep underground through to the futuristic methods made possible by new machine learning and digital processing. Carlos and Camila span multiple disciplines and vast timeframes, all in the hopes of getting us the information we need to survive the climate crisis which will change the face of the planet within our lifetimes. &nbsp; They'll be telling us how - and why it's so important.  Support the podcast:&nbsp;&nbsp;

558: Back to the (microscopic) Future: Using Palaeontology, Pollen, and AI to predict and protect our futures

On this week's Colombia Calling podcast, we speak to James Bargent, an investigative journalist for Insight Crime about his work putting together the new podcast: "the Shadow of El Dorado."  Along with his colleague Mat Charles, the resulting podcast is a multi-year project which takes the listener into the world of organized crime and how the Gaitanista (Clan del Golfo or AGC) criminal organisation controls the mining economy and its subsidiary interests in the town of Segovia, Antioquia.  Their search for Colombia’s blood gold takes us to Segovia and the illegal mines at the very beginning of the global supply chain.  But what they find there is a strange mirror world, where conventional narratives fall apart, and the names and labels they try to apply do not make sense.  &nbsp;Tune in to the podcast:&nbsp;   The Colombia Briefing is reported by Emily Hart.&nbsp;

559: Blood Gold in Colombia

Barry Max Wills, author of: "Better than Cocaine: Learning to Grow Coffee, and Live in Colombia," and Richard McColl of: "The Mompos Project: A Tale of Love, Hotels and Madness in Colombia," join editor Dan Cross on this week's Colombia Calling podcast.  In a conversation that takes in the topics of culture and identity, immigrants to Colombia, writing about their adopted homeland, their books and the editing process, the triumvirate chats about the recent launch party and conversation event at Bookworm bookshop in Bogota.  &nbsp;Enjoy this fun conversation!  The Colombia Briefing is reported by Emily Hart, check out her substack:&nbsp;  And buy the books please: The Mompos Project: &nbsp; Better than Cocaine: &nbsp;

560: Championing English-language books about Colombia

In today’s episode, Emily Hart speaks to archaeologist Daniella Betancourt: the woman decoding the enigma of Colombia’s mummies.  Mummification is a practice which has been carried out all over the world, from Chile to China – from the ancient Egyptian pharaohs to Vladimir Lenin and Evita Perón, and - though chronically understudied - right here in Colombia too.  These preserved remains are, Daniella tells us, a perfect time capsule: bodies frozen in time, they give us all sorts of clues about the ways people lived, and their beliefs about life and death.  With the National University of Colombia, Daniella has been studying a collection of 36 mummies found in various institutions, trying to work out who they were, who mummified them, when - and why.  Because until now, there has been so little study of this practice in Colombia, there’s still an awful lot find out, not least because these mummies were created by indigenous communities whose histories and customs were interrupted and erased by the Spanish colonisation of the country: many of Colombia’s mummies were destroyed and even burnt.  But there is evidence that indigenous groups in Colombia kept practicing ritual mummification long after the arrival of the Spanish – perhaps a high-stakes act of cultural resistance, a spiritual imperative, or an attempt to create talismans of power – at this point, we can only guess – what the study has revealed, however, is that mummification was practiced much more widely than was previously thought – by more groups and in more regions of Colombia.  Though in the historical chronicles of the Spanish invasion and early colonial period, there are some descriptions of mummies, most of the contextual information has been lost – in fact we don’t even know where most of these mummies came from or how they were found, as their burial sites were desecrated by tomb raiders and looters who took anything of value and sometimes even displaced the remains themselves. However, the new study by Daniella and the team has shed new light on these Mummies, able to reach amazing conclusions about diet, geography, and even health from state-of-the-art scientific methods.  However, as Daniella will tell us, some of the results actually pose more questions than they answer – we’ll be talking in particular about a mummified two-year-old girl, who surprised Daniella even after years of studying her, and whose strange condition continues to confound researchers. We’ll also be discussing the ethics of studying human remains, and of displaying them in museums.  The headlines for this week are also reported by Emily Hart.

561: “Silent, but so much to tell.” The mystery of Colombia’s Mummies

Colombian energy giant Ecopetrol has polluted hundreds of sites with oil, including water sources and biodiverse wetlands, the BBC World Service has found.  However, as detailed in a new documentary produced and directed by Owen Pinnell of the BBC: "Exposing the toxic record of Colombia's oil giant | BBC World Service Documentaries,:" there are far more issues involving Colombia's Ecopetrol beyond just pollution the region's water sources such as potential links to paramilitary groups.  As quoted in the documentary: "Matthew Smith, an oil analyst and financial journalist based in Colombia, says he does not believe Ecopetrol managers are involved in threats by armed groups. But he says there is an "immense" overlap between former paramilitary groups and the private security sector. Private security firms often employ former members of paramilitary groups and compete for lucrative contracts to protect oil facilities, he says. &nbsp; Whistleblower and former employee of Ecopetrol, Mr Olarte shared internal Ecopetrol emails (now named "The Iguana Papers") showing that in 2018, the company paid a total of $65m to more than 2,800 private security companies.  "There is always that risk of some sort of contagion between the private security companies, the types of people they employ, and their desire to continually maintain their contract," Mr Smith says. He says this could potentially even include kidnapping or murdering community leaders or environmental defenders in order to "ensure that Ecopetrol's operations proceed smoothly".  And so, journalists Emily Hart and Richard McColl of the Colombia Calling podcast, have the fantastic opportunity to discuss what it meant to film this documentary, meet the courageous people who were and are willing to speak out about some of the crimes being committed in the region of Barrancabermeja, Santander and how the whole area is being affected by this.  BBC Article:&nbsp;  Tune in and see the documentary here: https://youtu.be/Grp3YRhSf2o  This is a truly incredible episode of the Colombia Calling podcast, please be sure to share, like and spread the word. And as always, tune in to the Colombia Briefing, reported by Emily Hart.&nbsp;

562: "Exploring the Toxic Record of Colombia's Oil Giant." The BBC speaks to the Colombia Calling podcast.

This week we speak to Camila Gonzalez Rosas, Director and Associate Professor of Biological Sciences at Los Andes University in Bogotá and Researcher at the the Centre for Investigations into Microbiology and tropical parasitology and we discuss tropical diseases in Colombia.  Nothing is off the table from chagas, malaria, dengue, leishmaniasis, zika, chikungunya and Covid-19....we cover it all.  What are the possibilities of another Zika outbreak? What are the consequences of the loss of biodiversity and climate change in Colombia? We also talk about zoonotic transmission where an infectious disease is transmitted between species from animals to humans (or from humans to animals)  The Colombia Briefing is reported by Emily Hart. Subscribe to her Substack here:&nbsp;  Please consider supporting us on&nbsp; &nbsp;

563: Tropical Diseases and Disease Ecology in Colombia

There's so much to say about the Latin American Boom in literature, but how can we possibly discuss it at this point in time without mentioning Mario Vargas Llosa and his recent passing.  And so, as a Colombia-focused podcast, we take a look at this era and these personalities in the literary world, such as Colombia's inimitable Gabriel Garcia Marquez but through the prism of Mario Vargas Llosa. With very special guest Juan E. De Castro, professor of literary studies at Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts at The New School. Author of Writing Revolution in Latin America: From Martí to García Márquez to Bolaño and Bread and Beauty: The Cultural Politics of José Carlos Mariátegui, among other works, we discuss a variety of topics relating to but not restricted to:  1. The Latin American Boom. 2. Mario Vargas Llosa and Gabriel Garcia Marquez and "that punch." 3. The importance of the Latin American Boom. 4. The end of this literary milestone. 5. One Hundred Years of Solitude - the Netflix version.  &nbsp;And so much more, including the Colombia Briefing with Emily Hart.&nbsp;

564: The Latin American Boom in Literature and "that punch"

What explains selective violence against social and community leaders in the aftermath of war? Why does the killing of community and social leaders continue unabated in Colombia?&nbsp;  This week on the Colombia Calling podcast, we look at a new academic article entitled: "Delegative peacebuilding: Explaining post-conflict selective violence," written by Dr Sally Sharif and Dr Francy&nbsp;Carranza-Franco which explains so much regarding the on-going conflict in Colombia, the issue of "partial peace, who is doing the killing and why and hear some possible solutions.&nbsp;  Joining us is Dr Sally Sharif, School for International Studies, Simon Fraser University and Department of Political Science, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada and incoming assistant professor of comparative politics at Holy Cross University, Boston.&nbsp;  The Colombia Briefing is reported by Grace Brennan.&nbsp;  Support us:&nbsp;

566: Peacebuilding Cannot Happen Without Security: Why the Killings of Social Leaders in Colombia Continues

It's an absolute honour to welcome author Jennie Erin Smith on the Colombia Calling podcast this week to discuss her latest book in which she investigates and chronicles her six-year investigation into the phenomenon of early onset Alzheimer's in rural Colombia.  Jennie speaks to Emily Hart and Richard McColl.  In the 1980s, a Colombian neurologist named Francisco Lopera traveled on horseback into the mountains seeking families with symptoms of dementia. For centuries, residents of certain villages near Medellín had suffered memory loss as they reached middle age, going on to die in their fifties. Lopera discovered that a unique genetic mutation was causing their rare hereditary form of early onset Alzheimer’s disease. Over the next forty years of working with the “paisa mutation” kindred, he went on to build a world-class research program in a region beset by violence and poverty.  In "Valley of Forgetting," Jennie Erin Smith brings readers into the clinic, the laboratories, and the Medellín trial center where Lopera’s patients receive an experimental drug to see if Alzheimer’s can be averted. She chronicles the lives of people who care for sick parents, spouses, and siblings, all while struggling to keep their own dreams afloat.  These Colombian families have donated hundreds of their loved ones’ brains to science and subjected themselves to invasive testing to help uncover how Alzheimer’s develops and whether it can be stopped.  Buy the book!&nbsp;&nbsp;  The Colombia Briefing is reported by Emily Hart:&nbsp;

567: Early Onset Alzheimer's Investigated and Revealed in Colombia

La Escombrera, a vast rubble pile overlooking Medellín, is considered to be Colombia’s largest urban mass grave. Its excavation this year has unearthed the remains of people whose families have been searching for them for decades.&nbsp; Earlier this month, it was announced that the excavation there is being expanded. Some hope that what is found in that rubble will answer deeper questions - about how the conflict unfolded here in the city, and how the state was complicit in murders and human rights violations committed by paramilitary groups. This week, Emily Hart, journalist and Colombia Calling host, takes us through an article she wrote on her Substack about La Escombrera,&nbsp;the dynamics and history of Colombia's civil conflict, and about how this war - largely characterised by rural conflict and guerrilla tactics - ended up radically changing the face of Colombia’s cities. Sign up and subscribe to Emily's Substack:&nbsp; And don't miss, the Colombia Briefing reported by Emily as well.&nbsp;

569: When Conflict Came to Town: the Urbanisation of the Colombian Civil War

Colombia Calling is your first stop for everything you ever wanted to know about Colombia. Interviewing experts in the travel industry, dealing with security issues and explaining the cultural nuances of this newly fashionable destination. Newscast provided by Emily Hart.

566: Peacebuilding Cannot Happen Without Security: Why the Killings of Social Leaders in Colombia Continues

Colombia Calling

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