Organisms are sensitive to temperature, but reproduction is likely to be affected at lower temperatures than survival. We're joined by Jessica McNeill & Caiti Smukowski Heil to talk about their work on meiosis in yeasts.

Sex in a warming world: temperature and meiosis

*Join the Baggu believers: it’s a huge foldable bag just for Special Ones, available from shop.novaramedia.com*

Moya wants to stop hating men and start building trust – which means a dialogue about all the things that make that difficult: objectification, racist over-sexualisation, degrading comments, and rape (TW: 27m; 40m). Plus: a few things we love about men, too.

Send us your dilemmas: ifispeak@novaramedia.com
Music by Matt Huxley.

82: Help! I can't stop hating men

After last week's ACFM Trip to the Future, Jem and Keir reconvene to talk about science fiction. Is sci-fi a reaction to the "time-space compression" of the present? Is it inherently progressive? How did dystopian and paranoids visions of the future come to dominate sci-fi? Was Arthur C. Clarke an early acid communist?

Find the books and films mentioned in the show: https://novara.media/acfm
Sign up to the ACFM newsletter: https://novaramedia.com/newsletters

Help us build people-powered media: https://novaramedia.com/support

ACFM Microdose: Sci-Fi

In the summer of 2024, hotels sheltering Muslim asylum seekers across Britain were attacked by violent mobs. A year later, as the summer of 2025 drew to a close, a far-right demonstration of 100,000 people marched through London, bearing St George’s flags and led by Tommy Robinson.

On Downstream this week is Myriam François, a broadcaster and journalist, whose conversion to Islam 20 years ago has profoundly shaped her life in Britain. In conversation with Ash Sarkar, she tells the story of how she was politicised by a trip to Palestine in the early 2000s.

Does she think Britain’s move to recognise the state of Palestine will make any difference to the lives of people on the ground in Gaza? What is ‘whiteness’ and how do those who are included in it wield power in society? Is Islamophobia getting worse? And is an end to racism possible, without an end to capitalism?

Downstream: The Right Is Stirring up Anti-Muslim Hate – and It’s Getting Worse w/ Myriam François

Sebastian Budgen returns to PTO to talk about the political crisis in France where Emmanuel Macron has appointed his third prime minister in a year. We talked about the political background of the new prime minister, and long-time Macron ally, Sebastien Lecornu and whether the French Socialist Party is likely to prop up the new government. We also talked about the 'Block Everything' protest movement and how the radical left have handled the campaign of demonisation they have been subjected to by the French media. Finally, we talked about the legal troubles of Marine Le Pen and the electoral prospects for the far-right National Rally.

France's political impasse and Macron's legacy w/ Sebastian Budgen

Today we're posting a trailer for OVERSHOOT, an exciting new series forthcoming from our friends over at Planet B Productions. OVERSHOOT is hosted by Laurie Laybourn, author of Planet on Fire: A Manifesto for the Age of Environmental Breakdown, published by Verso Books. 
 
In 2015, the world agreed to limit global heating to 1.5°C. Ten years later, temperatures are spiralling beyond this and climate chaos is wreaking havoc across the globe. 

In this major four-part series, host Laurie explores how the world ended up here and uncovers the huge misconceptions and the high-tech fantasies that hold us back. And we meet people with the ideas to navigate what comes next, from protesting pensioners to climate negotiators, Pacific islanders to pre-eminent scientists.

Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. For essays and bonus content, sign up at overshootpod.com or follow @overshootpod on social media.

Writer and presenter: Laurie Laybourn
Researcher: Ben Shread-Hewitt
Production coordination: Daniel Norman
Script consulting: Daniel Trilling
Sound design and mix: Ben Heyderman and James Fox
Original music by Haniell
With special thanks to Aaron Thierry, Mirte Boot, James Dyke, Henry Throp, Stephen Backhouse

Overshoot: Navigating a world beyond 1.5°C (trailer)

Listen to September's Pediapod episode: What's hot in pediatric AI research, with Brynne Sullivan.

September 2025: What's hot in pediatric AI research?

Economist, and former finance minister of Greece, Yanis Varoufakis joins Aaron to discuss his most recent book Raise Your Soul: A Personal History of Resistance, a memoir about the women in Yanis’ family who raised him, and gave him his political conscience.

They discuss the Hegelian Master-Slave dialectic, is patriarchy harmful to the perpetrators, as well as women? Did Tony Blair do more to privatise Britain than Margaret Thatcher? Does Keir Starmer have a plan?

And how does fascism end up destroying not just those it deems to be its enemies, but the motherland as well?

Sign up for the upcoming Downstream Newsletter here: https://novaramedia.com/newsletters/the-downstream-newsletter/ 

Get tickets for the next Downstream IRL, ‘Gaza: The Story of a Genocide’ (with Aaron Bastani) at EartH Hackney on Mon 13 Oct at 6:30 pm:  https://link.dice.fm/N3e5f1cbd3ee

00:00  Intro
02:27 Five women who inspired Yanis’ political life
09:34 The Greeks In Egypt
22:02 The Asia Minor Catastrophe
29:30 Fascism always wrecks the motherland
36:43 The root cause of fascism is capitalism
39:44 Was America ever great?
45:19 Why Yanis doesn’t take Steve Bannon’s call
50:16 Communism can save the climate
1:00:18 The problems with Starmer
1:05:25 “Tony Blair is as evil as they come”
1:09:09 The road from Thatcher to Reform
1:13:36 Feminism, the manosphere, and the master slave paradox
1:23:44 On pornography
1:32:52 Humans Need Rules to live by
1:34:34 Physics or economics?
1:42:48 Collective will
1:48:14 Coming back from a bad year

Downstream: Was the 20th Century a Catastrophe, or a Miracle? w/ Yanis Varoufakis

*We've got merch! It’s a big foldable bag just for Special Ones, available from shop.novaramedia.com*

Prompted by Elena Ferrante’s novel My Brilliant Friend, Ash wonders what makes Moya jealous. Can friendships survive a power imbalance? What happens when YOU are the brilliant friend? And is jealousy a crucial part of desire?

Reading: Wounded Attachment by Wendy Brown

Send us your dilemmas: ifispeak@novaramedia.com
Music by Matt Huxley.

83: Is jealousy the spice of life?

Phil Burton-Cartledge returns to PTO to talk about the ongoing crisis of the British Conservative Party and whether there is a way back for the party that has dominated British politics for two centuries. We talked about whether the failings of Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch are particular to her, or merely a reflection of deeper lying structural problems, and we discussed why it is that Nigel Farage's Reform Party has proven more successful in occupying the populist-right space in UK politics.

When the party's over w/ Phil Burton-Cartledge

In part 1 of this inaugural episode, we invited Dr. Noa Ha and Prof. Dr. Tahani Nadim to discuss the relationship between German colonial history and Berlin—the metropole of that colonial past. We focus on Berlin’s street names and the Natural History Museum as spaces of remembrance and resistance. In this episode we ask ourselves, in what ways does colonialism continue to shape Berlin institutions and the city of Berlin itself?

S1E1: Decolonizing Berlin (Part 1)

Decolonization in Action Podcast interrogates how people are challenging the legacies of colonialism through art, activism, and knowledge especially as people advocate for reparations, restitution, and repair. This podcast is hosted by edna bonhomme and co-produced by Kristyna Comer.