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Just as some of us were wrapping our heads around the idea of the multiverse, along comes MIT physicist Max Tegmark telling us we're not thinking big enough. There are actually multiple multiverses, containing endless variations of the "pocket universe" we've quaintly come to think of as everything. And while such notions may sound daft, Max says they're actually logical conclusions based on solid physics. He and I discussed his book "Our Mathematical Universe: My Quest for the Ultimate Nature of Reality."

Max Tegmark Radio Interview: Physics and the Ultimate Nature of Reality

This week: Scientists after Hiroshima, new species of carnivorous plant, gut microbes boost red-meat cancer risk, lessons from Ebola, ancient macro-organism reproduction, cancer research gets physical and graphenes new cousin stanene.

www.nature.com/nature/index.html


Nature Podcast: 6 August 2015 – A-bombs, Ebola, ancient macro-organisms, cancer-physics, stanene

Cosmopolitan Lovesick Blues - The Right Profile

Yes, we really do! Vladimir Putin has been running Russia since 2000 and it’s a fair bet (if anyone is still betting about politics these days) that he will win another six-year term in the 2018 elections. Yet in the West we know little about Putin or his remarkable country that has roller-coasted along since the collapse of the USSR in 1991. David Reynolds (History Faculty) and Kristina Spohr (London School of Economics) draw on their book Transcending the Cold War to bring alive Putin’s worldview, blending historical analysis with entertaining vignettes from some of his most vivid summits.

WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT PUTIN!

Whether it's about the risks of eating burnt toast or changes in sexual habits, numbers get used to give weight to a media story. But statistics are frequently abused, with exaggerations and misunderstandings disguised by the illusion of hard facts. Professor David Spiegelhalter shows how to identify the naughty numbers and the shabby stats, and how some basic mathematics can take apart scare stories.

David Spiegelhalter is Winton Professor for the Public Understanding of Risk and Fellow of Churchill College at Cambridge University, and as Chair of the Winton Centre for Risk and Evidence Communication, he works to improve the way in which risk and statistical evidence are taught and discussed in society. He gives many presentations to schools and others, advises organisations on risk communication, and is a regular commentator on risk issues. He presented the BBC4 documentaries ‘Tails you Win: the Science of Chance’ and the award-winning ‘Climate Change by Numbers’. He was elected FRS in 2005, awarded an OBE in 2006, and was knighted in 2014 for services to medical statistics. For 2017-2018 he is President of the Royal Statistical Society. In 2011 he came 7th in an episode of Winter Wipeout.

David Spiegelhalter - How To Spot Dodgy Data In The News

A technology breakthrough that started in Cambridge has brought us to where we are able to decode the entire DNA sequence of 100,000 genomes to determine mutations that cause rare genetic diseases and cancer. Dr David Bentley, Chief Scientist at Illumina, and Professor Mark Caulfield, Chief Scientist at Genomics England, discuss how this promises to revolutionise the way we practise medicine.

Dr David Bentley & Professor Mark Caulfield - 100,000 Genomes Project

Research Horizons Public Talk

As AI systems are widely deployed in real-world settings, it is critical for us to understand the mechanisms by which they take decisions. Dr Adrian Weller discusses how processes are being developed to ensure AI systems are transparent, reliable and trustworthy.

Dr Adrian Weller - Trust And Transparency In AI Systems

They're paid a fortune — but for what, exactly? What makes a good C.E.O. — and how can you even tell? Is "leadership science" a real thing — or just airport-bookstore mumbo jumbo? We put these questions to Mark Zuckerberg, Richard Branson, Indra Nooyi, Satya Nadella, Jack Welch, Ray Dalio, Carol Bartz, David Rubenstein, and Ellen Pao. (Part 1 of a special series, "The Secret Life of C.E.O.'s.")

Freakonomics Radio

Freakonomics: What Does a C.E.O. Actually Do?

Recorded at POLITICAL THOUGHT, TIME, AND HISTORY, An International Conference which took place at Clare College, University of Cambridge on Thursday 10 and Friday 11 May 2018.

Quentin Skinner (Queen Mary, London), ‘Why states need time’
Sir Christopher Clark (Cambridge),  ‘The times of power’

The state in time and history

With huge internal and external pressures facing the European Union, including the rise of nationalist and populist movements of all types across Europe - both inside the EU and outside, as well as the power struggle going on for control of Europe, can it survive?

With Ian Kearns, co-founder of the European Leadership Network and author of Collapse: Europe after the European Union, Dr Julie Smith, Director of the European Centre in the Department of Politics and International Studies at Cambridge University, John Breuilly, professor of nationalism and ethnicity at the London School of Economics, and Timothy Less, associate researcher at the University of Cambridge and director of the Nova Europa consultancy, which provides political risk analysis of Eastern Europe.

Chaired by BBC Radio Cambridgeshire's Chris Mann.

18 Oct - EUROPE IN THE AGE OF EXTREMES

Professor David Runciman, Head of the Department of Politics and International Studies at the University of Cambridge and author of How Democracy Ends, argues that, far from following the familiar pattern of military takeover or collapse in the rule of law, it is likely that democracy will fail in the 21st century in ways that we are not yet familiar with and that rather than implosion, it may simply fade away, hollowed out by forces of technological progress and social division that we lack the power to understand, never mind to resist.

Read David's feature article: www.festivalofideas.cam.ac.uk/how-democracy-ends

20 Oct - HOW DEMOCRACY ENDS

Ever felt your phone vibrate without getting a message? That’s a hallucination. In this talk, Hannah Jongsma will explore the spectrum from normal experiences to mental illness. How helpful is it to think of wellbeing this way? Where and how do we draw a line between being well and being ill?

20 Oct - MENTAL ILLNESS AN EXTREME STATE OF BEING

Grace Blakeley argues the case for 'Lexit' (a left-wing exit from the European Union) while Laurie Macfarlane thinks 'Remain and Reform' is our best option.

With a vote on the Prime Minister's deal imminent, what are the options? Paul Mason recently described Lexit – the leftwing case for Brexit – as a political fantasy, but is there still a progressive case for leaving the EU? Was there ever one? Or is our best chance to stay in the EU and reform it? Can it even be reformed?

We wanted to get to the bottom of all this, so on this week's podcast are two economists who share the same values but have come to very different positions about Lexit.

Enjoying the show? Tweet us your comments and questions @NEF!

Produced by James Shield.

Music: Podington Bear, Mr Frisby's Beat Pocket, and Jey Row, licenced under Creative Commons.

The award-winning Weekly Economics Podcast is brought to you by the New Economics Foundation – the UK's only people powered think tank. Find out more at www.neweconomics.org

Weekly Economics Podcast

Apple Podcasts

Lexit vs Remain and Reform

To subscribe on Apple podcasts please visit http://apple.co/2r40QPA or on Andriod http://subscribeonandroid.com/www.lse.ac.uk/assets/richmedia/webFeeds/lseiqpodcast_iTunesStore.xml or search for 'LSE IQ' in your favourite podcast app or visit http://lse.ac.uk/iq

Welcome to LSE's award-winning podcast, LSE IQ, where we ask leading social scientists - and other experts - to answer an intelligent question about economics, politics or society. 

In this episode, Joanna Bale asks 'Should we fear the rise of the far right?' She talks to LSE's Simon Hix and Marta Lorimer, as well as Matthew Feldman of the Centre for Analysis of the Radical Right and Sara Khan, Britain’s first counter-extremism commissioner.

For further information about the podcast and all the related links visit http://lse.ac.uk/iq and please tell us what you think using the hashtag #LSE

LSE IQ podcast

Should we fear the rise of the far right?

The Green New Deal has rocketed to the top of the agenda in the US. It's an ambitious plan, spearheaded by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, to decarbonise the US economy and eliminate economic insecurity at the same time.

But in fact the Green New Deal has some of its origins here at the New Economics Foundation. So what's the story behind the development of the idea? And how would a Green New Deal actually work, both in the UK and across the pond?

Ayeisha Thomas-Smith is joined this week by:

- Ann Pettifor, director of Prime Economics and one of the co-authors of the Green New Deal report published by NEF in 2008;

- Miatta Fahnbulleh, chief executive of the New Economics Foundation;

- Waleed Shahid, communications director of the Justice Democrats, who also worked on the campaign to elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. 

Enjoying the show? Tweet us your comments and questions @NEF!

Produced by James Shield.

Music this week is by Podington Bear, used under Creative Commons licence.

The award-winning Weekly Economics Podcast is brought to you by the New Economics Foundation – the UK's only people powered think tank. Find out more at www.neweconomics.org

What's the deal with the Green New Deal?

ANNI ALBERS AND THE MODERNIST TEXTILE
26-27 January 2019
University College London
www.annialbersmodernisttextile.com

DAY 1
1. Briony Fer, Introduction
2. Grant Watson, Bauhaus Imaginista: Learning From
3. Tanya Harrod, ‘the living texture’: British women weavers and modern textiles in the 1920s and 1930s
4. Gabriela García de Cortázar, Andean Anni, or what to do in Chile when you are not ill
5. Ana Elena Mallet, Modernist Women and Mexico as inspiration. Anni Albers + Clara Porset + Cynthia Sargent
6. Lynne Cooke, Lineage and Legacy
7. David Batchelor, The psychogeometry of triangular repeats
8. Tom McDonough, Knots and the fabric of architecture
9. Caroline Arscott, Morris: Weaving as Prophecy
10. Rye Holmboe, Anna Freud's Loom
11. Briony Fer in conversation with Helen Molesworth
12. Giulia Smith, Mary Martin’s Textiles
13. Cadence Kinsey, In formation: pattern, code and being
DAY 2
14. Briony Fer, Samples, experiments, prototypes
15. Karis Medina, Warp Families: The common threads of Anni Albers’s Pictorial Weavings
16. Mona Schieren, Transcultural Entanglements in Lenore Tawney’s Fiber Art
17. Marta Zboralska, 'As organic as nature itself': Władysław Strzemiński and Katarzyna Kobro’s Bauhaus
18. Meret Kaufmann, Pattern is a teacher
19. Freya Field-Donovan, Albers and Deren

This project was made possible through support from the Terra Foundation for American Art.

Briony Fer - Samples, Experiments, Prototypes

Cadence Kinsey - In Formation: Pattern, Code and Being

David Batchelor - The Psychogeometry of Triangular Repeats

Briony Fer - Introduction

Dr. Stephen Barr, Professor of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Delaware, Speaks before a full house at the Science and Faith conference on Physics: the Nature of Time and Theology

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