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Physics

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News Commentary

Twice monthly
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News Commentary

Updated weekly
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Every two months
Science

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Updated 31/07/2019
Nature

Nature

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Arts

Updated 25/03/2021

18/12/2025

Venezuela's plan to resist a US invasion

In the latest escalation of tensions between the US and Venezuela, the US President Donald Trump ordered a "complete blockade" of sanctioned oil tankers going into and out of Venezuela. His Venezuelan counterpart, Nicolás Maduro, called the move "warmongering threats", and accused the US of trying to steal its resources. In this episode we speak to Pablo Uchoa, a PhD candidate researching Venezuela's military, on how Venezuela has long been preparing for this moment, ever since a failed coup attempt on Maduro's predecessor, Hugo Chávez. This episode was written and produced by Mend Mariwany and Gemma Ware with assistance from Katie Flood. Mixing by Michelle Macklem and theme music by Neeta Sarl. Gemma Ware is the executive producer. Read the full credits for this episode and sign up here for a free daily newsletter from The Conversation. If you like the show, please consider donating to The Conversation, an independent, not-for-profit news organisation. Mentioned in this episode: The Making of an Autocrat Search "The Conversation Weekly" for our new series: The Making of an Autocrat. Is America watching its democracy unravel in real time? In The Making of an Autocrat from The Conversation, six of the world’s pre-eminant scholars reveal the recipe for authoritarian rule. From capturing a party, to controlling the military, Donald Trump is borrowing from the playbook of strongmen thoughout history. This is the story of how democracies falter — and what might happen next.

18/12/2025

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25 min
05/12/2024

How do animals understand death?

An orca that pulled along the corpse of its baby for 17 days. An opposum that plays dead to fool predators. And a chimpanzee that cleaned the teeth of its dead baby. Observations of behaviours like these suggest animals have a complex relationship with death. In this week’s episode, we speak to Susana Monsó, an associate professor of philosophy at the National Distance Education University in Madrid, Spain, about the different ways animals understand death. This episode was written and produced by Katie Flood with sound design by Michelle Macklem and our theme music is by Neeta Sarl. Full credits for this episode are available. Sign up here for a free daily newsletter from The Conversation. If you like the show, please consider donating to The Conversation, which is an independent, not-for-profit news organisation. And please do rate and review the show wherever you listen. Further reading Los animales entienden la muerte más de lo que se pensabaWhat the grieving mother orca tells us about how animals experience deathElephant calves have been found buried – what does that mean?

05/12/2024

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27 min
13/03/2025

The surreal story of how COVID took over a remote city in the Amazon

When the first cases of COVID-19 began to spread around the world in early 2020, people in Iquitos, a remote city in the heart of the Peruvian Amazon, weren’t unduly worried. They assumed their isolation would protect them. It didn’t. Peru, and Iquitos, were hit fast, and hard. In a surreal situation, people were left to fend for themselves, fighting to get hold of oxygen on the black market for their loved ones and forced to put themselves in danger to survive. In this episode we speak to researcher Japhy Wilson from Bangor University in Wales who spent a year living in Iquitos, trying to understand what happened there during the pandemic. This episode was written and produced by Gemma Ware with assistance from Mend Mariwany and Katie Flood. Sound design was by Eloise Stevens and theme music by Neeta Sarl. Full credits for this episode are available. Sign up here for a free daily newsletter from The Conversation. If you like the show, please consider donating to The Conversation, an independent, not-for-profit news organisation.

13/03/2025

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32 min
06/03/2025

The fossil that proved humanity's common origins in Africa

One hundred years ago, a paper was published in the journal Nature that would radically shift our understandings of the origins of humanity. It described a fossil, found in a lime mine in Taung in South Africa, which became known as the Taung child skull. The paper’s author, an Australian-born anatomist called Raymond Dart, argued that the fossil was a new species of hominin called Australopithecus africanus. It was the first evidence that humanity originated in Africa. In this episode, we talk to science historian Christa Kuljian about Dart’s complicated legacy and to paleoanthropologist Dipuo Kgotleng about what’s happened to the city of Taung itself, and how paleoanthropology has changed over the last century. This episode of The Conversation Weekly was presented by Gemma Ware and written and produced by Katie Flood with assistance from Mend Mariwany. Sound design was by Eloise Stevens, and theme music by Neeta Sarl. Full credits for this episode are available. Sign up here for a free daily newsletter from The Conversation. If you like the show, please consider donating to The Conversation, an independent, not-for-profit news organisation. How old are South African fossils like the Taung Child? New study offers an answerThe fossil skull that rocked the world – 100 years later scientists are grappling with the Taung find’s complex colonial legacy

06/03/2025

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25 min
28/12/2025

The Making of an Autocrat: manufacture a crisis

Donald Trump has sounded the alarm, over and over again, that the United States is facing an “invasion” by dangerous gang members. He blames immigrants for the country's economic problems and claims protesters are destroying US cities. Trump is not the first would-be autocrat to manufacture a crisis to seize extraordinary powers. So, is the United States really facing a national emergency? Or is this just a tactic on Trump’s part to amass more power?

28/12/2025

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16 min
29/03/2023

Quantum mechanics: does objective reality exist?

It is hard to shake the intuition that there's a real and objective physical world out there. If I see an umbrella on top of a shelf, I assume you do too. And if I don't look at the umbrella, I expect it to remain there as long as nobody steals it. But the theory of quantum mechanics, which governs the micro-world of atoms and particles, threatens this commonsense view. Featuring Chiara Marletto, Research Fellow of Physics, and Christopher Timpson, Professor of Philosophy of Physics, both at the University of Oxford, and Marcus Huber, Professor of Physics, TU Wien. This episode is presented by Miriam Frankel and produced by Hannah Fisher. Executive producers are Jo Adetunji and Gemma Ware. Social media and platform production by Alice Mason, sound design by Eloise Stevens and music by Neeta Sarl. A transcript is available here. Sign up here for a free daily newsletter from The Conversation. Further reading: 'QBism': quantum mechanics is not an objective description of reality – it reveals a world of genuine free will

29/03/2023

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53 min
28/12/2025

The Making of an Autocrat: hijack a party

We used to have a pretty clear idea of what an autocrat was. History is full of examples: Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, along with Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping today. The list goes on. So, where does Donald Trump fit in? In this six-part podcast series, The Making of an Autocrat, we ask six experts on authoritarianism and US politics to explain how exactly an autocrat is made – and whether Trump is on his way to becoming one.

28/12/2025

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19 min
28/12/2025

The Making of an Autocrat: recruit an architect

Every autocrat needs a clan of loyalists, strategists, masterminds – these are the figures behind the scenes pulling the strings. They’re unelected and unaccountable, yet they wield a huge amount of power. This is the role Stephen Miller has played for Donald Trump – he is the architect in chief for the second Trump administration. He has so much power, in fact, he’s reportedly referred to as the "prime minister" So who is Stephen Miller? And why are architects so important in helping a would-be autocrat amass power?

28/12/2025

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18 min
09/12/2022

The inside story of the CIA v Russia

The inside story of the CIA v Russia – from cold war conspiracy to ‘black’ propaganda in Ukraine. Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones, a professor emeritus of American history at the University of Edinburgh, on what history tells us about the CIA's influence today. You can read the text version of this in-depth article here. The audio version is read by Sam Scholl in partnership with Noa, News Over Audio. Listen to more articles from The Conversation, for free, on the Noa app. The music in In Depth Out Loud is Night Caves by Lee Rosevere. In Depth Out Loud is produced by Gemma Ware. This story was edited by Mike Herd and came out of a project at The Conversation called Insights. You can read more stories in the series here.

09/12/2022

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30 min
20/03/2025

Prospects of lasting peace between Turkey and the Kurds

For over 40 years, the Kurdistan Workers Party, the PKK, has waged an armed insurgency against Turkey, fighting for Kurdish rights and autonomy. But in late February, Abdullah Öcalan, the PKK’s imprisoned founder, called for the group to lay down its arms and dissolve itself. Days later, the PKK, which is labelled as a terrorist organisation by Turkey, Europe and the US, declared a ceasefire with Turkey. In this episode, we speak to political scientist Pinar Dinc at Lund University in Sweden about what’s led to this moment and whether it could be the beginning of a lasting peace between Turkey and the Kurds. This episode was written and produced by Mend Mariwany. Sound design was by Eloise Stevens and theme music by Neeta Sarl. Full credits for this episode are available. Sign up here for a free daily newsletter from The Conversation. If you like the show, please consider donating to The Conversation, an independent, not-for-profit news organisation. Syria integration deal with Kurds brings relief after days of bitter violence wracks war-torn countryWhat’s behind Erdoğan’s calculated shift on Kurds and its potential consequencesPKK leader’s call to disarm fuels hope for end to Kurdish conflict – but peace is not imminent

20/03/2025

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26 min

Listen to experts explain the world around us and tell the stories behind brand new research. Podcasts from The Conversation, an independent source of news and views, sourced from the academic and research community. Shows in English, French and Bahasa Indonesia. Free to listen.