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PODCAST

The Conversation Weekly

The Conversation

A show for curious minds, from The Conversation. Each week, host Gemma Ware speaks to an academic expert about a topic in the news to understand how we got here.

news news commentary

All Episodes

30:08

How close are quantum computers to being really useful?

The Conversation Weekly ·

2025/01/30

Quantum computers have the potential to solve big scientific problems that are beyond the reach of today’s most powerful supercomputers, such as discovering new antibiotics or developing new materials. But to achieve these breakthroughs, quantum computers will need to perform better than today’s best classical computers at solving real-world problems. And they’re not quite there yet. So what is still holding quantum computing back from becoming useful?We speak to quantum computing expert Daniel

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23:57

A wildfire warning from California's Ice Age past

The Conversation Weekly ·

2025/01/23

Firefighters in Los Angeles continue to battle devastating wildfires that have killed at least 27 people and left thousands of homes destroyed. Today, we’re revisiting an interview we ran in late 2023 with Emily Lindsey, a paleoecologist who works at the La Brea tar pits archaeological site in Los Angeles, about a wildfire warning from southern California’s ice age history.The interview originally aired in November 2023. This episode was written and produced by Katie Flood. Sound design was by

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32:24

Silicon Valley’s bet on a future of AI-enabled warfare

The Conversation Weekly ·

2025/01/16

From Gaza to Ukraine, today’s war zones are being used as testing grounds for new systems driven by artificial intelligence. Billions of dollars are now being pumped into AI weapons technology, much of it from Silicon Valley venture capitalists.In this episode, we speak to Elke Schwarz, a reader in political theory at Queen Mary University of London in the UK who studies the ethics of autonomous weapons systems, about what this influx of new investment means for the future of warfare.This episode

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29:11

How the world fell in love with plastic without...

The Conversation Weekly ·

2025/01/09

Every year, 400 million tons of plastic are produced worldwide, and every year, approximately 57 million tons of plastic waste is created. And yet in November, the latest round of negotiations to agree the first legally binding international treaty on plastics pollution collapsed.So what can we really do about the plastics pollution problem? In this episode we sat down with Mark Miodowonik, professor of materials and society at UCL in the UK, to understand the history of plastic, how it’s shaped our

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37:56

Brain implants, agentic AI and answers on dark...

The Conversation Weekly ·

2025/01/02

In a special episode to start 2025, we’ve brought together three science editors from The Conversation’s editions around the world to discuss what to look out for in the world of science and technology in the coming year. Host Gemma Ware is joined by Paul Rincon from The Conversation in the UK, Elsa Couderc from The Conversation in France and Signe Dean from The Conversation in Australia.This episode was written and produced by Gemma Ware and Katie Flood with sound design by Michelle Macklem. Our

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26:05

How Zimbabwe reached the point of abolishing the...

The Conversation Weekly ·

2024/12/19

Zimbabwe is on the cusp of abolishing the death penalty after its Death Penalty Abolition Bill was approved by the senate on December 12. The bill is now sitting on the desk of Zimbabwe’s president, Emmerson Mnangagwa, a known opponent of the death penalty, waiting for his assent.In this episode, we speak to two experts on the death penalty, Carolyn Hoyle and Parvais Jabbar from the University of Oxford's Death Penalty Research Unit, who explain how Zimbabwe got here and what abolition means for

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27:41

Why distrust in powerful politicians is part of a...

The Conversation Weekly ·

2024/12/12

Surveys suggest that in many western democracies, political trust is at rock bottom. But is it really such a bad thing for people living in a democracy to distrust their government?In this episode, we talk to political scientist Grant Duncan, visiting scholar in politics at City St George's, University of London,about why he thinks a certain level of distrust and scepticism of powerful politicians is actually healthy for democracy. And about how populists, like Donald Trump, manage to use people’s

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26:42

How do animals understand death?

The Conversation Weekly ·

2024/12/05

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

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32:58

The story of one Amazon warehouse in the UK that...

The Conversation Weekly ·

2024/11/28

The online retail giant Amazon is known for its resistance to unions. In this week’s episode, we tell the story of what happened at one warehouse in Coventry in the UK when its workers tried to gain official recognition for the GMB union, one of the country’s biggest labour unions.We talk to Tom Vickers, a sociologist at Nottingham Trent University in the UK, who spent weeks observing workers’ efforts to unionise at the warehouse as part of a research secondment with the GMB. And John Logan, a

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27:39

50 years since the discovery of ancient hominin...

The Conversation Weekly ·

2024/11/21

It's been 50 years since the American paleoanthropologist Donald Johanson discovered the fossil of ancient hominin 'Lucy' in the Afar region of Ethiopia. The find took the story of human evolution back beyond 3 million years for the first time. Yet, despite largely centring on the African continent as the "cradle of mankind", the narrative of hominin fossil discovery is striking for its lack of African scientists.In this week's episode, Yohannes Haile-Selassie, director of the Institute of Human

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25:34

The controversy over cod fishing in Canada

The Conversation Weekly ·

2024/11/14

For generations, cod fishing was a way of life in Newfoundland and Labrador, the easternmost province in Canada. But in 1992, after cod stocks in the north Atlantic plummeted, the federal government imposed a moratorium on cod fishing. It was to last for 32 years until June 2024, when the government lifted the ban in a controversial decision.In this episode we speak to Tyler Eddy, a research scientist in fisheries science at Memorial University of Newfoundland, to shed light on what’s happened. It's

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31:49

Gangsters who leave their gang behind for something new

The Conversation Weekly ·

2024/11/07

What happens when a gangster leaves their life on the street? How do they transition to something new? We find out through the life stories of two people who joined them as young men and came out the other side.Featuring an interview with Gaz, a former gang member in Sierra Leone, and Dennis Rodgers, a research professor at the Graduate Institute in Geneva, Switzerland who leads a global research project on gangs. This episode was produced by Mend Mariwany and Gemma Ware. Sound design was by

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32:27

What is motivating Americans as they decide who to...

The Conversation Weekly ·

2024/10/31

Amid deep political polarization and extreme campaign rhetoric, the U.S. presidential election on November 5 is likely to be decided by a small number of voters in swing states such as Pennsylvania and Michigan. But why is it so close?In this episode Naomi Schalit, senior politics editor at the The Conversation U.S., speaks to Jesse Rhodes, associate professor of political science at UMass Amherst, who has been surveying Americans on the issues that matter to them, and their concerns as the election

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21:47

Origins of South Australia’s mysterious pink sands...

The Conversation Weekly ·

2024/10/24

Take a walk along a beach in parts of South Australia, and you may come across unusual patches of pink sand. When a team of geologists began analysing samples of this mysterious sand to find out where it comes from, their search took them back through time to a previously undiscovered mountain range in Antarctica.In this episode Sharmaine Verhaert, a PhD candidate in earth sciences at the University of Adelaide, explains how the discovery was made. This episode was produced by Gemma Ware, Katie

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24:33

MicroRNA: Victor Ambros on the discovery that won him...

The Conversation Weekly ·

2024/10/17

Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun were awarded the 2024 Nobel prize in physiology or medicine for their discovery of microRNA, tiny biological molecules that tell the cells in our body what kind of cell to be by turning on and off certain genes.In this episode, we speak to Ambros, who is professor of natural sciences at UMass Chan Medical School in the US, about the discovery that led to his Nobel prize and find out what he’s researching now. And we hear from Justin Stebbing, professor of biomedical

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32:58

Know Your Place: when did class stop predicting the...

The Conversation Weekly ·

2024/10/14

In an extra episode this week, we're running the first part of Know Your Place: what happened to class in British politics, a new series from The Conversation Documentaries. Host Laura Hood, senior politics editor at The Conversation in London, explores when the relationship between class and voting in the UK broke down and why.Featuring John Curtice, professor of politics at the University of Strathclyde and senior research fellow at the National Centre for Social Research, Paula Surridge,

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36:12

What Israel and its neighbours want now

The Conversation Weekly ·

2024/10/10

The Middle East is perilously close to all-out war. In the year since the October 7 Hamas-led attacks on Israel, millions of people have been displaced from their homes in Gaza, Israel, the West Bank and now Lebanon, and tens of thousands killed.In this episode, we speak to two experts from the Middle East, Mireille Rebeiz and Amnon Aran, to get a sense of the strategic calculations being made by both Israel and its neighbours at this frightening moment for the region. Rebeiz is chair of Middle East

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27:13

HIV breakthrough in preventing infection via injection

The Conversation Weekly ·

2024/10/03

A new drug to prevent HIV infection is showing hugely promising results in clinical trials when injected every six months.In this episode, we speak to South African HIV doctor and scientist Linda-Gail Bekker at the University of Cape Town about her involvement in one of the trials for lenacapavir and why she thinks it could be so ground-breaking.This episode was written and produced by Mend Mariwany and sound design was by Michelle Macklem. Gemma Ware is the executive producer. Our theme music is by

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23:40

Himpathy: the psychology of why some people side with...

The Conversation Weekly ·

2024/09/26

What makes some people more likely to feel disproportionate sympathy to people facing accusations of sexual misconduct – a concept known as himpathy? In this episode, we speak to a human behaviour expert whose research seeks to understand the psychological factors behind it.Featuring Samantha Dodson, assistant professor of organizational behaviour and human resources at the University of Calgary in Canada, and an introduction formEleni Vlahiotis, business and economy editor at The Conversation in

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20:27

A lonely ancient plant needs a female partner –...

The Conversation Weekly ·

2024/09/19

A rare and ancient plant has been waiting for itslong-lost mate. The only known specimens of Encephalartos woodii, a rare and ancient species of cycad, are male, all clones of the same plant found over 100 years ago deep in a South African forest.Now a team of researchers is on a mission to find an elusive female version of the plant with the help of drones and artificial intelligence.In this episode we speak to Laura Cinti, a research fellow at the University of Southampton in the UK, about her

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