Category Archives: Podcasts

Morning News: Turkey & Syria, Germany Election, Quality Of Life, Athens

Why has president Erdoğan sent more troops to Turkey’s border with Syria? Plus: Monocle’s news editor Christopher Cermak previews Germany’s federal election, the latest on a crucial vote on same-sex marriage in Switzerland and Monocle’s Quality of Life Conference begins in Athens.

Morning News: Pfizer Booster, U.S. Immigration, Ethiopia Hunger Crisis

Who is eligible to get Pfizer’s COVID-19 booster shots? And why are certain Haitian migrants detained along the US-Mexico border being released while others are deported? Plus, new documents reveal the extent of Ethiopia’s hunger crisis.

Previews: Monocle Book Of Entrepreneurs (Nov ’21)

Science: Floating ‘Seed’ Sensors, Human Walking Pace, Genome Editing

How tiny seed-like sensors could monitor the environment, and the latest from the Nature Briefing.

In this episode:

00:45 Spinning seeds inspire floating electronics

Researchers have developed miniature electronic-chips with wings that fall like seeds, which could be a new way to monitor the environment.

Research article: Kim et al.

Video: Seed-inspired spinners ride the wind and monitor the atmosphere

06:02 Research Highlights

How humans can adjust to an energy-efficient walking pace almost without thinking, and the viral shell that excels at delivering genome-editing tools.

Research Highlight: Humans walk efficiently even with their heads in the clouds

Research Highlight: A CRISPR fix for muscles hatches from a viral shell

08:34 Briefing Chat

We discuss some highlights from the Nature Briefing. This time, the mystery of the Sun’s super-hot corona, and the latest efforts to toilet-train cows.

Physics World: The enduring mystery of the solar corona

The Guardian: Cows ‘potty-trained’ in experiment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions

Morning News: United Nations Speeches, Middle East Politics, Sweden

We unpack the major speeches from the United Nations General Assembly and get the morning newspaper headlines from the Middle East. Plus, why Sweden is proposing a ‘family week’ holiday.

Views: Influences Of Pop Music On Literature

An important moment in the relationship between pop music and writing occurred in 2017 when the Nobel prize in literature was awarded to Kazuo Ishiguro. The previous year, it had gone to Bob Dylan

In Long Players, a collection of short pieces by poets, novelists and journalists about the albums that have most affected them, a recurrent suggestion is that you can learn more about writing from songs than you can from books, especially when you’re young. “In my view, David Bowie was a great writer”, says Deborah Levy about The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (1972). 

Morning News: Canada Election Aftermath, Cost Of Online Shopping Rises

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau remains in power after Monday’s election, but he emerges without the majority he wanted, and with his soft power damaged. He now faces a fourth wave of the pandemic and an emboldened far-right from a weaker position.

 Child labour fell markedly in the 16 years after the turn of the millennium. Now it’s on the rise again. Efforts to prevent children from working can often exacerbate the problem. And we consider one of the more unusual ideas for combating climate change: potty-training cows.

Analysis: Decentralized Finance, Reducing Child Poverty, The Word ‘Like’

A selection of three essential articles read aloud from the latest issue of The Economist. This week, the dream and danger of decentralised finance, how America is substantially reducing child poverty (10:02) and a defence of, like, “like” (18:57)