How To Academy Podcast
How To Academy is London's home of big thinking. From Nobel laureates to Pulitzer Prize winners, we invite the world’s most influential voices to share new ideas for changing ourselves, our communities, and the world. Our biweekly podcast is your chance to hear in-depth from the most exciting thinkers in global culture.
Episodes
April 26, 2024 • 37 mins
The moon is more than a source of majesty and wonder; it has profoundly shaped the course of life on planet Earth.
Children know the moon is a source of majesty and wonder; adults easily forget it. Journalist Rebecca Boyle never has. A science journalist specialising in space and astrophysics, she joins Aimee Morris to share the cultural history of the moon and, as Nasa prepares to return to the moon for the first time in more than...
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The very real consequences of climate change are taking a toll on our humanity from the inside out: and climate anxiety is just the tip of the iceberg. From the psychiatric risks of climate stress on unborn babies, to the growing danger of neurotoxic algal blooms and brain-eating amoebas, neuroscientist and award-winning journalist Clayton Page Aldern joins Dr Xand van Tulleken to explore the harrowing effects of the climate crisis...
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April 19, 2024 • 65 mins
After 15 years of treating clients as a psychotherapist, Emma Reed Turrell has observed one recurring factor that plagues her patients: blind spots. These are gaps in our awareness that, if we let them go unchallenged, can calcify over time, cloud our judgement and affect our relationships by creating misconceptions like: ‘my needs aren’t important’ or ‘I can’t trust anyone but myself’.
In this podcast episode, in conversation with...
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April 17, 2024 • 72 mins
Christiana Figueres' podcast Outrage + Optimism is essential listening for anyone who wants to understand the complexity of the climate situation. This podcast is a preview of their mini-series, Our Story of Nature.
In Episode 1 of the three-part series, Christiana Figueres, Isabel Cavelier Adarve and guests delve deep into the roots of humanity’s separation from nature. They explore moments where cracks may have appeared and widen...
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April 12, 2024 • 67 mins
Philip Ball returns to the How To Academy Podcast to share the extraordinary revelations of contemporary science and make us think again about what we think we know about how life works. Illuminating what we now know about structures as small as RNA and forces as vast as evolution, to show how both the minuscule and the massive have shaped the world we know. Probing ever-pertinent questions around individual agency, purpose, and wh...
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April 9, 2024 • 73 mins
Gary Stevenson was the youngest trader in the whole city, and became the most profitable one too at his bank after betting against the economy. But what happens when you bet on millions becoming poorer and poorer - and, as the economy starts slipping off a precipice, your own sanity starts slipping with it? Gary Stevenson joins Sam Knight to explore the underbelly of Canary Wharf, revealing a world fuelled by an insatiable zeal for...
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April 5, 2024 • 77 mins
We think we know what it was like to rule – and be ruled – in the Ancient Roman world.
We think we know that Roman values and ideas formed the cornerstone of Western civilisation.
We are wrong.
In this special episode of the How To Academy podcast Cambridge’s Mary Beard and Oxford’s Josephine Quinn transport us back to the ancient world and reveal thrilling new histories of the Roman Empire and the origins of the West.
Learn more a...
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April 2, 2024 • 80 mins
Over twenty-five years, neuroscientist Charan Ranganath has studied the flawed, incomplete and purposefully inaccurate nature of memory to find that our brains haven’t evolved to keep a comprehensive record of events, but to extract the information needed to guide our futures. In this episode he shines new light on the influence of memory on how we learn, heal and make decisions. By examining the role that attention, intention, ima...
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March 26, 2024 • 82 mins
Dr Christopher Palmer advocates a metabolic approach to mental health, focussing on the the things we put in our body as the key to how they function. Sharing insights into the generational legacy of sweeteners on mental health, alongside some of the dietary approaches that can shift our metabolic wellbeing, this conversation with Mindhealth360 founder and editor Kirkland Newman pairs cutting-edge science with practical advice and ...
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A household name in the climate movement, Costa Rican diplomat Christiana Figueres was Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change from 2010-2016 and led the negotiation of the Paris Accords. Ten years on from the Accords, Christiana continues her fight for our planet and our shared future. In this episode she joins former CEO of Unilever (2009-2019) Paul Polman, himself a major figure for the c...
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March 20, 2024 • 76 mins
What if, by exploding our illusion of control, we can make better decisions and live happy, fulfilling lives?
Offering an entirely new perspective, myth-shattering social scientist Brian Klaas explores how our world really works, driven by strange interactions and random events. Unpicking our neat and tidy storybook version of events to reveal a reality far wilder and more fascinating than we have dared to consider, Professor Brian...
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March 15, 2024 • 67 mins
We get used to dirty air, people grow to accept authoritarianism, take foolish risks, and we are more liable to believe misinformation than ever before.
Too much of a good thing might be bad news after all. Rituals and habituation cause acclimatization and indifference. So how do we keep life interesting? Exciting events, relationships, stimulating jobs and breathtaking works of art lose their sparkle after time. People stop notici...
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March 12, 2024 • 37 mins
Philosophy Tom Chatfield loves technology and the humanities with equal passion, and has spent a lifetime thinking about our relationship to the devices we shape and that in turn shape us. Neither a luddite nor a utopian, he seeks to tell a new and more nuaunced story about the role of technology in our evolution and in our present.
Should we be frightened of the rise of AI and the extermination of desirable jobs? Are Silicon Valle...
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March 8, 2024 • 32 mins
The author of the New York Times bestseller Such a Fun Age returns with a tale of campus politics, desire, and bad behaviour.
How much of yourself are you willing to trade to get what you want? Unfolding in a University of Arkansas dormitory, Kiley Reid's new novel Come and Get It is a smart, stylish and scathing investigation of our money-obssessed society.
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March 5, 2024 • 64 mins
Neurologist and professor Richard Restak has dedicated his life to the science of brain health. Now he returns to How To Academy to share more ways to strengthen our memory and prevent the onset of Alzheimer's. From memory tricks to new friendships, learn how to protect your memory, while making life more vivid along the way.
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March 1, 2024 • 36 mins
Kelly Link is the author of ludicrously acclaimed genre-defying short story collections including Magic For Beginners and the Pulitzer nominated Get in Trouble. Now, after almost three decades at the top of her game, she's written a novel: The Book of Love. It's very funny, smart, and already certain to be one of the books of the year for both literary and genre critics.
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February 23, 2024 • 65 mins
Multitasking is a myth. Flow states don’t equate to enlightenment. An emotionally engaged boss is best for business. In this podcast, Harvard psychologist, global bestselling author and former New York Times writer debunks the myths we’ve been told about the workplace, with practical examples of how to train your mind to focus.
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February 20, 2024 • 51 mins
Ray Nayler's novel The Mountain in the Sea announced him a major new voice in speculative fiction, able to seamlessly fuse the novel of ideas and the novel of adventure. In his new novella The Tusks of Extinction, Ray continues his exploration of the science of the mind and animal communication and extends his passionate plea for deeper respect for the natural world with the story of Dr. Damira Khismatullina, an expert in elephant...
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February 16, 2024 • 64 mins
Family doctor Dr Gemma Newman has come to understand that body, mind and soul are not separate, and that only through a ‘whole body’ treatment plan can we truly heal. From gratitude to love, from mindfulness to healthy eating, Dr Newman joins us to share free healing practices that we can adopt into our daily lives.
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February 13, 2024 • 38 mins
One small plant has played an outsized role in shaping the world we live in today. Engineered by the British Empire with profound consequences for India, China, and the world at large, the opium trade was a critical part of colonial history. But its influence extends far beyond the 18th and 19th centuries. In this episode of the podcast, novelist Amitav Ghosh traces the links between the trade and the origins of the world's biggest...
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