The continent of Antarctica was only discovered two centuries ago, even if it had long been theorized. It’s a place shrouded in mystery with no human history and no permanent residents. It’s a land of superlatives: the coldest, the windiest, the driest continent. It is a grand scientific experiment, a read more…
Literature and Science
Ep 42: The Missing Link
The Hunt for the Missing Link Sasquatch. Bigfoot. The Abominable Snowman. Yeti. The Yowie, the Yeren, the Almas Ape-men, cave men, wild men. The Missing Link. The idea of the missing link came about in the mid-19th century, with the rise of Charles Darwin’s Theory of Evolution. In 1859 Darwin read more…
Ep 35: Jekyll and Hyde
For most people today, I think it’s fair to say, the story of Jekyll and Hyde is a rough outline of a tale, a fairly straightforward allegory of the potential dark side within us all. Read Robert Louis Stevenson’s original novella, however, and you immediately realise there is so much read more…
Ep25 – Dinosaurs: Palaeontology To Pyjamas
In 1842 a Victorian anatomist looked at some unusual fossils and, noticing they had something in common, he decided we needed a word to describe these strange creatures. He called them dinosaurs. Cut to the present day and there are dinosaur films, TV shows, books, songs, toys, and anything else read more…
Ep 24: Words To That Effect Live at Liberty Hall
Words To That Effect is back! Episode 24 is a recording of September’s live show for the Dublin Podcast Festival. This episode is a story about a long-forgotten nervous disease. But it’s also a story of science and culture, psychology and mental health, feminism and creativity, war and masculinity. It’s read more…
Episode 17: The 10% Brain Myth, from Self-Help to Pulp Fiction to Hollywood
Do we use only 10% of our brain capacity? (Hint: No) “It is estimated that most human beings only use 10% of the brain’s capacity. Imagine if we could access more of our cerebral capacity?” This is the central question of the 2014 Scarlett Johannson film, Lucy. And it is read more…
Episode 11: Cesare Lombroso & The Born Criminal
Turin in the 19th Century The northern Italian city of Turin is quite distinctive as Italian cities go. It is still Italy, so of course it has its grand piazzas and ornate churches, and pasta and pizza and cappuccinos. But whereas in so many Italian cities it is read more…
Episode 7: Overpopulation from Malthus to Manila
7 Billion People A baby girl was born in a hospital in the Philippines, on 30th October, 2011. However, unlike all the other children born that day, the arrival of Danica May Camacho was witnessed by a crowd of photographers and journalists. The world’s media were gathered in a read more…
Neurasthenia Advertisements [Article]
Hurrying and worrying in the struggle for success “Neurasthenia” was the term used in the 19th and early 20th century to classify a broad swathe of illnesses, from anxiety to depression, fatigue to trauma. It was widely used across the world, but particularly in the U.S. For more on how neurasthenia read more…
Episode 5: Canals on Mars
Percival Lowell, Science Fiction, and the Canals on Mars (c) ESO / M. Kornmesser Artist’s impression of Mars about four billion years ago. For as long as humans have been looking at the night sky, the planet Mars has fascinated us. But while astronomers had charted the movements of read more…