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...

What is the best way to reduce car use in cities? Kimberly Nicholas, an associate professor of sustainability science at Lund University, looks at the evidence from across Europe. You can read the text version of this in-depth article here. The audio version is read by Adrienne Walker 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...

How pop-ups, home delivery and fast fashion go back as far as the 1800s. Rachel Bowlby, professor of comparative literature at UCL tells the story of how the pandemic changed the way we shop – with many ‘new’ initiatives actually reinventing old ways of doing things. You can read the text version of this in-depth article here. The audio version is read by Jane Wing in partnership with Noa, News Over Audio. Listen to more articles from The Conversation, for free, on the Noa app.  The music in...

A tale of monstrous egos, toxic rivalries and injustices behind the discovery of insulin. Kersten Hall, author and honorary fellow at the school of philosophy, religion and history of science at the University of Leeds, recounts the story of feuding scientists behind the discovery of insulin. You can read the text version of this in-depth article here. The audio version is read by Martin Buchanan in partnership with Noa, News Over Audio. Listen to more articles from The Conversation, for...

How science fiction’s hopes and fears can inspire humanity’s response to the climate crisis. Chris Pak, lecturer in English Literature at Swansea University, explores the history of science fiction stories about terraforming, geoengineering, space and climate change – and why they're vital reading ahead of the November 2021 UN climate change conference in Glasgow.  You can read the text version of this in-depth article here. The audio version is read by Peter Hanly in partnership with Noa,...

When people think about how AI might ‘go wrong’, most probably picture malevolent computers trying to cause harm. But what if we should be more worried about them seeking pleasure? Thomas Moynihan and Anders Sandberg at the University of Oxford explain why AI experts are worried about wireheading, a phenomenon strangely akin to addiction in humans. You can read the text version of this in-depth article here. The audio version is read by Peter Hanly in partnership with Noa, News Over Audio....

There aren’t enough trees to offset society’s carbon emissions – and there never will be. Yet, Bonnie Waring, senior lecturer at the Grantham Institute – Climate Change and Environment, at Imperial College London argues that even if they can't save us from climate change, society still depends on forests. You can read the text version of this in-depth article here. The audio version is read by Jane Wing in partnership with Noa, News Over Audio. You can listen to more articles from The...

This episode of The Conversation’s In Depth Out Loud podcast features the story of a young Soviet miner named Alexei Stakhanov, and how the work ethic he embodied in the 1930s has been invoked by managers in the west ever since. Stakhanov’s staggering workload and personal commitment to his job as a miner in Stalin’s Soviet Union became the embodiment of a new human type and the beginning of a new social and political trend known as “Stakhanovism”. Bogdan Costea, professor of management and...

This episode of The Conversation’s In Depth Out Loud podcast features prominent academics, including a former IPCC chair, rounding on governments worldwide for using the concept of net zero emissions to “greenwash” their lack of commitment to solving global warming. You can read the text version of this in-depth article here. The audio version is read by Les Smith in partnership with Noa, News Over Audio. You can listen to more articles from The Conversation, for free, on the Noa app.  James...

This episode of The Conversation’s In Depth Out Loud podcast features the story of Lucian Landau, the forgotten man who invented the technology that made Durex boom. Jessica Borge, Digital Collections (Scholarship) Manager at King’s College London Archives and Research Collections and a Visiting Fellow in Digital Humanities at the School of Advanced Study, explains her research into who actually invented Durex condoms. She discovered that the technology behind Durex was invented by Lucian...

This episode of The Conversation’s In Depth Out Loud podcast features a report from two doctors on the frontline of the second wave of coronavirus in Liverpool. Tom Wingfield, an infectious diseases physician at Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine and the University of Liverpool, and Miriam Taegtmeyer, professor of global health at Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, describe what it’s like for healthcare workers who continue to put their lives and those of their families on the...

This episode of The Conversation’s In Depth Out Loud podcast, features the work of Leon Litvack at Queen’s University Belfast on what happened after the death of Charles Dickens. His new research has uncovered the never-before-explored areas of the great author’s sudden death on June 9 1870, and his subsequent burial. Dickens’s death created an early predicament for his family. Where was he to be buried? Near his home (as he would have wished) or in that great public pantheon, Poet’s Corner...

This episode of The Conversation’s In Depth Out Loud podcast, features the work of David Vincent, historian at the Open University. He has spent the last few years looking into how people in the past managed to balance community ties and solitary behaviours. With the coronavirus crisis forcing many to self-isolate and limiting our sociability, this has never seemed more relevant. Solitude used to be restricted to enclosed religious orders and was thus a privileged experience of a male elite....

In this episode of The Conversation’s In Depth Out Loud podcast, Simon Mair, Research Fellow in Ecological Economics at the University of Surrey’s Centre for the Understanding of Sustainable Prosperity, says we could use the coronavirus crisis to rebuild, produce something better and more humane. But we may slide into something worse. The responses to the COVID-19 pandemic are simply the amplification of the dynamic that drives other social and ecological crises: the prioritisation of one...

In this episode of The Conversation’s In Depth Out Loud podcast, Christian Yates, senior lecturer in mathematical biology at the University of Bath, looks at how to model a pandemic. With basic mathematical models, researchers can begin to forecast the progression of diseases and understand the effect of interventions on the way diseases spread. With more complex models, we can start to answer questions about how to efficiently allocate limited resources or tease out the consequences of...

In this episode of The Conversation’s In Depth Out Loud podcast, we bring you the history of Ritalin by Matthew Smith, professor in health history at the University of Strathclyde. Just over 75 years ago, a new stimulant drug with the generic name of methylphenidate was born in the Swiss lab of chemical company Ciba. Like many drugs, its therapeutic purpose was unclear. But these were the days a scientist could take a drug home and test it on their spouse, which is exactly what Ciba scientist...

Welcome back to The Conversation’s In Depth Out Loud podcast, the audio version of selected long form stories based on cutting edge research written by academic experts. This episode is based on two years of in-depth historical analysis by Pablo de Orellana and Nick Michelsen at King’s College London. After marching in the streets of Paris with the militant far-right group Génération Identitaire they met Charles, a young French man terrified by what he sees as the degeneration of Western...

An audio version of a long read article on the history of infertility, 40 years after the first baby was born via IVF.

This episode of the In Depth Out Loud podcast outlines the importance of finding a way to remove the inequalities promoted by modern science.

An audio version of an in depth article about the 18th century Enlightenment thinkers who promoted the potato as a way to build a healthy and productive society.

This is the audio version of an in depth article from The Conversation, which explores the ethics of transhumanism.

The audio version of an in depth article from The Conversation, which explores how antisemitism today is carved from and sustained by powerful precedents and inherited stereotypes.

An audio version of an in depth article on the story of how the nerve agent used in an attack on former Russian spy Sergei Skripal was developed.

The audio version of a long read on the daring mathematicians who took to the skies to help make early air travel safer.