In February 2024, the renowned Indian geneticist Dr. MS Swaminathan was posthumously awarded the country’s highest civilian honour, the Bharat Ratna. This was in recognition of the dramatic increase in the yields of food staples, such as rice and wheat, that Indian agriculture experienced under his stewardship of the ‘green revolution’ in the 20th century. That revolution is credited with saving many people from hunger and malnutrition across Asia and Latin America. And yet, half-a-century on...

‘Always pass the salt and pepper together, even if your fellow diner has asked just for one of them’. That’s the standard advice given by countless dining etiquette manuals, one of the many rules regarding proper manners that have been handed down from generation to generation. But what if some of the rules have become outdated, silly or just wrong? And why do we have etiquette in the first place? Where do the rules of polite conduct come from and are they the same the world over? Iszi...

Supermarkets: they are ubiquitous yet hard to define, lauded and vilified in roughly equal measures, and in many countries they have a huge influence on what we eat. Technological innovations, big social changes and new shopping habits have all shaped their development and today’s megastores are a far cry from their small-scale ancestors of the 1930s. And yet, some quirks of supermarket design remain constant: for instance, why are the eggs always so hard to locate in the stores? Iszi...

In the 1990s, an advert for a brand of chocolate depicted a sophisticated gathering hosted by the foreign ambassador of an unspecified country. It hinted at a gilded existence of cocktail parties and small talk among influential, wealthy guests. Iszi Lawrence finds out how the stereotype of the diplomatic world compares with the reality of international relations. Who does the real work behind the scenes and who has the power? When we see powerful leaders on the world stage shaking hands...

The humble plastic bag is actually a marvel of engineering: it is cheap, light, strong, waterproof and it has conquered the world. In countries where plastic bags have been banned, they are still being smuggled in. The environmental pollution and other problems that discarded plastic can cause has made it a focus of passionate debate. But is plastic really the problem or is it our increasing use of disposable and single-use items? The popularity of disposable products predates the...

Political parties come in all shapes and sizes and their ideas are just as varied. But what kind of parties best reflect 21st-century society? How do we, as voters, choose between them at elections? What are their ever-increasing expenses spent on? And - perhaps most importantly - how well do political parties respond to the needs and views of the public? Iszi Lawrence discusses these questions with Professor Leonie Huddy from Stony Brook University who studies the psychology of politics,...

We can probably all think of examples of bad bosses – the people who we love to gossip about with our colleagues outside work. And even if you’re lucky enough to have had good experiences of management, you may be familiar with bad bosses from popular culture. But what makes a good manager and how can you inspire people in the workplace? It’s a question that’s been debated since the Industrial Revolution when rapidly expanding companies needed a way of controlling their workers. From...

Whether we are pedestrians, cyclists or drivers, roads play a crucial role in our everyday lives. But where and how should we build any new ones? What kind of roads do we need? And how did we end up with the ones we have? Rajan Datar talks about the past and present of roads and roadbuilding with anthropologist Traci Ardren from the University of Miami, civil engineer Kate Castle, historians Alexis DeGreiff from the National University of Colombia in Bogota and Aparajita Mukhopadhyay from...

For every young American under the age of 18, there are about two cats or dogs receiving free food and lodgings in US homes and that pattern is replicated in many other countries. So why do so many of us keep pets? Why do we name them, consider them part of the family? Companionship, pleasure, status symbol and kinship with all life have been offered as explanations but it's easy to forget that mass keeping of pets - as opposed to working animals - is a recent development of the last two...

In some ways the 21st century is a very unusual time when it comes to adolescence - a study in the US found that teenagers smoke less, drink less and have less sex than the previous generation. And worldwide young people are coming of age in a digital era, with the dangers and opportunities that represents. Our expectations of teenagers vary hugely depending on the social, historical and cultural context. Paleoanthropologist Ella Al-Shamahi takes us through the big evolutionary questions...

From Bhutan to The Bahamas and Iceland to Indonesia, mass tourism has grown at an unprecedented rate over the last few decades. Today’s top destinations are struggling with the sheer numbers of visitors and the United Nations has called for a total rethink on how the industry operates. The origins of travel for pleasure go back centuries and package holidays in the 1960s made it accessible to many in the West but it’s only the combination of cheap flights and the advent of the internet that...

Are we in a new age of information warfare? The technology to create deepfakes has progressed steadily over the past decade and enables anyone to create videos of people saying and doing things they didn’t actually say or do. But the idea of manipulating video to spread misinformation is almost as old as film itself. Presenter Iszi Lawrence invites a panel of experts to tackle your questions about AI technology and the uses of deepfakes. Is this something we should be concerned or excited...

When telecoms engineer Martin Cooper first chatted in public on a mobile phone 50 years ago few would have predicted that this brief telephone call would be the start of a revolution that would change the lives of billions. Over the last half a century, the mobile has transformed not just how we communicate with each other but also how we view and interact with the world around us. However, recent research suggests that this may not all be for the best. Drawing on listeners comments and...

Given the submarine's importance to many of the world's navies, it's perhaps surprising to learn that for many years it was considered an inventor's folly and of little use in maritime warfare. Indeed the submarine had a difficult birth because of the technical challenges involved in putting a moving vessel underwater, challenges that could only be overcome once the technology became available. The submarine eventually proved its potential in World War I, where its ability to pass...

A child prodigy on the piano, then a glamorous jazz and popular music entertainer, a civil rights campaigner and the first black American woman to host her own TV show: for the first three decades of her life, Hazel Scott’s rise to fame was vertiginous. Born in Trinidad in 1920, Scott was the headliner in some of New York’s most fashionable clubs by the time she was twenty. A couple of years later she became one of Hollywood’s highest paid entertainers and then married one of the most...

Do you like cocoa? You are in good company: in South and Central America people have been enjoying the fruit of the cacao tree - the source of cocoa, chocolate and much else - for thousands of years. Ancient empires fought battles for the control of the best trees, cacao beans were used as currency, and being able to make a tasty cacao drink could even save your life. To trace the history of cacao in Latin America, Bridget Kendall is joined by archaeologist Cameron McNeil, chef and food...

The Hoover Dam in the US, the Aswan Dam in Egypt and the recently opened, and sumptuously named, Grand Ethiopian Renaissance dam. Since modern times, huge mega dams like these to tame rivers, create water storage and hydropower, have become a symbol of nationhood used to create national pride and bolster political power, from the Cold War to today. Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India, called dams the temples of modern India. But dams have also been highly controversial, displacing rural...

From Persia to India to Greece – they called him The Great – that is Alexander the Great. Also known as Alexander III of Macedon, he was one of the most successful military leaders of all time. Undefeated by the time of his death in 323 BCE, he is still a go-to figure when people want to define an empire builder. But how should we view this often cruel and destructive militarist today in the light of current world events? And, despite his brutality, like his ransacking of the beautiful...

From coronations to cup finals, many of us love a big event, a ceremony with age-old observances. Indeed rituals, whether public spectaculars or more personal ones, such as a particular daily routine, have been part of human experience since time began. But why do rituals persist even though so many of them seem to serve no obvious practical purpose? Rajan Datar looks for clues in our past with the help of Egyptologist Dr. Elizabeth Frood and historian of Venice Prof. Edward Muir. It turns...

Drawing on traditional music, pop culture, kitsch, rock and modernist poetry to mention just a few of their sources of inspiration, the short-lived Tropicália movement in late 1960s Brazil was provocative and anti-authoritarian. Perhaps most importantly it represented a uniquely Brazilian aesthetic that could only have emerged from that country’s specific culture and history. The movement’s leading lights were eventually arrested by the military regime that governed Brazil at the time, and...

Nearly everything we consume is transported by ship. The biggest container ships in the world are among the largest moving structures made by man and can carry over 24,000 20-foot container units. The standardisation of these simple metal containers in the 1950s and 60s marked a turning point in world trade, driving down costs and ultimately fuelling globalisation. Now that supply chains have become ever more complex and been put under increasing strain, we take a look at the history of the...

Developments in new technology such as DNA sequencing have transformed our understanding of the Neanderthals, one of a group of archaic humans who occupied Europe, the Middle East and Western Asia more than 300,000 years ago. First identified by fossil remains in 1856 in a German quarry, the Neanderthals led an extremely physical existence as hunter-gatherers. They were stronger than us, adaptable as a species to huge variations in climate, with brains as large as ours and sophisticated ways...

A Russian army stands at the gates of the capital of another country, a country that Russia has previously occupied and one that, according to Russian politicians, has no right to independent existence. Sounds familiar? That capital city was Warsaw and the year was 1920. But what happened in Poland just after the end of World War One bears strong similarities to what went on near Kyiv in 2022. After the First World War, Russian Bolsheviks, and Lenin in particular, wanted to reoccupy Poland,...

The pandemic has made us all rethink how we work. Where once millions of people used to travel into work in tall glass buildings in big cities every day, now our idea of the office has come to include the kitchen table or maybe even a coffee shop. Yet despite the temptation to shift permanently to remote working, many organisations say the events of the past few years have actually underlined the importance of offices as spaces that connect people. So what are offices for? We are delving back...