Podcasts
33 episodes that go with the TOK lessons, chosen from what is actually said in them. Each one says what you will hear and links to its lessons. Most are under half an hour.
Is Uganda about to become a middle income country?
Uganda's president put income per head at $1,046, just over the line; the World Bank says $840, mainly because it counts 4.8 million more Ugandans.
More or Less 10 min2022
Are we using the wrong world map?
A map cannot be flat and accurate at once, so every projection chooses what to get wrong.
What in the World 9 min2025
Can we trust Google’s carbon footprint calculations?
Google Flights leaves out contrails, which can double a flight's warming, yet puts Eurostar London-Rotterdam at 16 kg when Eurostar says 7.
The Climate Question 27 min2023
Will there be a billion climate refugees?
Al Gore warned of a billion climate refugees; the number comes from assuming everyone in at-risk countries, even all of Pakistan, simply moves.
More or Less 10 min2023
The hidden reasons common knowledge shapes our lives
Pinker separates belief from knowledge and explains why we trust scientists we cannot check ourselves.
Instant Genius 28 min2026
Does it take 10,000 litres of water to make a pair of jeans?
The UN, WWF and a TV quiz all quoted vast water figures for jeans; one traced back to a 1999 report that never said it.
More or Less 10 min2023
Is nuclear power actually safer than you think?
Chernobyl may cause 15,000 deaths by 2065; replacing fossil fuels, nuclear saves about 76,000 lives a year. Only one of those got a TV drama.
More or Less 10 min2019
Lend Me Your Eyes
Emma, who is blind, needed a stranger to read her pregnancy test; the stranger seemed reluctant, so she sent the photo three times.
People Fixing The World 24 min2017
Can We Control 3D Printing?
Cody Wilson posted the blueprint for a 3D-printed gun, downloaded nearly 100,000 times, and called it free speech; Abby Bush shares hers to save lives.
The Inquiry 24 min2018
Geoengineering part 2: the case against reflecting sunlight to cool the Earth
Over 500 academics want sunlight-dimming treated like human cloning: knowledge we could gain but choose not to. Critics call that arguing for ignorance.
The Conversation Weekly 32 min2024
Katy Perry went to space but does that make her an astronaut?
Space officially starts at 100 km because people chose that number. Hear what else gets decided that way.
What in the World 13 min2025
When do food shortages become a famine?
A famine officially needs 20% of households facing extreme hunger and 2 deaths a day per 10,000 people, and someone still has to declare it.
More or Less 9 min2022
How likely is ‘likely’?
A CIA analyst wrote "serious possibility" meaning 65%; his boss read it as much lower.
More or Less 9 min2026
Will there ever be a single global language?
A linguist argues emoji is already the world's universal language, and explains what a lingua franca actually is.
The Inquiry 24 min2025
Why do we lie?
Where the colour names for lies come from, and how honesty norms shift between countries.
CrowdScience 28 min2023
Why is Russia cutting the internet and blocking apps?
Even pro-Kremlin governors attacked the Telegram ban while avoiding the war and Putin. People behind the Scarlet Swan protests were jailed.
What in the World 11 min2026
Why did China ban Spider-Man?
China banned Spider-Man over the Statue of Liberty, so Hollywood now cuts scenes, like the Great Wall in Pixels, before anyone asks.
The Inquiry 24 min2022
How Iran shut down the internet
Iran cut 85 million people off the global internet for 19 days, so nobody outside could count the dead. Banks still worked.
The Conversation Weekly 29 min2026
Early Writing Tablet
A philosopher argues writing did not just store knowledge, it created money, governments and higher mathematics.
A History of the World in 100 Objects 14 min2010
Can AI griefbots help us cope with death?
Three voices on whether an AI trained on your dead father's messages helps you grieve or stops you.
What in the World 10 min2026
What are police cameras doing with your face print?
Police cameras flag 1 in 1,000 innocent passers-by, so 50 false matches in a crowd of 50,000. Hear who decides that is acceptable.
Beyond Today 21 min2020
The New Arctic: Resource extraction
The Gwich'in call Arctic oil drilling cultural genocide. Many in nearby Kaktovik back it for water pipes and clinics. Same category, opposite answers.
The Compass 28 min2021
indigenous.2Constructing a DefinitionOn the trail with the hunters who believe shooting big game can save Africa’s wildlife
Derek Littleton once thought he was saving Mozambique from the Mozambicans. He now calls that paternalist. The 1900 conservation rules had no African voices.
The Audio Long Read 29 min2026
indigenous.3Encountering the Nacirema100 years on Earth: celebrating David Attenborough’s birthday
For decades Attenborough's teams cut scenes of human destruction to protect ratings, so the films hid the true scale of the damage.
Science Weekly 21 min2026
Throne of Weapons
A museum director talks you through one object: what it is made of, who made it, what it means.
A History of the World in 100 Objects 14 min2010
Questioning the Chernobyl disaster death count
Chernobyl death estimates range from 31 to a million. A scientist who studied it for 30 years explains which methods he trusts and why.
More or Less 15 min2019
Geoengineering part 1: the case to try modifying the climate
Modeller Ben Kravitz says the science shows a little solar geoengineering helps most people, yet still cannot decide whether anyone should do it.
The Conversation Weekly 29 min2024
Data, extreme weather and climate change
Scientists cannot rerun the weather without humans, so they compare models. At Lake Kivu, three satellite datasets told three different stories.
More or Less 9 min2023
Making It Rain: How Cloud Seeding Could Help Combat Future Droughts
Silver iodide makes rain in a lab, but once a cloud is seeded nobody can know how much it would have rained anyway.
Bold Names 20 min2022
Paul Ehrlich: The man who bet England wouldn’t exist by the year 2000
Biologist Paul Ehrlich predicted mass famine by the 1980s using insect ecology. Cereal yields then rose 250%, because people invent things insects do not.
More or Less 9 min2026
Nobel prize: Why are some countries so much richer than others?
Three Nobel winners traced rich and poor countries to settler death rates in 1500; Tim Harford admits nobody can prove it conclusively.
More or Less 10 min2024
Mapping India: The world's largest count
India counts 1.4 billion people and still misses women's work, disabled people, the homeless and the rich.
The Documentary Podcast 49 min2026
Is the UN underestimating the global fall in fertility?
The UN projects Argentina's falling birth rate will suddenly flatten, because its model assumes no society stops having children. Korea is already below one child per woman.
More or Less 9 min2025
