Nicola Twilley on how refrigeration has changed the world
Among the many things that we take for granted in the age of indulgence is refrigeration. In “Frostbite: How Refrigeration Changed Our Food,...
Radio and PodcastLive Radio & PodcastsNews & Politics
The Point Blank Show
The Point Blank Show is an excuse to spend sometime with people having immense insights and significant achievements. The guests on the show range from entrepreneurs, artists, business leade...
Episodes
20 of 67 episodesUntold stories of unsung Maths legends with Kate Kitagawa and Timothy Revell
What are the human stories behind mathematics? How did mathematicians collaborate over centuries to further its cause? “The Secret Lives of...
Nobel Laureate Thomas R. Cech on why Ribonucleic Acid rocks
Dr Thomas R. Cech shared the nobel prize in chemistry with Sidney Altman in 1989. Their work showed that RNA is not only a molecule that car...
Will Cockrell on the mavericks of Mount Everest
Will Cockrell’s book, “Everest Inc” tells the story of “The Renegades and Rogues Who Built an Industry at the Top of the World”. It is a ref...
Carl Öhman on what happens to our data after we die
In his short and punchy book, "The Afterlife of Data", Carl Öhman writes about "What Happens to Your Information When You Die and Why You Sh...
Geoff White on digital transformation of money laundering
Geoff White is an investigative journalist who has covered financial crime for over two decades. His latest book is titled "Rinsed - From Ca...
Dr Erica Thompson on how mathematical models can lead us astray and what we can do about it
We live in a world that is increasingly being dictated by data. But the models that govern different outcomes need a lot of work. Dr Erica T...
Kelly Clancy on her book, “Playing with Reality: How Games Have Shaped Our World”
Games have shaped humanity for thousands of years. The premise of Kelly Clancy's book is that games play us. In this podcast Dr Clancy, a ne...
Tamal Bandyopadhyay's roller coaster affair with banking
Tamal Bandyopadhyay is a prolific journalist who has covered the world of finance for many decades. He has authored several books. In this p...
Cognitive neuroscientist Maryanne Wolf on what reading does to the brain
Maryanne Wolf is a cognitive neuroscientist who conducts research on “what the brain does when it reads and why some children and adults hav...
Gregory Zuckerman on his book "The Man Who solved the market: How Jim Simons Launched The Quant Revolution"
Gregory Zukerman writes for the Wall Street Journal. Over the last few decades he has written several books. In 2019 he wrote "The Man Who s...
Alex Duff on his book, "Smart Money: The Fall and Rise of Brentford FC"
Alex Duff talks about how Brentford football club used data and analytics to improve and retain its spot in the English Premier League. His...
Ananyo Bhattacharya on his book The Man from the Future: The Visionary Life of John Von Neumann
Ananyo Bhattacharya's "The Man from the Future: The Visionary Life of John Von Neumann" is a fascinating book about the Hungarian-American m...
Dennis Yi Tenen on his book Literary Theory of Robots: How Computers Learned to Write
In this podcast Prof Dennis Yi Tenen, a software engineer turned literary scholar, leans on history of computer programming to tell modern t...
Tom Wainwright on Facebook turning 20
In February this year Facebook celebrated its 20th birthday. Tom Wainwright, tech and media editor of The Economist has written a brilliant...
David Bodanis on his book, “The Art of Fairness:The Power of Decency in a World Turned Mean”
Do nice guys finish last? Not quite. David Bodani’s brilliant book, “The Art of Fairness:The Power of Decency in a World Turned Mean” is fil...
Zeke Faux on his book, “Number Go Up: Inside Crypto's Wild Rise and Staggering Fall”
The cryptosphere is, well, cryptic. Even the best of the best find it hard to explain the whole thing without fumbling. Zeke Faux has manage...
Kenneth Miller on his book, “Mapping the Darkness: The Visionary Scientists Who Unlocked the Mysteries of Sleep”
We spend almost a third of our lives sleeping. Give or take. And yet until fifty years ago, scientists didn’t know much about sleep. Kenneth...
Daniel Knowles on his book, “How Cars Make Life Worse and What to Do About It”
In this podcast, Daniel Knowles reflects upon a world with fewer cars. The use of a car becomes less effective once everyone has got one. An...
Kiran Verma, on a 21,000 km walk to raise awareness on blood donation
Kiran Verma has pledged to walk a staggering 21,000 km across India to raise awareness around blood donation in the country. His NGO, Simply...