In this three-part series Michael Blastland lays out the history of economic ideas to understand why economics goes wrong and whether it can ever go entirely right. In the third and final programme, ‘Monsters’, Michael investigates another view of economics: that it is the story of people, how they think and behave.
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Tagged with “history”
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The Story of Economics ‘Monsters’: 30 Mar 2011
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The Story of Economics ‘Cogs’: 23 Mar 2011
‘More or Less’ creator Michael Blastland goes to Chicago to explore a machine-like view of the economy in the second part of ‘The Story of Economics’.
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The Story of Economics ‘Gods’: 16 Mar 2011
More or Less creator Michael Blastland lays out the history of economic ideas to understand why economics goes wrong and whether it can ever go entirely right. In the first programme of a three part series, Michael travels to Athens and the site of Aristotle’s Lyceum - where economics as a discipline began.
Tim Harford and the More or Less team investigate numbers in the news. Numbers are used in every area of public debate. But are they always reliable? More or Less tries to make sense of the statistics which surround us. A half-hour programme broadcast at 1330 on Friday afternoons and repeated at 2000 on Sundays on Radio 4. http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/moreorless
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99% Invisible-66- Kowloon Walled City | 99% Invisible
Kowloon Walled City was the densest place in the world, ever.
By its peak in the 1990s, the 6.5 acre Kowloon Walled City was home to at least 33,000 people (with estimates of up to 50,000). That’s a population density of at least 3.2 million per square mile. For New York City to get that dense, every man, woman, and child living in Texas would have to move to Manhattan.
To put it another way, think about living in a 1,200 square foot home. Then imagine yourself living with 9 other people. Then imagine that your building is only one unit of a twelve-story building, and every other unit is as full as yours. Then imagine hundreds those buildings crammed together in a space the size of four football fields.
http://99percentinvisible.prx.org/2012/11/19/99-invisible-66-kowloon-walled-city/
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Hearing History In The Sounds Of ‘Lincoln’ | NPR
Stephen Spielberg’s new movie Lincoln features the authentic sounds of 1865, from Lincoln’s own pocket watch to the latch on the carriage door that carried him to Ford’s Theatre. Sound designer Ben Burtt talks about making the objects of Lincoln’s life heard.
http://www.npr.org/2012/11/10/164716611/hearing-history-in-the-sounds-of-lincoln
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Salt - Part One
Something insignificant is sometimes said to be worth "a pinch of salt." On the other hand, people of impeccable integrity are often called, "the salt of the earth." Salt is now among the most common substances on earth, although once it was rarer and more valuable than gold. Paul Kennedy considers the incredible history, science and mythology of salt.
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Admiral Shovel and the Toilet Roll
It begins to look as if we might have been wrong. All those predictions driving us forward throughout history have brought us finally to the unexpected realisation that the future is, suddenly, no longer what it used to be. Oops.
http://2012.dconstruct.org/conference/burke/
James Burke is a living legend. Or, as he put it, “No-one under the age of fifty has heard of me and everyone over the age of fifty thinks I’m dead.”
He is a science historian, an author, and a television presenter. But calling James Burke a television presenter is like calling Mozart a busker. His 1978 series Connections and his 1985 series The Day The Universe Changed remain unparalleled pieces of television brilliance covering the history of science and technology.
Before making those astounding shows, he worked on Tomorrow’s World and went on to become the BBC’s chief reporter on the Apollo Moon missions.
His books include The Pinball Effect, The Knowledge Web, Twin Tracks and Circles.
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American History, Seen Through A Shot Glass : NPR
The United States as we know it was born in a bar, according to a new history of drinking in America. Author Christine Sismondo says most of the major events of the Revolution were plotted in colonial taverns, the start of a grand old American tradition
http://www.npr.org/2011/09/18/140442065/american-history-seen-through-a-shot-glass?ft=1&f=1008
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Rethinking “Out of Africa”
I’m thinking a lot about species concepts as applied to humans, about the "Out of Africa" model, and also looking back into Africa itself. I think the idea that modern humans originated in Africa is still a sound concept. Behaviorally and physically, we began our story there, but I’ve come around to thinking that it wasn’t a simple origin. Twenty years ago, I would have argued that our species evolved in one place, maybe in East Africa or South Africa. There was a period of time in just one place where a small population of humans became modern, physically and behaviourally. Isolated and perhaps stressed by climate change, this drove a rapid and punctuational origin for our species. Now I don’t think it was that simple, either within or outside of Africa.
CHRISTOPHER STRINGER is one of the world’s foremost paleoanthropologists. He is a founder and most powerful advocate of the leading theory concerning our evolution: Recent African Origin or "Out of Africa". He has worked at The Natural History Museum, London since 1973, is a Fellow of the Royal Society, and currently leads the large and successful Ancient Human Occupation of Britain project (AHOB), His most recent book is The Origin of Our Species (titled Lone Survivors in the US).
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Science Writer Carl Zimmer
The New York Times has called Carl Zimmer "as fine a science essayist as we have." We talk with Zimmer about recent developments in biology and neuroscience, and discuss his latest book "Science Ink: Tattoos of the Science Obsessed."
The book features hundreds of photos of tattoos inspired by various scientific disciplines, each accompanied by Zimmer’s essays. Zimmer’s previous books include "A Planet of Viruses" and "Parasite Rex and Evolution: The Triumph of an Idea."
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