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Contact theory
How do you stop different groups from hating each other?
The new distrust
Are we living through a crisis in trust?
Are we all racist?
Are we all racist? Mahzarin Banaji puts this to the test with Implicit Association Test
Inequality makes us anxious
Inequality makes people anxious. How?
Dimensions of discrimination
Do black women face more prejudice than black men or white women?
Democracy and famine
What is the cause of famine? It’s not the obvious answer
How to stop murder
How can we reduce murder rates?
The teenage brain
Why can’t teenagers get out of bed in the morning?
Consciousness: A strange theory
Humans are conscious, but is consciousness also in tables and chairs?
The intelligent tree
Are trees intelligent?
A future without doctors?
AI will be of assistance, but surely we’ll always need surgeons, doctors, and nurses?
How does language work?
How do we process language? We speak to a neuroscientist who specialises in language
Why are some nations rich?
Why are some nations richer than others?
The afterlife
Suppose you knew that after your natural death the human race would die out…
Why do we laugh?
And why a cognitive neuroscientist says laughter deserves more research.
How to topple a dictator
Is violent or non-violent protest more effective?
The truth about marriage
And how your relationship may be less stable than you think.
The fragility of choice
Where do our opinions come from and how easy is it for people to change them?
Why do we find things disgusting?
Meet a ‘disgustologist’ who has been uncovering answers to our uneasy feelings
Why living in the city could make you happier
What makes some cities more successful than others?
Ubernomics
Does behaviour tracking help tech companies become better at saying sorry?
Understanding emotions: Should we follow our hearts?
How noticing things in our bodies can help us read our feelings
Big ideas: The body
David Edmonds discovers fascinating research on the human body
How do we spot rogue cops?
Within every police force there are bad cops, but could there be a trick to spotting them
The importance of fairness
Why it pays to be fair, and why people are less selfish than you think
The science of sleep
What does sleep do for us, and what can go wrong if we don't get enough?
Do cities need rules?
How does the way a city is run change its inhabitants' lives?
The new normal
How Donald Trump is reshaping our ideas of normal behaviour
The science of addiction
Why drug addicts want drugs – even when they don’t
Big ideas: The city
Five big ideas that could change the way we think about cities
Fighting pandemics
The 2020 pandemic has transformed our world, but it won’t be the last to do so