How To Academy Podcast

What does it actually mean to be beautiful? And where did our ideas of beauty and normality come from? In this episode of the podcast, writer Roisin Kiberd traces the surprisingly violent history of Botox, unpacks why blonde hair carries centuries of loaded meaning, and uncovers the secretive ritual collectors go through to buy a Birkin bag. She also digs into the murky ethic...

What are executive functions and why are they so important? In this episode of the podcast, world-renowned neuroscientist Dr Adrian Owen unpacks how executive functions drive everything over the course of our lives, allowing us to create and retrieve memories, understand our own and others’ emotions, plan our short and long-term goals, and much more. Drawing on gripping case ...

On 1 February, 1910, vivacious music-hall performer, Belle Elmore, suddenly vanished from her north London home, causing alarm among her circle of female friends– the entertainers of the Music Hall Ladies’ Guild– who demanded an immediate investigation. They could not have known what they would provoke: the unearthing of a gruesome secret, followed by a fevered manhunt for th...

One of the most remarkable and progressive physicians of the Victorian age, Dr Joseph Bell's incredible powers of deductive reasoning astonished his students -- including the young Arthur Conan Doyle. Oxford-trained medical historian Lindsey Fitzharris reveals what Sherlock Holmes owes to the work of a real life crime-solving surgeon, and how he came, like Conan Doyle, to fin...

Author and journalist Naomi Klein and writer and activist Astra Taylor join Historian David Olusoga to explore how apocalyptic visions of the future are working to justify the present-day costs of AI – from energy and water-hungry data centres to job displacement and mass surveillance. Naomi and Astra also trace the links between religious end-times movements, ethno-nationali...