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What is Cluster 5? Thanks for asking! At the start of November, the World Health Organisation announced that six countries had reported COVID-19 cases in mink farms. These include Denmark, which is the world’s biggest producer of mink fur, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Italy and the United States.This development led Denmark to take the radical decision of culling all 15 million minks in the country. The Prime Minister claimed a mutated strain of the virus, known as Cluster 5, had been transmitted back to humans, with 12 cases identified. So where does this particular strain come from?After spreading across the world, the coronavirus was transmitted from humans to minks. Its presence in these animals requires a mutation, which is how the Cluster 5 strain was created. And now the new strain has in turn been passed back to humans. According to the WHO, Cluster 5 has “moderately decreased sensitivity to neutralizing antibodies”, which could in theory threaten the effectiveness of a COVID-19 vaccine. Scientists believe the mutated strain of the virus was transmitted by farm workers to minks over the summer. During the mutation, it’s possible the spike protein of the virus changed, which is used to penetrate into human cells. Pharmaceutical companies seeking to develop a potential vaccine are mostly working on this particular protein. That includes the Pfizer vaccine, which the latest estimations have found to be effective in 90% of cases. There’s not yet any proof that this strain could scupper a vaccine, but the mutation identified means it’s theoretically possible.If all those millions of minks have been culled, does that mean things are now under control? In under 3 minutes, we answer your questions!To listen the last episodes, you can click here: What are microplastics? What is cultural appropriation?What is Big Pharma?See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What are microplastics? Thanks for asking!There are tiny fragments of plastic pretty much everywhere in the ocean, in the ground and inside animals, including humans! These are known as microplastics, and their potential impact on human health and the environment is a cause for concern. Microplastics aren’t a specific type of plastic per se. The term is used to refer to any fragments which are under 5 mm in length. Some examples are polystyrene, polypropylene, polythene and a bunch of other poly-things. They come from large plastic objects, like cosmetics or synthetic fabrics in clothing. Where are microplastics spreading the most?The obvious example is on ocean floors, where scientists have estimated there are 14 million tonnes of microplastics. Every minute, we fill the oceans with the equivalent of a garbage truck full of plastic. And then you’ve got microplastic pollution in soils. That causes damage to creatures like mites and larvae which maintain land fertility.There must be some protected locations out there, surely? What about in the mountains or at the North Pole? In under 3 minutes, we answer your questions!To listen the last episodes, you can click here: What is Big Pharma?Who are the Grey Wolves?What is food play?See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What is cultural appropriation? Thanks for asking! Think of Katy Perry in her video for This Is How We Do, Madonna in a traditional Berber outfit at the 2018 VMA awards, or Adele with her hair in Bantu knots to mark Notting Hill Carnival. That’s right, we’re talking about cultural appropriation in today’s episode. It’s a practice which has caused regular controversy in the world of pop culture. Most often, white artists are accused of using ideas, symbols or other items which come from non-Western minority cultures. The definition of cultural appropriation itself is somewhat controversial, with many saying it is often misapplied by the general public. Its meaning has evolved over time to have negative connotations. It’s problematic when someone belonging to a dominant community uses cultural elements from an oppressed people, for their own artistic or commercial benefit. In 1976, art historian Kenneth Coutts-Smith wrote one of the first essays to discuss cultural appropriation. He didn’t actually use the term itself, but brought together the ideas of class appropriation and cultural colonialism.I don’t understand the issue, what’s wrong with mixing cultures?It can be OK to mix several cultures, as long as it is a true exchange and not a one-way street. In the case of cultural appropriation, the minority culture doesn’t have the choice of accepting or refusing. In some cases, the original meaning of cultural items isn’t respected, or the elements are used in a way that reinforces stereotypes.The concept applies to more or less the entire cultural landscape. In recent years, designers and fashion creators have also come under fire for supposed cultural appropriation. High-profile shows have seen white models sporting dreadlocks or wearing African wax prints. Meanwhile at the same time in the fashion world, black models are underpaid or struggle to find work at all. So it’s not an exchange on any level. Another case would be rock and roll, a style of music which was taken from black musicians in the 1950s. The white-dominated music industry chose to promote white artists instead, with Elvis being the most famous example.So what could they do differently? In under 3 minutes, we answer your questions!To listen the last episodes, you can click here: What is Big Pharma?Who are the Grey Wolves?What is food play?See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What is Big Pharma? Thanks for asking!At a time when the whole world is waiting for an effective COVID-19 vaccine, do citizens really trust the companies likely to be responsible for producing it? A few multinationals dominate the global pharmaceutical market and they are collectively known as Big Pharma. Common criticisms include a lack of transparency, lobbying and high prices.The term first appeared in the United States in the 1990s. Much along the same lines as Big Food or Big Oil, it describes an industry which is dominated by a small number of players. In the pharmaceutical industry, these are Novartis, Roche, Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson and Sanofi. The 10 largest companies currently generate $500bn in turnover each year, a figure which has doubled in the last decade. So Big Pharma consists of a handful of companies who have huge power on a global level! Some observers have commented that they have even more power than states. The Big Pharma label is often used by conspiracy theorists, who believe these companies are hiding cures for cancer or forcing dangerous vaccines upon us. Most recently, it’s alleged that Big Pharma companies have deliberately blocked effective drugs from being used to treat COVID-19. All to inflate their stock price, rather than helping people with their health problems. I don’t get it - does Big Pharma actually exist, or is it a conspiracy theory? In under 3 minutes, we answer your questions!To listen the last episodes, you can click here: What is food play?What is Baby Shark?What is carbon neutrality?See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Who are the Grey Wolves? Thanks for asking!The Grey Wolves are a Turkish ultranationalist organisation which has come under the spotlight in several European countries of late. In France, for example, the group has now been officially banned, while there have been calls for the same action to be taken in Germany.Tell me more about the history of the Grey Wolves and their ideology.The organisation was founded in the late 1960s as the militant wing of Turkey’s Nationalist Movement Party (MHP). Its aims include creating a pan-Turkish state, stretching from the Balkans to Central Asia. The Grey Wolves ideology focuses strongly on Turkish history and identity, blended with Islam. Also known as the Idealist Hearths, the group is hostile to virtually all non-Turkish peoples in the country, including Kurds, Armenians and Christians for example. It has a history of political violence against left-wing activists, journalists and intellectuals, dating back to the 1970s. On an international level, perhaps the most notorious Grey Wolf member is Mehmet Ali Agca, who attempted to assassinate Pope John Paul II in St Peter’s Square in 1981. The Pope was shot and wounded, suffering severe blood loss, but nevertheless survived. The Grey Wolves salute consists of joining together the middle finger, ring finger and thumb to look like the side of a wolf’s face, while raising the little and index fingers in the form of ears. It was banned in Austria early last year, while German politicians have also proposed making it illegal, suggesting it is reminiscent of the Nazi salute.Why are the Grey Wolves currently being targeted by European governments? In under 3 minutes, we answer your questions!To listen the last episodes, you can click here: What is food play?What is Baby Shark?What is carbon neutrality? See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What is food play? Thanks for asking!In a sexual context, food play is a form of fetichism, where participants are aroused by the use of food in an erotic situation. Also known as sitophilia, it’s not necessarily a disorder or perversion as such. You could class it as a form of paraphilia, which is the experience of arousal relating to atypical objects or fantasies. For those who partake in food play, it’s mostly a bit of harmless fun which brings together two essential human pleasures: sex and eating!OK, tell me more about what goes on in food play.When solid foods are used, it’s most often for penetrative purposes. Their phallic shape makes them suitable for vaginal or anal insertion. Some examples include bananas, carrots, cucumbers and courgettes. Non-solid foods, such as whipped cream, honey or chocolate sauce can be spread over a partner’s body and then licked off.I’ll never look at those foods in the same way again! Why would you want to bring food into your sex life anyway? Can this practice become problematic for individuals or couples? In under 3 minutes, we answer your questions!To listen the last episodes, you can click here: What is carbon neutrality? What is Islamism?What is a non-essential shop?See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What is Baby Shark? Thanks for asking!On November 2nd, Baby Shark made internet history by becoming the most-viewed YouTube video of all time, with over 7 billion plays. This children’s song about a family of sharks is driving the whole world crazy, for good and for bad! No-one really knows where the song originally came from. It may have been sung in children’s summer camps in the 1970s, or invented following the release of Hollywood blockbuster Jaws in 1975. A German version called Kleiner Hai had some success in 2007. Whatever Baby Shark’s origins, Korean educational entertainment company Pinkfong was particularly taken by the song. It published its own version on Youtube in 2015, sung by 10-year-old Korean-American girl Hope Marie Segoine. The video features children dressed up as fish, making dance moves to represent various members of a shark family. It instantly became a hit in Asia, largely thanks to K-pop groups singing it in concert. But only in 2018 did Baby Shark really go global. The Baby Shark Challenge hashtag went viral on TikTok and the song made it onto American TV, first on the X Factor and then on The Late Late Show where it was sung by Sophie Turner and Josh Groban. In 2019, the US Marine band even played Baby Shark at a White House ceremony for World Series winning baseball team the Washington Nationals. Baby Shark has been officially translated into eleven languages, including Spanish, Japanese and German. There’s also an almost endless number of remixes online, with various styles of music.How can a simple children’s song become such a phenomenon? In under 3 minutes, we answer your questions!To listen the last episodes, you can click here: What is carbon neutrality? What is Islamism?What is a non-essential shop?See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What is carbon neutrality? Thanks for asking!All over the world, states are committing to reaching carbon neutrality in coming decades. That means achieving net zero CO2 emissions, by not emitting more than what planet Earth is able to absorb. If humanity doesn’t manage it, climate change could quickly become irreversible. We’re already feeling the effects of global warming through heatwaves, rising water levels, flooding, mudslides and loss of biodiversity. And it’s only just getting started, unless humanity manages to follow the IPCC’s recommendations to limit global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. That’s what 195 countries signed up for with the 2016 Paris Agreement. One of the main ways of meeting that target is through carbon neutrality.Does that mean we’ll totally stop emitting CO2?No, it simply means we’ll limit our greenhouse gas emissions to a level that nature is capable of absorbing. Certain reservoirs, known as carbon sinks, are able to absorb more carbon than they release. These include oceans and forests for example.How close are we to reaching that balance right now? That’s a lot of work to do, in not a lot of time! How on earth are we going to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050? Isn’t there a way of removing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere? In under 3 minutes, we answer your questions!To listen the last episodes, you can click here: What is a non-essential shop?What are incels? What is blasphemy? See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What is Islamism? Thanks for asking! A spate of terrorist attacks have been carried out across Europe in recent weeks, most notably in France and Austria. Political leaders have attributed the violence to Islamists, calling for a united front in battling this form of radicalism. Nevertheless, use of the term “Islamism” is somewhat controversial.So what’s the difference between Islam and Islamism?It’s important to make the distinction between the religion Islam itself, which is practised by all Muslims, and the separate political concept of Islamism. Islamism is related to forms of activism which advocate that society should be guided by Islamic principles. So that includes social and political life, in addition to individuals” personal lives. In some cases, movements call for Sharia Law to be fully implemented in an Islamic state, where non-Muslim influences would be removed. Sharia is derived from the Quran and fatwas issued by Islamic scholars. Most Islamists believe in peaceful mobilisation to pursue political change. But some justify the use of extreme violence, such as terrorist attacks. Well-known extremist groups include Boko Haram, Al Qaeda, the Islamic State and the Taliban. For example, Al Qaeda recently released a statement saying it is the right of every Muslim to kill a person who insults the Prophet Mohammed.What’s so controversial about the term Islamism then? Are there other better alternatives to talking about Islamism? In under 3 minutes, we answer your questions!To listen the last episodes, you can click here: What is a non-essential shop?What are incels? What is blasphemy? See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What is a non-essential shop? Thanks for asking!Many countries in Europe and other parts of the world are experiencing a second wave of the covid-19 pandemic. A new lockdown began in England last Thursday, due to last until at least December 2nd. The rules are seen as stricter than earlier in the year, coming at a time when trust in the government is low. Certain businesses have already been designated as non-essential and forced to close during the four-week period.So how do we know which shops and products are essential or not?Well this can vary between countries as the rules are different. Prior to the covid-19 pandemic, there was no real precedent for governments to refer to. According to a dictionary definition, “essential” refers to something which is “necessary, indispensable or unavoidable”. In theory, the decision is taken primarily based on what is genuinely needed to survive. So you’re talking food and healthcare products for example. But other businesses are also allowed to remain open, like petrol stations, banks and hardware stores.By that logic, you could make an argument for all consumer products being essential! In under 3 minutes, we answer your questions!To listen the last episodes, you can click here: What is blasphemy? What is mental health?What is antimicrobial resistance?See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices