The Conversation Weekly

When the first cases of COVID-19 began to spread around the world in early 2020, people in Iquitos, a remote city in the heart of the Peruvian Amazon, weren’t unduly worried. They assumed their isolation would protect them. It didn’t. Peru, and Iquitos, were hit fast, and hard. In a surreal situation, people were left to fend for themselves, fighting to get hold of oxygen on the black market for their loved ones and forced to put themselves in danger to survive. In this episode we speak to researcher Japhy Wilson from Bangor University in Wales who spent a year living in Iquitos, trying to understand what happened there during the pandemic. This episode was written and produced by Gemma Ware with assistance from Mend Mariwany and Katie Flood. Sound design was by Eloise Stevens and theme music by Neeta Sarl. Full credits for this episode are available. Sign up here for a free daily newsletter from The Conversation.If you like the show, please consider donating to The Conversation, an independent, not-for-profit news organisation.

One hundred years ago, a paper was published in the journal Nature that would radically shift our understandings of the origins of humanity. It described a fossil, found in a lime mine in Taung in South Africa, which became known as the Taung child skull. The paper’s author, an Australian-born anatomist called Raymond Dart, argued that the fossil was a new species of hominin called Australopithecus africanus. It was the first evidence that humanity originated in Africa. In this episode, we talk to science historian Christa Kuljian about Dart’s complicated legacy and to paleoanthropologist Dipuo Kgotleng about what’s happened to the city of Taung itself, and how paleoanthropology has changed over the last century. This episode of The Conversation Weekly was presented by Gemma Ware and written and produced by Katie Flood with assistance from Mend Mariwany. Sound design was by Eloise Stevens, and theme music by Neeta Sarl. Full credits for this episode are available. Sign up here for a free daily newsletter from The Conversation.If you like the show, please consider donating to The Conversation, an independent, not-for-profit news organisation.How old are South African fossils like the Taung Child? New study offers an answerThe fossil skull that rocked the world – 100 years later scientists are grappling with the Taung find’s complex colonial legacy

Every day that he was locked up in a scam compound in Southeast Asia, George thought about how to get out. "We looked for means of escaping, but it was hard," he said. Scam Factories is a podcast series taking you inside Southeast Asia's brutal fraud compounds. It accompanies a series of multimedia articles on The Conversation.In our third and final episode, Great Escapes, we find out the different ways survivors manage to escape, what it takes for them to get home, and what is being done to clamp down on the industry. The podcast series was written and produced by Gemma Ware with production assistance from Katie Flood and Mend Mariwany. Sound design by Michelle Macklem. Leila Goldstein was our producer in Cambodia and Halima Athumani recorded for us in Uganda. Hui Lin helped us with Chinese translation. Editing help from Justin Bergman and Ashlynee McGhee. Getting out of Southeast Asia's scam factoriesFrom empty fields to locked cities: the rise of a billion-dollar criminal industry‘We could hear the screams until midnight’: life inside Southeast Asia’s brutal fraud compounds

A few weeks after Ben Yeo travelled to Cambodia for what he thought was a job in a casino, he found himself locked up in a padded room. “It’s a combination between a prison and a madhouse,” he remembers. He was being punished for refusing to conduct online scams.Scam Factories is a podcast and multimedia series taking you inside Southeast Asia's brutal fraud compounds. The Conversation collaborated for this series with three researchers: Ivan Franceschini, a lecturer in Chinese Studies at the University of Melbourne, Ling Li, a PhD candidate at Ca' Foscari University of Venice, and Mark Bo, an independent researcher. In the second episode, Inside the Operation, we explore the history of how scam compounds emerged in Southeast Asia and who is behind them. We hear about the violent treatment people receive inside through the testimonies of two survivors, Ben, and another man we're calling George to protect his real identity. The podcast series was written and produced by Gemma Ware with production assistance from Katie Flood and Mend Mariwany. Sound design by Michelle Macklem. Leila Goldstein was our producer in Cambodia and Halima Athumani recorded for us in Uganda. Hui Lin helped us with Chinese translation. Editing help from Justin Bergman and Ashlynee McGhee. Rise of an industry: part 2 of Scam FactoriesLocked in: the inside story of Southeast Asia's fraud compounds

Scam factories is a special three-part series taking you inside Southeast Asia's brutal fraud compounds. Hundreds of thousands of people are estimated to work in these scam factories. Many were trafficked there and forced into criminality by defrauding people around the world.The Conversation collaborated for this series with three researchers: Ivan Franceschini, a lecturer in Chinese Studies at the University of Melbourne, Ling Li, a PhD candidate at Ca' Foscari University of Venice, and Mark Bo, an independent researcher. In episode 1, our researchers travel to a village in Cambodia called Chrey Thom to see what these compounds look like. And we hear from two survivors about how they were recruited into compounds in Laos and Myanmar. The podcast series was written and produced by Gemma Ware with production assistance from Katie Flood and Mend Mariwany. Sound design by Michelle Macklem. Leila Goldstein was our producer in Cambodia and Halima Athumani recorded for us in Uganda. Hui Lin helped us with Chinese translation. Editing help from Justin Bergman and Ashlynee McGhee. Locked in: the inside story of Southeast Asia's fraud compounds

As the Trump administration ratchets up its threat to slap tariffs on allies and economic rivals alike, the world is bracing for another wave of costly economic disruption. This protectionist shift is all the more remarkable given how the US championed trade liberalisation for decades. So what does it actually take for a country to use protectionism to grow its economy? Some developing countries have successfully used tariffs to do so, while others have struggled. In this episode, we talk to Jostein Hauge, a development economist at the University of Cambridge in the UK, about who wins and who loses from tariffs and protectionism. This episode of The Conversation Weekly was written and produced by Mend Mariwany with assistance from Katie Flood and Gemma Ware. Sound design was by Michelle Macklem, and theme music by Neeta Sarl. Full credits for this episode are available. Sign up here for a free daily newsletter from The Conversation.If you like the show, please consider donating to The Conversation, an independent, not-for-profit news organisation.Further reading:How protectionism can help developing countries unlock their economic potentialTariffs are back in the spotlight, but skepticism of free trade has deep roots in American historyTrump’s tariff gambit: As allies prepare to strike back, a costly trade war loomsWill Trump’s tariffs boost the US economy? Don’t count on it

Robert Gehl, Ontario Research Chair of Digital Governance at York University, dives into the exciting realm of decentralized social media. He discusses the user migration from Twitter to alternatives like Mastodon and Bluesky, highlighting the benefits of user control and privacy. Gehl explores the challenges of decentralization, including governance and engagement, while addressing how these platforms are reshaping online interactions. He also reflects on the implications for free speech and the potential for fostering healthier digital communities.

Laura Hood, a Senior politics editor focused on European politics, is joined by Rolf Frankenberger, an expert on right-wing extremism from the University of Tübingen. They delve into the rising support for Germany's far-right AFD party, emphasizing its shift from Euroscepticism to nationalism anchored in anti-immigration rhetoric. The discussion highlights the historical roots of Völkisch nationalism, the growing urban-rural divide in political allegiance, and how societal shifts and figures like Elon Musk are influencing this alarming trend.

Quantum computers have the potential to solve big scientific problems that are beyond the reach of today’s most powerful supercomputers, such as discovering new antibiotics or developing new materials. But to achieve these breakthroughs, quantum computers will need to perform better than today’s best classical computers at solving real-world problems. And they’re not quite there yet. So what is still holding quantum computing back from becoming useful?We speak to quantum computing expert Daniel Lidar at the University of Southern California in the US about what problems scientists are still wrestling with when it comes to scaling up quantum computing, and how close they are to overcoming them.This episode was written and produced by Gemma Ware and Katie Flood with production assistance from Mend Mariwany and sound design by Michelle Macklem. Our theme music is by Neeta Sarl. Full credits for this episode are available. Sign up here for a free daily newsletter from The Conversation.If you like the show, please consider donating to The Conversation, which is an independent, not-for-profit news organisation. And please do rate and review the show wherever you listen.Further reading:What is quantum advantage? A quantum computing scientist explains an approaching milestone marking the arrival of extremely powerful computersWe’re getting closer to having practical quantum computers – here’s what they will be used forQuantum computers are like kaleidoscopes − why unusual metaphors help illustrate science and technology

Firefighters in Los Angeles continue to battle devastating wildfires that have killed at least 27 people and left thousands of homes destroyed. Today, we’re revisiting an interview we ran in late 2023 with Emily Lindsey, a paleoecologist who works at the La Brea tar pits archaeological site in Los Angeles, about a wildfire warning from southern California’s ice age history.The interview originally aired in November 2023. This episode was written and produced by Katie Flood. Sound design was by Eloise Stevens and Michelle Macklem. Full credits for this episode are available. Sign up here for a free daily newsletter from The Conversation.If you like the show, please consider donating to The Conversation, which is an independent, not-for-profit news organisation. And please do rate and review the show wherever you listen.Further reading:Human use of fire has produced an era of uncontrolled burning: Welcome to the PyroceneA changing climate, growing human populations and widespread fires contributed to the last major extinction event − can we prevent another?How Santa Ana winds fueled the deadly fires in Southern California