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Mike Rothschild is a journalist and author, focused on the intersections between internet culture and politics as seen through the dark glass of conspiracy theories. Since 2018, he has specialized in examining the QAnon conspiracy cult and is one of the first journalists to reveal its connections to past conspiracy theories. He is the author of the seminal work on QAnon, "The Storm Is Upon Us: How QAnon Became a Movement, Cult, and Conspiracy Theory of Everything.""We talk about QAnon's humble beginnings, it's meteoric rise and it's status after the 2020 presidential election... We also discuss conspiracy theories in general, as well as Bill Gates, the Reptoids, JFK, the attempted coup in Germany, the pervasive underlying thread of anti-Semitism, and of course, the infamous "Mattress Conspiracy."

Agustín Fuentes is a professor of anthropology at Princeton University. His research focuses on the biosocial, delving into the entanglement of biological systems with the social and cultural lives of humans, our ancestors, and a few of the other animals with whom humanity shares close relations.He has written many books, but we mostly discuss his latest one, which is called "Why we believe: Evolution and the Human Way of Being;" in it Professor Fuentes examines our capacity to believe.We also talk about the effects our minds have on our bodies and health, the genesis of our belief systems, the importance of travelling and education, and the enormous influence of figures, such as Joe Rogan, on public opinion.

Anil Seth is a professor of Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience at the University of Sussex, where he is also Co-Director of the Sackler Centre for Consciousness Science. His latest book Being You: A New Science of Consciousness, is a Sunday Times Top 10 Bestseller, a New Statesman Book of the Year, an Economist Book of the Year and a Guardian Science Book of the Year. His TED talk on consciousness has more than 13 million views and is one of TED’s most popular science talks. We talk about ChatGPT, the possibility of conscious machines, the illusory nature of reality and our ability to perceive it, as well as about his research on (human) consciousness as a controlled hallucination.

Bill Schutt is Professor Emeritus of biology at LIU Post and a research associate at the American Museum of Natural History. He is the author of Dark Banquet: Blood and The Curious Lives of the Blood-Feeding Creatures and Pump: A Natural History of the Heart, which is his latest book. In 2017 he published an astonishing book called Cannibalism: A Perfectly Natural History, which is what we discuss in this episode... We also talk about cannibalism's rise in contemporary Hollywood, Christopher Columbus, 2Pac and Keith Richards.Oh, and we can't get past the time Professor Schutt ate a woman's placenta while doing research for his book.

Dr. Lisa Sugiura is a Reader in Cybercrime and Gender at the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Portsmouth, Themes Strategic Innovation Fellow and the Deputy Director of the Cybercrime Awareness Clinic. Her research focuses on online deviance, and technology facilitated gender-based abuse and sexual violence. She has published on topics including the online pharmaceutical trade, online research ethics, and rape culture online. She is the author of the books: Respectable deviance and The incel rebellion: the rise of the manosphere and the virtual war against women.We talk about the Andrew Tate "phenomenon", different Manosphere groups, the Red and Black pill concepts, Incels and the dangers of (self-)indoctrination.

Join Professor Chris Stringer, Research Leader in Human Origins at The Natural History Museum London and Fellow of the Royal Society, as he discusses human evolution, the demise of the Neanderthals, genetic links to addictive behaviors, the challenges faced by early humans, cave paintings, and the positive image of Neanderthals.

The Partial Historians is a renowned podcast about ancient Roman history, hosted by historians dr. Fiona Radford and dr. Peta Greenfield, who discuss, spar, and laugh their way through different aspects of the Roman world...We talk about the first Roman Emperor's scandalous daughter, Julia the Elder, but also about sassy Roman parties, unforgivable affairs and the endless cycle of the struggle for power.

Edward Slingerland is Distinguished University Scholar and Professor of Philosophy at the University of British Columbia, where he also holds appointments in the Departments of Psychology and Asian Studies. He is an expert on early Chinese thought, comparative religion and digital humanities. Besides numerous academic books, translations and edited volumes, Professor Slingerland is the author of the best-selling book "Drunk - How we sipped, Danced and stumbled our Way to Civilization", which explores the evolutionary and civilizational importance of alcohol.We talk about why humans love to get sloshed, "beer goggles," the beer over bread hypothesis, different drinking culture(s), the depiction of booze in books and film, and much more...

Toby Jones has just finished his PhD at Leiden University in the Netherlands, where he is also teaching. His work focuses on the irruption of the Mongols onto the larger world scene focusing on their invasion of the Persianate world. The topic of his research is ‘Loyalty in the Turco-Mongol World' - through it he considers the Mongol invasions and their impact on the cultures around them.We talk about Chinggis Khan, Mongol feasts, Conquest, Ruthlessness, their Sense of Humour and the Role of Women in Mongol Society... as well as a very unlikely, Medieval James Bond.

Bill McGuire is a Professor Emeritus of Geophysical and Climate Hazards at University College London, a co-director of the New Weather Institute and was a contributor to the 2012 IPCC report on climate change and extreme events.His books include A Guide to the End of the World: Everything you Never Wanted to Know and Waking the Giant: How a Changing Climate Triggers Earthquakes, Tsunamis and Volcanoes. In his latest book Hothouse Earth: an Inhabitant’s Guide, Professor McGuire explains the science behind the climate crisis and presents an honest picture of the world we’re going to leave to our kids and grandkids…We talk about the unknown dangers of Climate Breakdown, the Planet's Tipping Points, Denialism, COP27, Doomerism and a possible way out of the planetary mess we've created.