The Forum

Bridget Kendal is joined by Professor in Water Management Arjen Hoekstra to discuss the idea that we urgently need to change industrial and agricultural practices to reduce our water footprint and avert a global crisis. Esther de Jong specialises in water usage in the developing world. She believes water use and gender are closely related. Also joining the discussion is scientific diver Henry Kaiser who is inspired by waters beneath Antarctica to create haunting soundscapes.Photo: Henry Kaiser working under the ice at Arrival Heights, beneath Ross Sea ice near McMurdo Station, Antarctica (Credit: Rob Robbins)

Shyness and introversion are both very common human characteristics, but why do they have so many different guises? Rajan Datar asks the developmental psychologist Louis Schmidt, the behavioural scientist Sanna Balsari-Palsule and the cultural historian Joe Moran.(Photo: A lady hides behind a fan. Credit: Shan Pillay)

Turmoil is all around us – in politics, in our mental health and in fantasy fiction, which often seems to excite our hunger for nightmare scenarios.With threats of terrorism, environmental catastrophe and political pandemonium around the globe amplified by modern communications, Samira Ahmed is joined by psychiatrist Mina Fazel, political scientist Daniel Drezner, and horror writer and Zombie expert Max Brooks to explore how we might cope with real or perceived disaster and disorder and examine whether the apparent chaos of the modern world really is greater than ever before.(Photo: People wave national flags as they march to react against a military coup attempt, in Ankara, in July 2016. Credit: Getty Images)

This week, The Forum delves into the subterranean world of life underground – from the forgotten tunnels and catacombs of our cities to life found in the stifling sunless world two miles below the Earth’s surface. Might humans one day retreat underground if living above ground becomes too tough? Bridget Kendall with Social Geographer Dr. Bradley L. Garrett, Zoologist Dr. Gaetan Borgonie and Isotope Geochemist Professor Barbara Sherwood Lollar.Photo: Car Quarry image (credit: Bradley L. Garrett)

As fire risks change due to climate change, how should we deal with fire to protect human health and property without compromising the integrity of our environment? Bridget Kendall asks the geologist Andrew Scott, the fire ecologist Jennifer Balch and the biologist David Bowman.(Photo: A fire tornado in California, USA. Credit: Getty Images)

Anxiety is a universal human emotion that has been described as the price-tag on freedom. It is the price we pay for a brain that can anticipate the future. But when anxiety spirals out of control it can take over our lives as we battle against phobias, panic attacks, dread and debilitating fear. So how is anxiety triggered and constructed in the brain? Is the almond-shaped amygdala the seat of fear or are our anxieties constructed in other parts of the brain? And for those made miserable by anxiety, how best can it be treated? Bridget Kendall explores the biology of anxiety and some unexpected approaches to treatment, including friendship benches and therapy horses. She is joined by Joseph LeDoux, author of Anxiety and professor of Neuroscience and director of the Emotional Brain Institute, New York University; Dr Dixon Chibanda, a consultant Psychiatrist in Zimbabwe and pioneer of the Friendship Bench; Susanna Forrest, a British authority on the horse and author of The Age of Horse: An Equine Journey through Human History.(Photo: A young man holding his head in his hands)

Our lives are increasingly cluttered by images, not just in the world around us, but on advertising bill-boards, television screens, and even on our mobile phones. So how are we to process this barrage of information and make sense of the visual world?How can today’s designers help us and how are we to avoid image-overload? Bridget Kendall talks to three people who help us navigate the increasingly crowded world of visual imagery: Alan Kitching, one of the world’s foremost practitioners of letterpress typographic design and printmaking, Aowen Jin, a Chinese-born artist who leads museum tours in the dark and Roma Agrawal, a structural engineer who spent six years designing London’s skyscraper The Shard.(Image: Edition Print, 2012 by Alan Kitching)

A small toy balloon floating free into the sky. A giant hot air balloon filled with passengers peering down at the ground. Classic images, but what about the huge balloons now being developed to help us explore outer space? Or the tiny balloons which bio engineers inflate inside your body to help blood surge through your veins? Or the extraordinary balloonomania that spread across Northern Europe in the late 18th century? Bridget Kendall explores the colourful history of the balloon and its even more intriguing future with guests:Debbie Fairbrother, Chief of NASA’s Balloon Programme Office.Professor Claudio Capelli, cardiovascular engineer from the Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children in London.Fiona Stafford, Professor of literature from Somerville College, University of Oxford.Photo: NASA’s super pressure balloon is designed for long-duration flights at mid-latitudes to provide scientists and engineers with a means to inexpensively access the ’near-space’ environment for conducting research and technology test missions. The balloon’s operational float altitude is 110,000 feet (33.5 kilometers) (Credit: NASA/Bill Rodman)

Everyone likes to be alone sometimes, but we also all spend much of our lives collaborating and sharing things with others. Many argue that on this increasingly crowded planet, we need to master the art of sharing much better if we are to survive and flourish. So what makes us want to share new ideas and pass on our experience? Bridget Kendall discusses three very kinds of sharing - digital information, genes and national infrastructure. She is joined by Jonah Berger, marketing professor at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in the United States; Connie Jeffery, assistant professor of Biological Sciences and head of the Jeffery Lab at the University of Illinois in Chicago; Dr Elham Ibrahim, commissioner for Infrastructure and Energy for the African Union in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.(Photo: The Golden Gate Bridge, in California, provides a means to sharing infrastructure. Credit: Getty Images)

New ideas about volcanoes, earthquakes and other geological processes that both enrich and threaten us. Jack Stewart is joined by four leading Earth scientists in the city of Yokohama at the 2016 Goldschmidt Conference - volcanologists Tamsin Mather and Michihiko Nakamura, plate tectonics expert Carl Spandler and seismologist and Nature magazine editor John VanDecar. (Photo: Mount Fuji in Japan. Credit: Getty Images)