Counterpoint

Is there such a thing as the mind and if there is where is it? Do you believe in weird things? What will the world look like after humans? Will there still be life? There is a lot of plastic in the ocean and so far we don't have any method to remove to remove it. Why not?

Did you know that each year around 4.5 million people are bitten by venomous snakes resulting in 138,000 deaths? How can we stop that? Are the hand gestures that we use when speaking universal or do they differ from country to country? What happened when the first women in America to become dean of a medical school took her students to a clinical medical lecture and how important was Iceland in the second World War?

Have you heard of seafood slavery? Right now thousands of men are stuck on boats at seas, what will happen to them? How innovative is language and just how and why does it change? How did Ancient Rome treat outsiders and the various ethnic tribes surrounding it? How important are black swans to both European and Indigenous history?

Have you ever walked out of one room and into another and forgotten why you were there? Should we be planting more and more trees wherever there is a space or should we be thinking more carefully about where to put them? Are bees and other insects about to die out, never to return

Was the decline of the Roman Empire a very good thing for humanity? We can learn a lot about a population by what they flush down their toilets. Why are Americans so hesitant to engage in waste water studies? How can you argue well and why do you need to and why does the Japanese Navy have a Curry Friday? ?

How much have captives' or slaves influenced those who took them? It turns out, quite a lot! What makes someone a genius? High IQ or something else? Why do we think think that Africa didn't have scripts and what has it got to do with the fall of Carthage? Anyone for a glass of zesty lime green tree ant infused gin?

Did gunpowder change the world, especially the Medieval World? What is an emotion and why is it so complicated. The changing nature of loss aversion and poo. We generate a lot of it, what can we do with it?

Why is Iran joining the Shanghai Cooperation organisation? How easy is it to succumb to tyranny? The changing way wars will be fought and the remarkable story of Dr Alice Hamilton.

Right now it seems like everybody wants to be engaged with Southeast Asia, where does Australia fit in? Is longtermism a dangerous way to think? Who was Benjamin Jetsy and what does he have to do with the smallpox vaccine and a new citizen science project in Tasmania that is helping with conservation.

Does ASEAN have a position on Myanmar? Are you a fox or a hedgehog when it comes to globalization? What makes a good literary hoax and is the recent one in Spain harmless or not? Will our dogs survive if humans are no longer on the earth?