Druid's Exchange

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

– Arthur C. Clarke

16/02/2025

Artificial Intelligence

1hr 18min

It’s in the news, it pops up in your facebook feed, it’s a topic of conversation at weddings, family dinners and when you meet your mates for pints at the weekend. You can hardly turn your head these days without coming across A.I. or ‘Artificial Intelligence’. There’s a lot of hype around it, there are literal billions of dollars exchanging hands investing in it but depending on who you ask “what is AI?”, you will get many different answers. So rather than getting bogged down in the specifics, discussing particulars of the technology and it’s current state (which will likely be far more advanced before too long!), in this episode we take a journalistic approach to covering the topic and discuss the who, what, where, when, why and the how.

Mr C kicks off proceedings by setting our starting point with arguably the inventor of AI, Alan Turing, in the early 1950s. And it has been part of our culture and arts for nearly as long, to wonder about the possible benefits of this technology, including Rosie the family robot from the cartoon The Jetsons. So it seems the arrival of AI has been inevitable, but it is surprising and worth noting just how quickly it is developing and advancing. We touch back on this specific idea again later in the episode. Bringing us to the present day and how the general public interacts with these new AI systems, Mr Beard gives an overview on Large Language Models and how such a “simple” concept of predicting the next word in a sentence can result in surprisingly advanced and intricate content generation.

This brings us to one of the key topics we cover in this episode, that being the idea of “intelligence”. Interacting and studying these AI systems is making humans reconsider what we view and value as intelligent and even closer to our hearts, creative. One area that has already benefitted from the advancements of AI and its intelligence is in the medical field. Mr Beard mentions the AlphaFold project from DeepMind and how it discovered over 200 million different protein folded structures in just a couple of months (for which it won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry) – something that would have taken a number of lifetimes for humans to reach this level (if even it would have been possible for the human mind!). Layering on top of this, Mr C explains how scientists are using AI to identify microscopic cancer cells and tumor markers circulating in patients’ bodies. The medical breakthroughs seem to be only around the corner thanks to this technology.

Another accomplishment that AI has brought about is mapping the 50 million neural connections of a fruit fly’s brain. A key ability of AI and how it is able to produce these results is that AI doesn’t “think like a human”. It is a common goal that is bandied around whether AI can ‘think like a human yet’. But it is clear that we should set our sights much higher, start from the ground up and we will be able to invent something much more advanced. One area however where the human mind and soul still has a leg up over machines and AI is creativity. AI can create text and images and even music, but are these interesting to the human soul? The human condition allows us to make emotional connections with each other through art, connecting on a deeper level that machines cannot match (for now!).

It is not all rosie and utopic however as we see when we look at the Rohingya genocide in Myanmar and examine facebooks part in spreading fear and hate. The social media platform’s aim and goal was to simply increase user engagement, but understanding that fear and hate generate much more attention than peace and love, this benign goal was pursued at all costs resulting in hundreds of thousands of deaths. This brings our conversation to the important topic of ethics – who is to blame when an AI system causes mistrust, death and destruction? Similarly with our music examples, who is the rightful owner of a piece of music that was generated almost entirely using AI? These are questions we will need to battle with as the technology develops further and becomes even more intertwined in our lives. While software developers and engineers invented this technology, we may need more philosophers in the future to help us live side by side with AI.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a field of computer science focused on creating systems capable of performing tasks that typically require human intelligence. The concept of AI dates back to the 1950s, when pioneers like Alan Turing and John McCarthy laid the groundwork for what would become a revolutionary technological field. Turing’s famous question, “Can machines think?” sparked the idea that machines could be built to simulate human-like intelligence, a notion that led to the birth of AI research. Early AI systems were limited, often relying on pre-programmed rules and algorithms, but advancements in computing power and data analysis have since greatly transformed the field.

In recent years, AI has made significant strides, from machine learning algorithms that allow computers to learn from vast datasets to deep learning models that mimic the brain’s neural networks. AI has already begun to permeate many aspects of our lives, from autonomous vehicles and personalized recommendations to healthcare, finance, and entertainment. As AI continues to evolve, it promises to revolutionize industries, enhance productivity, and tackle complex challenges, such as climate change and disease prevention. However, it also raises profound ethical and societal questions. Will AI outpace human intelligence, and what will that mean for jobs, privacy, and personal freedoms?

AI challenges our traditional understanding of intelligence and creativity. Historically, these traits have been seen as uniquely human, but AI systems are increasingly demonstrating capabilities that blur the lines. Can an AI system be truly creative, or is it simply synthesizing patterns from existing data? Furthermore, as AI takes on more roles traditionally reserved for humans, it forces us to reconsider what it means to be intelligent and creative. The future of AI holds incredible promise but also uncertainty, and it will undoubtedly continue to shape our world in ways we are only beginning to understand. The evolution of AI is not just a technological revolution—it is a philosophical one, questioning the very nature of thought, understanding, and human potential.

Found something interesting discussed in this episode? Chances are, we found it interesting too and we went off and did a bunch of reading online about it.

So why not dive further into the topic! Here are some handy links we think you might like.

A large language model (LLM) is a type of machine learning model designed for natural language processing tasks such as language generation. LLMs are language models with many parameters, and are trained with self-supervised learning on a vast amount of text.

The largest and most capable LLMs are generative pretrained transformers (GPTs), the most famous being ChatGPT by OpenAI. Modern models can be fine-tuned for specific tasks or guided by prompt engineering. Most of the hype you hear about AI in the news these days stem from the main 5 LLMs – ChatGPT (OpenAI), Llama (Meta), Gemini (Google), Claude (Anthropic) and DeepSeek (DeepSeek).

For more information on exactly how LLMs work, check out this great explainer video from IBM Technology.

AlphaFold is an artificial intelligence program developed by DeepMind, a subsidiary of Alphabet, which performs predictions of protein structure. It is designed using deep learning techniques. Over 40 years, scientists discovered 140,000 different protein structures. With AlphaFold over the course of a couple months, they were able to discover over 200,000,000 protein structures. This has already led to a vaccine for malaria, synthetic antivenom to cure poisonous snake bites and big advances with diseases like schizophrenia and brain disorders.

Demis Hassabis and John Jumper of Google DeepMind shared one half of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, awarded “for protein structure prediction,” while the other half went to David Baker “for computational protein design.” Hassabis and Jumper had previously won the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences and the Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research in 2023 for their leadership of the AlphaFold project.

To get an in dept view of how AlphaFold works and the scientists and engineers behind the project, watch this great video by the fantastic YouTube channel Veritasium.

In 2021, scientists made a significant breakthrough in mapping the entire brain of a fruit fly, achieving a level of detail never seen before. This remarkable feat was accomplished by using advanced imaging techniques, allowing the researchers to capture the intricate networks of neurons within the fruit fly’s brain. The challenge, however, lies in the overwhelming amount of data generated from these scans, which led to the incorporation of artificial intelligence for efficient analysis.

The role of AI in this process was pivotal, enabling the team to automate the identification of neural circuits, something that would have been incredibly time-consuming if done manually. By employing machine learning, the researchers were able to speed up the mapping process and identify key areas that influence behavior and cognition in the fly.

For more information on this breakthrough, read the USA National Institutes of Health (NIH) article on the matter here.

The Rohingya massacre in Myanmar, which unfolded in 2017, marked a tragic and brutal chapter in the country’s history. Tens of thousands of Rohingya Muslims were killed, and hundreds of thousands were forced to flee their homes, seeking refuge in neighboring Bangladesh. While the violence itself was devastating, the role of social media, particularly Facebook, in exacerbating the crisis cannot be overlooked. In the years leading up to the violence, Facebook became a platform for spreading hate speech, misinformation, and incitement to violence against the Rohingya. This rhetoric fueled ethnic and religious tensions and contributed to the Myanmar military’s campaign of violence.

Facebook’s role in the crisis has drawn widespread criticism, with the platform being used to amplify hate messages that spread quickly and widely, reaching millions in Myanmar and beyond. In the aftermath of the massacre, many human rights organizations and experts have pointed to social media’s role in enabling the escalation of violence, highlighting the platform’s failure to effectively moderate harmful content. The crisis in Myanmar serves as a stark reminder of the power social media holds in shaping narratives, influencing public opinion, and fueling real-world violence.

To read more about this devastating massacre and in particular facebooks role in it, check out this PBS News article.

There is real trepidation around the use of AI in music because it evokes so many questions about one, the legitimacy of using it to produce art in the form of music that has to this point been solely a human emotional and artistic expression.

AI can’t evoke human emotion surely? This video challenges this fundamental question and it is starting to make musicians (particularly this guy) uneasy that AI has gotten so good now, that it can and will challenge human artists and the feeling of technology replacing humans in many fields including creative fields is viewed as a threat.

Two, if AI is used to generate artwork like images and paintings, to music, will the human artist retain any IP on the product? There is certainly a grey area here, when it will come to legal rights to content or art. The same type of issues arose when the synthesiser was first developed and introduced in the 70’s and became widespread in the 80’s.

Enjoyed this episode? Hopefully you found some of the additional information on this page interesting or useful. Why not check out one of our other episodes – we think you will like them too!  

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“Good communication is just as stimulating as black coffee, and just as hard to sleep after.”

— Anne Morrow Lindbergh, author and pilot

10/11/2024

Caffeine

1hr 17min

We kick this episode off by defining some terms and highlighting the fact that caffeine is not the same as coffee and tea. Caffeine is a psychoactive stimulant and is found in more things than just coffee or tea, such as chocolate. To get to the root of how caffeine works, we need to look at adenosine. Mr Beard gives a quick overview of ATP or adenosine triphosphate, and how our bodies use up ATM over the course of the day, releasing adenosine and leading to a ‘sleep pressure’. Caffeine interrupts the action of adenosine in the brain and staves off this sleep pressure to keep us awake.

Mr C goes on to go through some of the health benefits of caffeine, such as being linked to reducing the prevalence and onset of Alzheimer’s disease, certain cancers, diabetes, and even tooth cavities. And in more immediately apparent benefits, caffeine can boost muscle efficiency and reduce perceived level of effort when working out.

But as with most things in live, there are two sides to the coin, and there are health downsides to caffeine consumption as well. Caffeine can have a big impact on sleep. Even if you feel like you can fall asleep easily after drinking coffee, due to the half life of caffeine, the quality of your sleep will be impacted by caffeine in your system. Some tips from our hosts on how to balance your caffeine intake over the course of the day is to skip the first coffee in the morning and replace is with half a grapefruit. The compound naringin acts as a slow release on the caffeine to smooth it out over the day.

Our conversation moves on then to discussing the origins of coffee – check out the further reading points below for more info on this. Mr Beard floats the idea that coffee and it’s sobering and stimulating effects, replacing the ‘morning beer’ could have had a significant effect on  the direction of human civilisation. One thing to come from this was Penny Universities, where all walks of life could pay a penny to enter coffee houses in the 17th centuries and engage in intellectual conversations and debate.

Mr C tells us of Malcolm Gladwell and Rick Rubin’s podcast where they went into the sleep patterns and caffeine use of orchestra players, and how the amount of sleep the musicians get on a nightly basis can be correlated to their proficiency and ultimate career success. And intertwined with this is caffeine’s effect on dopamine. Caffeine slows the reabsorption of dopamine, leaving more available in the brain which can help with memory and in particular learning new motor skills (such as those required when playing a musical instrument in an orchestra).

This brings our conversation to tea and its origins in China, and the 1840s when Robert Fortune working for the British Empire stole tea from China. Over the course of 3 years, this 6 foot Scottish botanist travelled around China (illegally) documenting the growing, harvesting and brewing techniques of tea. He then left the country with a ship full of tea plants and seeds, along with some local Chinese tea farmers, travelling to India where he set up plantations all with the aim of weakening the monopoly China had with the British Empire and the rest of the world when it came to tea. This chapter would pave the way for Britian flooding China with opium, getting at least 10% of the population addicted, a number of wars and even redrawing international borders (such as Hong Kong).

To close out this episode, both hosts recount their recent experiments quitting caffeine, both through the processes of going cold turkey and winding down over the course of a month. The withdrawal symptoms included persistent headaches, tiredness, body aches and pains, dehydration and irritability. Going back to coffee and tea after the experiment was certainly welcomed, but it provided a new and interesting perspective on caffeine. The overarching lesson learned (once again) was everything in balance.

Caffeine is a central nervous system stimulant and is the world’s most widely consumed psychoactive drug. There are several ways that caffeine has an effect on us, the main one being its relationship with adenosine. Caffeine also stimulates certain portions of the autonomic nervous system, but this effect is reduced after regular use (ie. a tolerance builds up).

The autonomic nervous system is a control system that acts largely unconsciously and regulates bodily functions, such as the heart rate, digestion, respiratory rate, pupillary response, urination, and sexual arousal. This system is the primary mechanism in control of the fight-flight-freeze response.

Doses of about 10g of caffeine is toxic, and in it’s dried form (which is a bitter white powder) about one tablespoon would typically kill you. Whereas doses of up to 400mg are considered safe, which is about 4 cups of coffee. It also comes with some health protective benefits, and may help with a long list of serious aliments and diseases such as cancer, Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis, liver disease and so on. But we must remember the timeless adage – everything in moderation.

Found something interesting discussed in this episode? Chances are, we found it interesting too and we went off and did a bunch of reading online about it.

So why not dive further into the topic! Here are some handy links we think you might like.

The coffee bean originated in Ethiopia, where it was eaten, along with the leaves of the plant. In the 15th century, it was exported to Yemen where it was first brewed and consumed as a drink. From Yemen, it spread over the Middle East and North Africa. In the 16th century, it arrived in Venice, Italy. 

The Catholic Church didn’t like it and considered it exotic and suspicious, calling it the “bitter invention of Satan.” The local clergy condemned coffee when it came to Venice in 1615. The controversy was so great that Pope Clement VIII was asked to intervene. He decided to taste the beverage for himself before making a decision, and found the drink so satisfying that he gave it papal approval. From there, it spread to the rest of Europe and the wider world.

For an animated history of coffee, check out this video.

Tea is originally from China and has a deep tradition there for the past couple thousand years. While tea was present in very small amounts in some other countries (such as India and in the Middle East), China was by far the biggest exporter of tea in the world. 

That all changed in the late 1840s when Robert Fortune went to China to steal tea. This started a particularly ugly chapter in the international relations between Britain and China, which included a number of ‘opium wars’, the separation of Hong Kong from China (to being under British control), and eventually on a wider landscape the Boston Tea Party and the American War of Independence.

For an animated history of tea, check out this video.

The basic unit of energy for every cell in the body is called ATP (Adenosine Triphosphate). When you eat food, the calories from this food are converted into ATP, which is a form of energy that the cells can use for everything from contracting muscles, to proper function of your immune and respiratory systems. When this ATP energy is used by your cells, it releases the molecule adenosine. Adenosine binds to particular receptors in the brain and makes you feel tired and drowsy.  

So over the course of the day, your levels of adenosine build up as your body uses energy and this is what makes you want to go to sleep at the end of each day. Caffeine is similarly shaped to adenosine and blocks it from binding with the receptors in your brain. This prevents your body from feeling tired.

For more information on adenosine and understanding your sleep drive, check out this article by the SleepFoundation.org.

Of course, sleep and caffeination are inextricably linked. There have been multiple meta-analyses conducted on the effect caffeine consumption has on sleep efficiency, latency (meaning how long the onset of sleep takes) and multiphasic sleep patterns. Over the course of our experimentation with caffeine reduction and withdrawal, interesting results showed an increase in REM phase sleep, and consequently more vivid and cinematic dreams. This being the dream state or final phase of our sleep cycle, a marked change in the recall of our dreams showed that by moderating caffeine consumption, a full restful sleep cycle can be achieved, which has multiple clear benefits across a host of functions in the body. 

Additionally it is curious that caffeine actually has properties that help to reduce down by up to 48% the onset of brain related disorders like Parkinsons and certain cancers. The curious nature of this and its effect on sleep quality, generates more questions than answers. Sleep is essential to cleansing daily buildup of metabolic waste in the brain, and impaired sleep due to over stimulus using caffeine appears to set up a perpetuating and compounding cycle of sleep deprivation.

For more information on how your sleep can be affected by caffeine, check out this article by USA National Library of Medicine.

Johns Hopkins conducted a study that reviewed over 170 years of caffeine withdrawal research, and the researchers identified five clusters of common withdrawal symptoms: headache; fatigue or drowsiness; dysphoric mood including depression and irritability; difficulty concentrating; and flu-like symptoms of nausea, vomiting and muscle pain or stiffness.  In experimental studies, 50 percent of people experienced headache and 13 percent had clinically significant distress or functional impairment — for example, severe headache and other symptoms incompatible with working.  

Typically, onset of symptoms occurred 12 to 24 hours after stopping caffeine, with peak intensity between one and two days, and for a duration of two to nine days.  In general, the incidence or severity of symptoms increased with increases in daily dose, but abstinence from doses as low as 100 milligrams per day, or about one small cup of coffee, also produced symptoms.

For more information on caffeine withdrawals and what you can to reduce them, check out this article by healthline.com.

Enjoyed this episode? Hopefully you found some of the additional information on this page interesting or useful. Why not check out one of our other episodes – we think you will like them too!  

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“The goal of life is living in agreement with nature.”

— Zeno, Greek philosopher

10/09/2024

Nature

1hr 02min

In this episode, we talk about our relationship with nature and how it can keep us healthy and happy. At the same time however, we seem to be drifting away from nature and considering ourselves separate to it, viewing it as something to be forgotten as we race towards global urbanisation.

Mr Beard kicks off the conversation with Shinrin-yoku, a Japanese practice of “forest bathing”. Mindfully spending time in forests has been shown to improve both our mental and physical health. Another term for your Druids Exchange vocab list is ‘Friluftsliv’, a term to describe Norway’s favourite outdoor past time – being active in nature spending time doing anything from hiking, skiing, ice-fishing to just enjoying a weekend in a cabin in the woods.

Delving further into nature on an acoustic level, Mr C discusses The Sonic Bloom. A natural phenomenon which links birdsong to the day/night cycle of plants. The morning chirping of birds literally ‘wakes’ plants up and kicks off their photosynthesis, thus in part feeding the rest of the planet.

Our two hosts discuss human’s part in nature and how we are part of a much bigger system of interdependent parts. This idea is often forgotten, and as a species we seem to be sleep-walking into a world where we can no longer readily avail of the wonders nature provides for us. James Lovelock and his Gaia Theory gets a mention.

And to round out this episode, we recount our recent attempt at climbing Mount Brandon. The climb to the summit itself was unsuccessful – nature and the weather had its own plans, which were incompatible with our “schedule”. It served as a good reminder however that nature does not simply bow down to human ego, and how we should consider the bigger picture instead of trying to force our will on everything.

Numerous studies in the U.S. and around the world are exploring the health benefits of spending time outside in nature, green spaces, and, specifically, forests. Recognizing those benefits, in 1982, the Japanese Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries even coined a term for it: shinrin-yoku. It means taking in the forest atmosphere or “forest bathing.” 

It comes as no surprise that the Japanese people show a deep connection with nature, given that 70% of Japan is covered in forests. Researchers found that forest bathing trips significantly decreased the scores for anxiety, depression, anger, confusion and fatigue.

For more information on shinrin-yoku and specifically how it benefits our health, visit the Japan.travel website.

Found something interesting discussed in this episode? Chances are, we found it interesting too and we went off and did a bunch of reading online about it.

So why not dive further into the topic! Here are some handy links we think you might like.

Their passion for nature cuts to the heart of what Scandinavians call friluftsliv. The expression literally translates as “open-air living” and was popularised in the 1850s by the Norwegian playwright and poet, Henrik Ibsen, who used the term to describe the value of spending time in remote locations for spiritual and physical wellbeing.

Today, the phrase is used more broadly by Swedes, Norwegians and Danes to explain anything from lunchtime runs in the forest, to commuting by bike (or on cross-country skis when the snow falls) to joining friends at a lakeside sauna (often followed by a chilly dip in the water) or simply relaxing in a mountain hut. 

Spending time in nature is known to have many benefits for health and wellbeing. Having access to natural spaces such as beaches, parks and woodlands is associated with reduced anxiety and depression, improved sleep, reduced levels of obesity and cardiovascular disease, and improved wellbeing.

To read what the Norwegian Tourism Board says about this favourite past time, visit their website.

The Sonic Bloom (not to be confused with sonic boom) describes how bird chirps or songs wake up and stimulate plant life normally an hour before sunrise.

Us humans have always loved the sound of bird song, it has undoubtedly inspired our own music and creativity over the millenia. Not only is it soothing and a distinct indicator of a thriving biosphere, the acoustic resonance that a chorus of bird chirps provide, buzzes the plant life and notifies them that the sun is coming and to wake up after their dark cycle. 

Another reason why birdsong is very relaxing to humans is because birds won’t sing if there is any danger or predators nearby. Therefore, birdsong implies the absence of danger/predators and we pick up on that subconsciously. 

There was a really interesting study done regarding the impact and effect of birdsong vs urban sounds (such as traffic), published by Nature in 2022. The study found that traffic noise soundscapes were associated with an increase in depression. And for birdsong, depression decreased after exposure and anxiety and paranoia significantly decreased after exposure to birdsong.

Today more than half of humanity lives in cities and is exposed to this new evolutionary context. This chapter presents the elements needed to understand the evolutionary potential of humans living in cities, focusing on traits affecting health.

After exploring the various benefits of being out in nature; mood, energy level, immune system function, we can begin to see that a lot of the ailments or flip side effects to these positive states that are shown medically and visibly, have their roots in human beings but various animal species being disconnected from the environments in which they ‘evolved’.

For more information on this fascinating and rapidly evolving field of research, visit the Oxford Academic.

James Lovelock wrote about and conceived of the ‘Gaia Theory’. In this theory, Lovelock talks about Earth being alive and how the biosphere acts in concert to provide the atmosphere that we breathe, the oxygenation of the oceans, the mysteries of the forests and what they do for all terrestrial life. The planet and nature works on cycles, and feedbacks from thousands of processes and mechanisms, from biological and chemical to the physical blowing of the wind and ocean circulation.

As discussed in this episode, we must remind ourselves that we are very much part of nature, rather than something separate and independent to it. As such, we are part of this intricate biosphere and our actions have effects on the rest of nature, as well as the rest of nature having a direct effect on us and our lives in it.

For more on the Gaia Theory, read this detailed report from Harvard University.

Mount Brandon, located in Co. Kerry, is the third highest peak in Ireland standing at 952 metres. The mountain, and range, is named after Saint Brendan, and is the end of a Christian pilgrimage trail known as Cosán na Naomh.

Brandon takes its name from Saint Brendan the Navigator, or Bréanainn, who is said to have been born in what is now County Kerry in 484 AD, and is chiefly known for his legendary voyage in a boat of wood and leather to discover the “Isle of the Blessed”, also called Saint Brendan’s Island. In the story of Brendan’s life, he spent three days fasting on the mountain before his voyage, was visited by an angel, and experienced a vision of “a great land to the west”.

Mount Brandon itself is in the middle of a long and high ridge known as the Brandon Group, which runs north–south for 10 kilometres across the width of the Dingle peninsula. As well as Mount Brandon, the Brandon Group ridge has seven other major classified peaks, including the similarly named Brandon Peak (840m), Benagh 822m), and Faha Ridge (809m), among others.

If you were interested in climbing Mount Brandon, there are many guided tours that can help reach the summit.

Enjoyed this episode? Hopefully you found some of the additional information on this page interesting or useful. Why not check out one of our other episodes – we think you will like them too!  

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“If an animal does something, we call it instinct; if we do the same thing for the same reason, we call it intelligence.”

— Will Cuppy, literary critic

15/09/2021

Animal Intelligence

1hr 34min

In this episode of Druid’s Exchange podcast, this pair of advanced talking monkeys enter into a topic on ‘animal intelligence’. Starting off, how do us humans define intelligence and how do we compare to the rest of the animal kingdom? Between psychological and scientific based hypotheses from Dr. Howard Gardner and his ‘multiple (8) intelligences’ to Dr. Rupert Sheldrake a Biochemist from Britain and his hypothesis known as ‘Morphogenic Resonance’, it appears no intelligent human has yet come to explain the peculiarities of intelligence and the complexity of animal conscious thought and behaviour, and that’s what is so intriguing and elusive about such a conversation. 

Listeners will be treated to fascinating discussions about the crazy abilities of the Octopus and the mad and wonderful life of Raccoons. The more the episode goes on, it seems like humans drop further down the ladder of impressive animal traits when compared to most highly specialised critters. This feeds all the way into the fascinating subject of ‘swarm (group) intelligence’ as seen in shoaling fish, flocking birds, stampeding Bison or complexity of an ant colony. The awareness, kinesthetic and sometimes telepathic nature of events in the animal world like these do little more than astound you, and then some. We hope you enjoy this episode and it’s a chance to put your Vagus nerves to the test.

Some animals are smarter than other animals, and humans are smarter than all animals. We can all agree on this for the most part. However, our egos often make this difference, the difference between ‘human smart’ and ‘animal smart’, much larger than it might actually be. After some consideration, we can clearly see that some animals are very intelligent, and in some aspects much more intelligent than humans.

Check out this great panel discussion where a professor of psychology, a professor of biological sciences, a neuroscientist and a biologist discuss animal intelligence, starting from tiny ‘bird brain’ neurons right up to 100,000 strong animal swarms and flocks.

Found something interesting discussed in this episode? Chances are, we found it interesting too and we went off and did a bunch of reading online about it.

So why not dive further into the topic! Here are some handy links we think you might like.

Professor and psychologist Howard Gardner developed the theory of ‘multiple intelligences’, whereby you can subdivide intelligence into 8 intelligences: (1) Visual Spatial, (2) Logical Mathematical, (3) Linguistic Verbal, (4) Musical, (5) Interpersonal or group, (6) Kinesthetic, (7) Intrapersonal and (8) Naturalistic.

The theory posits that while a person might be particularly strong in a specific area, such as musical intelligence, he or she most likely possesses a range of abilities. For example, an individual might be strong in verbal, musical, and naturalistic intelligence.

This theory has gotten a lot of criticism from both psychologists and educators. These critics argue that Gardner’s definition of intelligence is too broad and that his eight different “intelligences” simply represent talents, personality traits, and abilities, also there is little empirical evidence to show this.

If you look at how psychologists define intelligence, these talents, traits or abilities would be classified as different ‘intelligences’. This shows the incredible complexity of this subject and a field of study that is getting more sophisticated in analysing and forming general explanations through observation of humans. For more information on this theory, visit simplypsychology.org.

The idea of morphic resonance, proposed by Rupert Sheldrake in 1982, forms some ideas around the quantum nature of how the entire biosphere interacts citing Lovelock’s Gaia theory.

“The idea of mysterious telepathy-type interconnections between organisms and of collective memories within species” and accounts for phantom limbs, how dogs know when their owners are coming home, and how people know when someone is staring at them.

Morphic resonance is not accepted by the scientific community and Sheldrake’s proposals relating to it have been widely criticised. Critics cite a lack of evidence for morphic resonance and inconsistencies between its tenets and data from genetics, embryology, neuroscience, and biochemistry. What is very interesting about this is that it draws on fields of science outside of these mentioned above, and is trying to bridge the gap in the same way as Einstein and Hawking spent their life’s work on a unifying theory between Newtonian and Quantum physics disciplines.

For more information on Morphic Resonance and Rupert Sheldrake, check out his website.

Swarm intelligence is the collective behavior of decentralized, self-organized systems, natural or artificial.

Swarm Intelligence systems consist typically of a population of simple agents interacting locally with one another and with their environment. The inspiration often comes from nature, especially biological systems. The agents follow very simple rules, and although there is no centralized control structure dictating how individual agents should behave, local, and to a certain degree random, interactions between such agents lead to the emergence of “intelligent” global behavior, unknown to the individual agents. 

Examples of swarm intelligence in natural systems include ant colonies, bee colonies, bird flocking, hawks hunting, animal herding, bacterial growth, fish schooling and microbial intelligence. For more information on swarm intelligence, go read this great article by The New York Times.

Octopuses are soft-bodied, eight-limbed molluscs of the order Octopoda. The order consists of some 300 species and is grouped within the class Cephalopoda with squids, cuttlefish, and nautiloids. Like other cephalopods, an octopus is bilaterally symmetric with two eyes and a beaked mouth at the center point of the eight limbs. The soft body can radically alter its shape, enabling octopuses to squeeze through small gaps (as small as their eyeballs). 

Octopuses have a complex nervous system and excellent sight, and are among the most intelligent and behaviourally diverse of all invertebrates. Almost alien in nature, they split from humans on the evolutionary path around 500 million years ago, but continued to evolve all this time. For a fascinating video on the biology of the octopus, check out this video on YouTube.

The vagus nerve is correlated with capacity to regulate stress responses and can be influenced by breathing, its increase through meditation and yoga likely contribute to resilience and the mitigation of mood and anxiety symptoms. In reptiles and insects the vagus nerve has minimal shielding or lipid protection which is believed to have a net negative effect for the nervous system to radiative forcing. 

Humans and other advanced organisms possess this lipid shield which protects the Vagus nerve which allows a more heightened/stable emotional response which feeds into a species group/herd mentality and ultimately a collaborative community focused intelligence.

For more information on the vagus nerve, check out this article on the US NIH website.

Enjoyed this episode? Hopefully you found some of the additional information on this page interesting or useful. Why not check out one of our other episodes – we think you will like them too!  

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“Music is life itself.”

— Louis Armstrong, musician

30/06/2021

Music

1hr 40min

This is an episode of two halves – the first half takes the form of an interview with Mr Beard asking Mr C about his new band ‘New Ceremony’ and his musical career, and the second half is more a general chat about music.

MC C opens the show by defining terms and clarifies what makes a rock band “progressive”. We learn the music genre has evolved a lot since the days of Johnny Cash, Elvis and The Beatles. Both the musical style and instruments played by New Ceremony cover a wide range from jazz to funk to motown, while the instruments enlisted range from harmonicas to synthesizers and everything in-between. 

This ethos of ‘anything goes’ informs their live performances as well as their studio recordings – each of the four band members bring their own tastes and influences to the mix which allows for each performance and track to be an organic creation, not limited by traditional genre boundaries and dogma.

This episode is punctuated by three teasers of original tracks written and performed by New Ceremony – ‘Star’, ‘In The Morning’ and ‘Lies We’re Given’. To close out this episode, our two hosts discuss the musical influences that filled the air at home growing up, with Mr Beard sharing anecdotes of tin whistle competitions and being the only kid in school with a piano accordion!

The following has been taken for the band’s Indiegogo fundraiser page, where they are raising funds to help cover production costs of the new studio album. 

New Ceremony compose music and songs initially through improvisation and experimentation. There is a particular focus on establishing atmosphere and character within our pieces as we move through the musical process. The songs are then more finely crafted, distilling the initial idea down until we arrive at the essence of the song.

We are four Galwegians who have been jamming for the last three years. Our songs have been fermenting like a bag of forgotten satsumas left under the sink. Starved of an outlet, ie. no one to tell us to stop, we wrote a boat load of tunes. Most are not for human consumption, but others we think are ready to be digested. These are the songs we’re hoping to record and set free in July.

We want to shake you up and rattle you down. Share our love of the music and the passion we have for making it, even if that means wrecking your head.

Our music stylings are a blend of post-punk, indie rock, synth pop, hip-hop and dance music with a strong visual theatrical element. Our influences include (but are not limited to); Joy Division, Can, Rage Against the Machine, Wire, The Fall and Tom Waits.

Found something interesting discussed in this episode? Chances are, we found it interesting too and we went off and did a bunch of reading online about it.

So why not dive further into the topic! Here are some handy links we think you might like.

Vox have a fantastic 26 video playlist on YouTube which takes you on a musical journey to discover the stories and sounds behind your favourite songs. The topics and music styles covered are as varied as you could imagine. There is something in here to suit every taste and style. 

For example ‘Why disco made pop songs longer’ which details the change in the physical size of vinyl records, allowing for longer songs to be played in the clubs and on radio. Or ‘Why do we really really really like repetition in music’ which shows that a basic or “uninspired” track can actually have a lot more thought and invention go into it than first meets the eye. Or ‘How the triplet flow took over rap’, which breaks down and analyses rap lyrics over the last few decades and how a 3 beat flow first appearing in the 90’s has been a staple for chart topping rappers ever since.

Music piracy is a good example of the idea of ‘adapt and survive, or die’. In 2002, the RIAA reported that CD sales had fallen by 8.9 percent, from 882 million to 803 million units; revenues fell 6.7 percent. The RIAA blames Internet piracy for the trend, though there are many other causes that could account for this drop. SoundScan, for example, reports a more than 20 percent drop in the number of CDs released since 1999. Also, In the same period that the RIAA estimates that 803 million CDs were sold, the RIAA estimates that 2.1 billion CDs were downloaded for free. Thus, although 2.6 times the total number of CDs sold were downloaded for free, sales revenue fell by just 6.7 percent… So there is a huge difference between downloading a song and stealing a CD.

The music industry has completely changed over the last 20 years. Spotify for example now has over 160 million paying subscribers. We also have Amazon Kindle do the same with books and Netflix do the same for TV shows and movies. Make the ‘legal’ option easier than the ‘free’ option and people will happily pay for it. This approach worked so much more effectively than lawsuits from Metallica and Dr. Dre.

Before ‘New Ceremony’ was even an idea in the back of the group’s collective mind, Níall Curran was in another band called ‘Mugger Dave’. The band was formed in 2007 when Níall and frontman Simon Noble worked together behind the bar in a local pub. Seán Herriotton bass made three and the stage was set.

Over the course of six years, they recorded two albums and toured all over Ireland and across the waters in London and Berlin. Hot press described the band as having “immediately distinctive, powerfully tight and forceful music- custom made for radio”, they recorded a handful of music videos, toured in a campervan called ‘Jeff’ and featured on the IMRO Showcase CD. Check our their feature in the Galway Advertiser.

While researching for this episode, Mr C came across the fantastic story of Michael O Shea, an Irish musician in the 70’s 80’s who builds his own instruments and accomplishes mastery of them. His trademark instrument, which he designed, created and perfected playing was called ‘Mo Chara’. Directly translated to English, this name means “My Friend”. It is a mix between a sitar and a xylophone. The sound it produces is very dreamy, trippy and ethereal. The style of music he plays has been described as ‘Sci-fi Trad’. RTE produced a documentary of Michael, his life and Mo Chara.

Enjoyed this episode? Hopefully you found some of the additional information on this page interesting or useful. Why not check out one of our other episodes – we think you will like them too!  

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“The decline of literature indicates the decline of a nation.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, novelist and playwright

09/06/2021

Literature

1hr 29min

They say to tell a good story, often the best place to start is at the beginning. But to properly set the scene, we must define our terms. Mr C opens the conversation with some dictionary terms of ‘literature’ and we quickly realise that this is a broad and multifaceted topic. He then tells of the story of the city of Alexandria in ancient Egypt, whose famous library (often considered to be humanity’s greatest repository of knowledge) saw a tragic end at the hands of Julius Caesar and his army in 48 BC.

Mr Beard then turns the page, rolling our timeline forward approx. 1400 years to the city of Mainz in Germany. This is where Johannes Gutenberg invents the printing press, changing people’s access to information and spurring on an evolution in knowledge and allowing for the Renaissance and the birth of the scientific method.

Our story continues with Viktor Schauberger, a “pseudoscientist” of his time, and how he produced numerous patents and inventions, not by sitting in a classroom reading books, but rather by immersing himself in nature and letting it’s secrets reveal themselves to him. Himself and Charles Darwin would have had many interesting conversations, should they have bumped into eachother down the pub.

We then move on to highlight some of our favourite authors and book series. The range is wide as we jump from philosophical greats such as Fyodor Dostoevsky and Viktor Frankl to fiction and fantasy maestros such as Dan Brown, JK Rowling and George RR Martin. 

The final chapter of this episode closes with our two hosts reminiscing on Road Dahl and all the literary gifts he left us in the pages of James and the Giant Peach, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Witches and The Twits. A cornflake my go weeks hidden in a beard, but the cherished memories Roald Dahl gives kids and adults alike last a lifetime. And for that, and for literature, we are eternally grateful.

Dictionary Britannica defines literature as ‘written works, especially those considered of superior or lasting artistic merit’, but “literature” is so much more.

Literature is a time machine. It can transport you to distant lands and points in human history. How did Julius Caesar feel when he realised he was responsible for the burning of humanity’s greatest library?

Literature is also a mind reader. It can tell you what it feels like to fall in love, to achieve your wildest dreams, or even to murder your cousin. What thoughts ran through Martin Luther King Jr’s mind as he put pen to paper to write his famous speech? Or Harry Potter as he boarded the Hogwarts Express for the first time?

But more than anything, literature is a teacher. Through books, we have access to unlimited experiences, lessons, experiments and meditations of history’s greatest minds and individuals. You can upgrade your knowledge or transport yourself to a fantasy world by simply picking up a book and turning the page.

Found something interesting discussed in this episode? Chances are, we found it interesting too and we went off and did a bunch of reading online about it.

So why not dive further into the topic! Here are some handy links we think you might like.

The Great Library of Alexandria was one of the largest and most significant libraries of the ancient world. It is claimed that the Library of Alexandria was founded during the reign of Ptolemy I (c. 323–c. 283 BC) and that it was initially organized by Demetrius of Phalerum, a student of Aristotle who had been exiled from Athens and taken refuge in Alexandria within the Ptolemaic court. 

The Library quickly acquired many papyrus scrolls, due largely to the Ptolemaic kings’ aggressive and well-funded policies for procuring texts. It is unknown precisely how many such scrolls were housed at any given time, but estimates range from 40,000 to 400,000 at its height.

In 48 BC, during Caesar’s Civil War, Julius Caesar was besieged at Alexandria. His soldiers set fire to some of the Egyptian ships docked in the Alexandrian port while trying to clear the wharves to block the fleet belonging to Cleopatra’s brother Ptolemy XIV. This fire purportedly spread to the parts of the city nearest to the docks, causing considerable devastation. The first-century AD Roman playwright and Stoic philosopher Seneca the Younger quotes Livy’s Ab Urbe Condita Libri, which was written between 63 and 14 BC, as saying that the fire started by Caesar destroyed 40,000 scrolls from the Library of Alexandria.

Johannes Gutenberg’s work on the printing press began in approximately 1436 when he partnered with Andreas Dritzehn—a man who had previously instructed in gem-cutting—and Andreas Heilmann, owner of a paper mill.

In Renaissance Europe (1400-1500s), the arrival of mechanical movable type printing introduced the era of mass communication, which permanently altered the structure of society. The relatively unrestricted circulation of information and (revolutionary) ideas transcended borders, captured the masses in the Reformation and threatened the power of political and religious authorities. The sharp increase in literacy broke the monopoly of the literate elite on education and learning and bolstered the emerging middle class. 

The BBC made a wonderful documentary, presented by Stephen Fry, about the invention of the printing press. Check it out – ‘The History Of The First Printing Press – The Machine That Made Us’

Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821 – 1881), was a Russian novelist, philosopher, short story writer, essayist, and journalist. Dostoevsky’s literary works explore human psychology in the troubled political, social, and spiritual atmospheres of 19th-century Russia, and engage with a variety of philosophical and religious themes. 

His most acclaimed novels include Crime and Punishment (1866), The Idiot (1869), Demons (1872), and The Brothers Karamazov (1880). Dostoevsky’s body of works consists of 12 novels, four novellas, 16 short stories, and numerous other works. Many literary critics rate him as one of the greatest psychological novelists in world literature. His 1864 novella Notes from Underground is considered to be one of the first works of existentialist literature.

For more information on this psychology titan, check out his Wikipedia page.

Harry Potter is a series of seven fantasy novels written by British author J. K. Rowling. The novels chronicle the lives of a young wizard, Harry Potter, and his friends Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley, all of whom are students at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The main story arc concerns Harry’s struggle against Lord Voldemort, a dark wizard who intends to become immortal, overthrow the wizard governing body known as the Ministry of Magic and subjugate all wizards and Muggles (non-magical people).

As of February 2018, the books have sold more than 500 million copies worldwide, making them the best-selling book series in history, and have been translated into eighty languages.

The first novel in the series, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, has sold in excess of 120 million copies, making it one of the bestselling books in history. The final book in the series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows became the fastest selling book in history, moving 11 million units in the first twenty-four hours of release.

By 24 June 2000, Rowling’s novels had been on the New York Times Bestsellers list for 79 straight weeks; the first three novels were each on the hardcover best-seller list. For the release of Goblet of Fire, 9,000 FedEx trucks were used with no other purpose than to deliver the book.

Roald Dahl (1916 – 1990) was a British novelist, short-story writer, poet, screenwriter, and wartime fighter pilot. His books have sold more than 250 million copies worldwide. He served in the Royal Air Force during the Second World War. He became a fighter pilot and, subsequently, an intelligence officer, rising to the rank of acting wing commander. 

He rose to prominence as a writer in the 1940s with works for children and for adults, and he became one of the world’s best-selling authors. He has been referred to as “one of the greatest storytellers for children of the 20th century”. His awards for contribution to literature include the 1983 World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement and the British Book Awards’ Children’s Author of the Year in 1990.

Dahl’s short stories are known for their unexpected endings, and his children’s books for their unsentimental, macabre, often darkly comic mood, featuring villainous adult enemies of the child characters. His children’s books champion the kindhearted and feature an underlying warm sentiment. 

His works for children include James and the Giant Peach, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Matilda, The Witches, Fantastic Mr Fox, The BFG, The Twits, and George’s Marvellous Medicine. His adult works include Tales of the Unexpected.

Enjoyed this episode? Hopefully you found some of the additional information on this page interesting or useful. Why not check out one of our other episodes – we think you will like them too!  

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“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

— Arthur C. Clark, author

12/05/2021

Technology

1hr 39min

In this week’s episode we have a discussion on technology. Mr. Beard kick-starts the tech talk explaining the invention of the transistor. A seemingly under-appreciated component of so many devices and tools that we have grown to depend on like a basic switch or electronic signal. From an electrical technology perspective, we bring the wonderful and brilliant Nikola Tesla into the conversation, the man that developed the practices to tap into the Earth’s magnetic field or ‘Magnetosphere’ to generate perpetual energy devices and the invention of alternating current.

We explore the invention of the Sony Walkman out of Japan, and how this portable technology revolutionised music listening for the masses, and how a cool yellow brick on your pants gave rise to the next generation of personal music devices like the iPod. We go through a timeline of communications technology starting from cave drawings and smoke signals, all the way up to mobile phones and WiFi technology which is an application of Tesla’s inventions more than 100 years later. 

We can’t escape a conversation on computing and the unbelievable advances that we have witnessed in recent decades. Mr. Beard introduces the Blockchain and gives a description of its invention by an anonymous person or group known only as Satoshi Nakamoto. Blockchain has the power to change and revolutionise the world through operations like cryptocurrency, NFTs and a host of new communications platforms. 

We are of course going through a global medical transformation in 2021. Many people cite the invention of the vaccine as one of the major biological/ medical breakthroughs of the modern age. This is mirrored also by projects like the human genome project of the 70’s. Mapping and understanding human DNA sequencing has opened up Pandora’s Box to the brilliance of biology, from the study of molecular interactions between protein folding in bioinformatics to the development of the next generation in medical technology. It is said that this decade will be the decade of biological sciences. 

The main topic of this episode is ‘technology’. Google defines ‘technology’ as “machinery and equipment developed from the application of scientific knowledge.”, so it is easy to think of technology simply as gadgets and physical things. And while this is true, it does not give you the whole picture. Language, for example, is also a technology – it is not something that you can touch or hold, but it is a technology that has impacted our civilisation to a degree that it is hard to imagine anything else matching it.

Being human is about so much more than what we can touch and hold – it is also about our emotions, our connections and our dreams. Technology will give us the opportunities to reinvent ourselves, to reinvent what it means to be human, but it will also make us face difficult decisions. How much technology is too much? Where will we draw the line between our reality and some new augmented reality? How much of ‘being human’ (with warts and all) will we preserve versus how much will we gloss over with the aid of technology?

Check out this TED Talk by Jordan Nguyen on how we can improve our current reality with the aid of technology, while also raising the question of where to draw the line (and how this line might be different from one person to the next).

Found something interesting discussed in this episode? Chances are, we found it interesting too and we went off and did a bunch of reading online about it.

So why not dive further into the topic! Here are some handy links we think you might like.

A transistor is a semiconductor device used to amplify or switch electronic signals and electrical power. Transistors are one of the basic building blocks of modern electronics.

The first working device to be built was a point-contact transistor invented in 1947 by American physicists John Bardeen and Walter Brattain while working under William Shockley at Bell Labs. The three shared the 1956 Nobel Prize in Physics for their achievement.

The transistor is considered the greatest invention of the 20th century. For more information on the history of the transistor and its invention, why not check out this documentary. 

Nikola Tesla was a Serbian-American engineer and physicist (1856-1943) who made dozens of breakthroughs in the production, transmission and application of electric power. He invented the first alternating current (AC) motor and developed AC generation and transmission technology. He also invented the Tesla Coil (modern analogue would be the Roden Coil, a perpetual energy device), AC current and WiFi. (See link for Tesla story below).

Check out this YouTube video on ‘Edison vs Tesla, with Elon Musk’s perspective on them both as well. It is a thought-provoking look at this super interesting time in human innovation and deceit.

The original Walkman, released in 1979, was a portable cassette player that allowed people to listen to music of their choice on the move. Since then, over 300 different models of Walkman have been released.

The Walkman became an icon in 1980s culture. In 1986, the word “Walkman” entered the Oxford English Dictionary.

The Walkman has been cited to not only change people’s relationship to music but also technology, due to its “solitary” and “personal” nature, as users were listening to their own music of choice rather than through a radio. It has been seen as a precursor of personal mainstream tech possessions such as personal computers or mobile phones.

Check out this video to see a history of the Walkman and how it grew to become a cultural icon and a design classic.

The Human Genome Project (HGP) was an international scientific research project with the goal of determining the base pairs that make up human DNA, and of identifying and mapping all of the genes of the human genome from both a physical and a functional standpoint. The HGP and its results gave rise to a new scientific discipline called ‘bioinformatics’.

Bioinformatics is the discipline of biological and medical data analysis and interpretation. This field of biology also incorporates epigenetic and cybernetics in modelling human physiology and biochemical mechanisms. A couple of applications of this field of study are vaccines and Neuralink.

Another example is ultrasound technology. Commonly known as being used in pregnancy scans, but it seems we may be on the verge of turning science fiction into science fact with invention of the ‘Star Trek medical tricorder‘!

A blockchain is a decentralized, distributed, and oftentimes public, digital ledger consisting of records called blocks that is used to record transactions across many computers so that any involved block cannot be altered retroactively, without the alteration of all subsequent blocks. This allows the participants to verify and audit transactions independently and relatively inexpensively. A blockchain database is managed autonomously using a peer-to-peer network and a distributed timestamping server.

The first blockchain was conceptualized by a person (or group of people) known as Satoshi Nakamoto in 2008. The design was implemented the following year by Nakamoto as a core component of the cryptocurrency bitcoin, where it serves as the public ledger for all transactions on the network.

It has been said that what the internet did for traditional media, Blockchain technology will do for finance and many other industries.

Check out this great TED Talk by Don Tapscott, in which he explains in plain language what the Blockchain is and how it will be a major disrupting force for many industries, and in particular the finance industry.

Enjoyed this episode? Hopefully you found some of the additional information on this page interesting or useful. Why not check out one of our other episodes – we think you will like them too!  

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“Exploration is really the essence of the human spirit.”

— Frank Borman, astronaut

28/04/2021

Exploration

1hr 20min

In this episode we look at exploration and folklore from the point of view of Ireland and a select group of Irish men and women that epitomize what we consider an explorer. Over the course of the episode, we highlight some historic figures like Tom Crean Antarctic explorer, Anne Bonny an Irish lady pirate, Colin O’ Brady athlete and climber and also a demigod figure from Irish mythology Cu Chulainn. 

In the case of Tom Crean the ‘Unsung Hero’ as he has been dubbed in literature describing his expeditions, Crean took part in three major Antarctic missions with famous explorers of the time Ernst Shakleton and Robert Scott. Creans heroic actions led to many lives saved over the three expeditions, and he lived to tell the tale across the counter in his pub The South Pole Inn in his hometown of Annascaul County Kerry. We touch upon the characteristics or qualities that one might associate with a hero or heroin, even in your own life and experiences. Other heroic journeys made by athlete Colin O’ Brady and his successful trek across the whole Antarctic continent, something that the old timers like Shakleton and Scott couldn’t accomplish, an expedition accomplished on his own in an adventure that he took on to satiate his desire for exploration and discovery of his own physical and mental capacities.

The dramatic history of an historic female pirate Anne Bonny from the shores of Ireland are recounted, with a reflection on the golden age of piracy in the world at the time and the tales that unfolded when pirate women sailed alongside men in the Carribean. Where fairytales literally came from. Irish folklore too much like any mythology and fables told across the world, commonly weave stories of good and evil, temptation, greed and disguise. Cu Chulainn in Irish lore was a warrior and champion but as always in these fables possess weaknesses along with mighty strengths. The lessons learned through storytelling in mythology can be very valuable to one’s life, and we touch on the interesting fact that some of these lessons really only reveal their true value and meaning once read again in adulthood, but are very true to human experience. As with all episodes here on Druids Exchange, we will append details on the topics discussed above and true to form as we explore these subjects, the more is revealed and the more we wish to revisit interesting ideas that deserve a closer look inside. 

Enjoy the episode, a chairde!! 

The main topic of this episode is ‘exploration’ and how it seems to be a fundamental aspect of the human condition. Pick any point throughout human history and you will see people exploring. Whether it is brave men and women sailing across the seas to lands unknown, or exploring new ideas or into the depths of your mind, the desire to explore is an essential ingredient to human happiness and contentment.

Found something interesting discussed in this episode? Chances are, we found it interesting too and we went off and did a bunch of reading online about it.

So why not dive further into the topic! Here are some handy links we think you might like.

Tom Crean was an Irish seaman and Antarctic explorer who was awarded the Albert Medal for Lifesaving.

Crean was a member of three major expeditions to Antarctica during the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration, including Robert Falcon Scott’s 1911–1913 Terra Nova Expedition. This saw the race to reach the South Pole lost to Roald Amundsen and ended in the deaths of Scott and his party. During the expedition, Crean’s 56 km solo walk across the Ross Ice Shelf to save the life of Edward Evans led to him receiving the Albert Medal.

Crean left the family farm near Annascaul, in County Kerry, to enlist in the Royal Navy at age 15 but lied about his own age, as he had to be 16 to enlist. In 1901, while serving on Ringarooma in New Zealand, he volunteered to join Scott’s 1901–1904 Discovery Expedition to Antarctica, thus beginning his exploring career.

After his experience on the Terra Nova, Crean’s third and final Antarctic venture was as second officer on Ernest Shackleton’s Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition. After the ship Endurance became beset in the pack ice and sank, Crean and the ship’s company spent 492 days drifting on the ice before undertaking a journey in the ship’s lifeboats to Elephant Island. He was a member of the crew which made a small-boat journey of 1,500 kms from Elephant Island to South Georgia Island to seek aid for the stranded party.

Cream will be immortalized when Ireland’s new marine research vessel will be named the “RV Tom Crean”, which is due to be completed in summer 2022.

Anne Bonny (8 March 1697 – possibly 29 December 1733) was an Irish pirate operating in the Caribbean, and one of a few female pirates in recorded history. The little that is known of her life comes largely from Captain Charles Johnson’s ‘A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the most notorious Pyrates’, which is a 1724 book published in Britain containing biographies of contemporary pirates, which was influential in shaping popular conceptions of pirates.

Bonny was born in Ireland around 1700 and moved to London and then to the Province of Carolina when she was about 10 years old. She then married around 1715 and moved to Nassau in the Bahamas, a sanctuary for pirates. It was there that she met Calico Jack Rackham and became his pirate partner and lover. She was captured alongside Rackham and Mary Read in October 1720. All three were sentenced to death, but Bonny and Read had their executions stayed because both of them were pregnant. Read died of a fever in jail in April 1721, but Bonny’s fate is unknown.

The legend of Cú Chulainn is one of the greatest in Irish mythology. He is noted in Irish mythical sagas for his superhuman strength and amazing deeds on the battlefield. His story was originally passed down by word of mouth, like the Gaelic language until it was written down more than 800 years ago in the Táin Bó Cúailnge (The Cattle Raid of Cooley). The story is so powerful that it is still taught in schools and written about today.

Cú Chulainn was an ancient Gaelic hero warrior who was gifted with superhuman strength, speed and skill.  He would hit the sliotar with the hurley, leap forward and hit it a second time before it touched the ground, toss the javelin ahead and then the spear, run after them all, catch the ball and javelin with one hand and the spear with the other. Cú Chulainn achieved his name at the age of seven when he killed the watchdog of a blacksmith named Culann, he hurled his sliotar down the hound’s throat and killed him.

Táin Bó Cúailnge is available to buy for interested readers, or excerpts can be read online. Have a listen to the great Ronnie Drew telling the story of Cu Chulainn.

In the classical sense, a hero is considered to be a “warrior who lives and dies in the pursuit of honor” and asserts their greatness by “the brilliancy and efficiency with which they kill”. Classical heroes are commonly semi-divine and extraordinarily gifted, such as Achilles, evolving into heroic characters through their perilous circumstances. While these heroes are incredibly resourceful and skilled, they are often foolhardy, court disaster, risk their followers’ lives for trivial matters, and behave arrogantly in a childlike manner. 

In more modern times, the idea of a hero is someone who, in the face of danger, combats adversity through feats of ingenuity, courage or strength. The traits of a ‘modern’ hero are more humble and modest, where character and values take centre stage.

In this episode, we take on a slightly different slant to the idea of a hero. We discuss the idea of heroic acts big and small, with one example being that of a parent working two jobs to provide for their child and to ensure they enjoy a better life than themselves. We are reminded to ‘be careful of your actions as you may be the hero in someone else’s life’.

In 2015, American athlete Colin O’Brady and his then-fiancée Jenna Besaw created ‘Beyond 7/2’, a not-for-profit world record journey to inspire kids and communities to live active, healthy lives. O’Brady aimed to conquer the Explorers Grand Slam (Last Degree), an adventurer’s challenge to climb the highest mountain on each of the seven continents and complete expeditions to both the North and South Poles in world record time. O’Brady and Besaw financed the Grand Slam attempt through sponsorships from Gelber Group, Nike, Columbia Sportswear, and Mountain Hardwear, among others. The project raised funds and awareness to benefit the Alliance for a Healthier Generation, a non-profit organization that aims to combat childhood obesity.

In 2018, O’Brady completed a solo and unsupported crossing of parts of Antarctica from the Messner start to the beginning of the Ross Ice Shelf. He completed the near 1500kms journey in 54 days, finishing ahead of explorer Louis Rudd who was also attempting the feat. He covered the final 125kms in one final sleepless, 32-hour burst – “I don’t know, something overcame me,” O’Brady said in an interview. “I just felt locked in for the last 32 hours, like a deep flow state. I didn’t listen to any music — just locked in, like I’m going until I’m done. It was profound, it was beautiful, and it was an amazing way to finish up the project.”

Check out more from his story here. 

Enjoyed this episode? Hopefully you found some of the additional information on this page interesting or useful. Why not check out one of our other episodes – we think you will like them too!  

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“The bad news is time flies, but the good news is you are the pilot”

— Michael Altshuler, business coach

01/03/2021

Time

1hr 23min

Time has always been a funny topic of discussion, and for so many the obsession of their lives like Albert Einstein and the great astronomers and ocean explorers and navigators of the modern ages. Probably one of the most abstract notions when questioned, What is time? To Einstein it is the 4th Dimension outside of our 3 dimensional physical reality. In this episode we tackle some of the ways in which ‘time’ has been described and tracked and measured over the centuries to millennia. 

The angle that these Druids in training are taking in this sense is looking at the various calendars that have been created like the Julian, Gregorian and Chinese. New year as is common knowledge differs between Western calendar time and the unique Chinese calendar. We have a discussion about the different zodiac symbolism which are represented by various animals in the Chinese calendar, which differs from all others and including the old Celtic or Druid symbolism of trees assigned to each lunar month. Astrology is well known to have seeded modern scientific Astronomy/Cosmology. We mention the book ‘The Quantum Astrologer’s Handbook’, a great publication written by author and physicist Michael Brooks. This book describes the use of astrology in the 17th century by a famous mathematician and astrologer Jerome Cardano in the time of Renaissance Italy, for the invention of probability mathematics which became one of the cornerstones of quantum mechanics centuries later.

Through exploring the stars and the heavens by ancient astrologers and big thinkers through the centuries, we talk about the idea of perception and as a result consciousness once focused on the idea of time and the progression of it. Much like the differences in calendars across the Earth, it is apparent that time has qualities that differ depending on who you are talking to. In one sense time is linear in how it progresses from past to present to future, or does it? Engineers will, and most mathematics include time as a real measurable quantity and must be written into equations and formulae for speed, acceleration and other calculations. Then we have to acknowledge that we invented time measurement devices like clocks. Others think it has a non-linear quality or a looping nature to it. One thing for certain it’s an interesting topic to talk about because after all we all have birthdays every year and the sun and moon rise and fall. 

It doesn’t take long before we are wrapped up in Space conversation, and in all fairness this is kind of a natural line of enquiry when talking about astrology, planetary alignment and time. With that, enjoy the episode!

What time it is or what date it is can be different depending on who you ask. And to go deeper still, does it really matter what time or date it is in the first place? Obviously it does if you want to keep appointments with other people for example, but we often let the idea of time and the dates on a calendars control our moods, how we make plans throughout the year, and even our outlook and perspectives in life!

They say time is relative, but it is also subjective. One thing is for sure however, time will run out for us so it is vital we make the most of the time we have.

Found something interesting discussed in this episode? Chances are, we found it interesting too and we went off and did a bunch of reading online about it.

So why not dive further into the topic! Here are some handy links we think you might like.

What time it is or what date it is can be different depending on who you ask. And to go deeper still, does it really matter what time or date it is in the first place? Obviously it does if you want to keep appointments with other people for example, but we often let the idea of time and the dates on calendars control our moods, how we make plans throughout the year, and even our outlook and perspectives in life!

Check out this fascinating talk from Donna Carroll on the history of the calendar and how it has shaped our lives over the centuries. 

How many times a day do you check your calendar or look at your clock? These days our lives are driven by deadlines, schedules and timetables. Time and its many divisions (hours, days, weeks, months, and years) have completely shaped our lives and yet we seldom take the time to consider how these concepts arose. 

The calendar is inextricably linked to the mechanics of our solar system, and the way in which we describe our periods of time has arisen from ancient speculation in astronomy, mathematics and religion. 

In this talk, Donna Carroll will provide a brief history of our calendar and an introduction to time measurement. A fascinating field where astronomy, astrology, mathematics, politics, agriculture, superstition and religion all come together.

The Chinese zodiac is a repeating cycle of 12 years, with each year being represented by an animal and its reputed attributes. In order, the 12 Chinese horoscope animals are: Rat, Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Goat, Monkey, Rooster, Dog, Pig.

Most Chinese people also believe that people born in a Goat year will grow up to be followers rather than leaders. Although this is an outdated superstition, it has a real effect on Chinese society. Conversely, the Dragon is the most coveted zodiac sign, with Chinese births peaking in Dragon years. In Chinese culture, the top 5 luckiest/most popular zodiac signs are Dragon, Snake, Pig, Rat, and Tiger conventionally.

Are you better off being born in a ‘lucky’ year? Or, will that leave you with much more competition and you are actually better off being born in an ‘unlucky’ year where there is less competition? In 2000, one of the recent dragon years, Hong Kong saw a 5% increase in the numbers of babies.

Within China, regional customs and traditions concerning the celebration of the New Year vary widely, and the evening preceding the New Year’s Day is frequently regarded as an occasion for Chinese families to gather for the annual reunion dinner. It is also traditional for every family to thoroughly clean their house, in order to sweep away any ill-fortune and to make way for incoming good luck.

The Celtic/Druid calendar as mentioned in this episode and like other calendar measurements of the annual cycles of the heavens is a lunar calendar of 13 months. The Druid civilisation was also a pagan community and there are still seven pagan holidays or feasts that we still celebrate today.  The holiday of the autumnal equinox, Harvest Home, Mabon, the Feast of the Ingathering, Meán Fómhair, An Clabhsúr and Alban Elfed (in Neo-Druid traditions), is a modern Pagan ritual of thanksgiving for the fruits of the earth and a recognition of the need to share them to secure the blessings of the Goddess and the Gods.

These feasts or holidays in today’s relevance would be Christmas, New Years Day, Easter, Halloween (Celtic festival of Samhain), Three Kings Day on January 6th, May 1st a feast dedicated to the mother Goddess and June 24th a feast dedicated to the Goddess of Luck, known today in Christian holidays as St. John’s (the baptist) Day. As we explore the various calendars like the Julian and Gregorian, there is a lot of overlap and appears to be a lot of renaming and acquisition of feast days from ancient civilisations. As mentioned too in this episode, the Druid zodiac included the symbology of the different trees imbued with spiritual energies and also plants possessing healing properties. Pagan spiritual beliefs were also very much ‘rooted’ in earthly incarnations. 

Also see the Wheel of the Year Festivals: 8 Pagan festivals

Time is linear from the perspective of measurement. As mentioned in the episode, it all depends on what perspective you wish to view it from. From a cosmological study and the book ‘The Order of Time’ written by theoretical physicist Carlo Rovelli, time is an illusion: our naïve perception of its flow doesn’t correspond to physical reality. Indeed, as Rovelli argues in The Order of Time, much more is illusory, including Isaac Newton’s picture of a universally ticking clock. Even Albert Einstein’s relativistic space-time — an elastic manifold that contorts so that local times differ depending on one’s relative speed or proximity to a mass.

He posits that reality is just a complex network of events onto which we project sequences of past, present and future. The whole Universe obeys the laws of quantum mechanics and thermodynamics, out of which time emerges. Rovelli is one of the creators and champions of loop quantum gravity theory, one of several ongoing attempts to marry quantum mechanics with general relativity. Another mind-bending view of this can be read in the late Stephen Hawking’s book ‘A Brief History of Time’. These groups of scientists spend their days trying to develop an explanation for a phenomenon that matters very little to most of us that view time as the reality and progression of life.

The more spiritually minded and enlightened individuals amongst us will also suggest that there is no time at all apart from the now. No past and no future. This experience of time reflects that of some physicists also in that it can be experienced as infinity.

In physics, spacetime is any mathematical model which fuses the three dimensions of space and the one dimension of time into a single four-dimensional manifold. The fabric of space-time is a conceptual model combining the three dimensions of space with the fourth dimension of time. Spacetime diagrams can be used to visualize relativistic effects, such as why different observers perceive differently where and when events occur.

Until the 20th century, it was assumed that the three-dimensional geometry of the universe (its spatial expression in terms of coordinates, distances, and directions) was independent of one-dimensional time. The famous physicist Albert Einstein helped develop the idea of space-time as part of his theory of relativity.

The theory of spacetime forms part of Einstein’s Theory of Special Relativity. This theory also brought us the famous equation ‘E=mc²’, where energy, mass and light are all connected.

Enjoyed this episode? Hopefully you found some of the additional information on this page interesting or useful. Why not check out one of our other episodes – we think you will like them too!  

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“Mother Nature is the true artist and our job as cooks is to allow her to shine.” 

— Marco Pierre White, chef

03/02/2021

Food

1hr 29min

This episode on food and culinary culture is an introduction for Druids Exchange, discussing some interesting facts, personal anecdotes and high falutin aspects of food and the sheer importance that food and eating has in the lives of all on the planet. The episode takes the listener on a journey through old Prehistoric Ireland and the diets and cooking methods of the Bronze Age, namely ‘Fulacht Fiadh’.

Also, worth a mention is a conversation about modern day Ireland and how cuisine and the culinary experience that is afforded to all who visits today has evolved over the decades. This evolution has been triggered by the recent increase in immigration to the country from places like India, China, Medditerranian nations and closer to home the United Kingdom. With the arrival of new culture to Ireland and with the people, came brand new food cultures and flavours of the world. 

This ‘feeds’ the conversation about the advent of the ‘Michelin Star’ to the world of gastronomy beginning in 1926, from the most unlikely of places, a tyre company in France. Where else! When talking about all of the beautiful and diverse flavours of Italy, France, and Asian nations to name a few, springs a science lesson about what biologists call the ‘Gustatory System’ or our sensory ability to taste. Interesting developments emerge, as the rabbit hole is descended.

Interesting points are made in relation to the UNESCO protected culinary cultures of the world, and things are definitely learned. This episode is only a first sweep of the truly expansive subject that is ‘Food’ and all that it encompases about culture, biology, human psychology and even linguistics if you want to delve into the anthropology of food and cuisine. Stay tuned for more follow up episodes on this fascinating subject. We hope you enjoy!

Food is integral to all different societies all across the world and has been all through time. Food can be the glue that holds societies together, especially in this time of globalisation and multiculturalism. And even down to the family unit, everyone sitting around the table and sharing a meal, taking time out of the their days to simply be together and chat, food can bridge the generational divide and open up lines of communication in ways little else can.

Check out this TEDx talk from Wichita State University (Kansas, USA) professor Rocío Del Águila where she discusses these topics and more.

Found something interesting discussed in this episode? Chances are, we found it interesting too and we went off and did a bunch of reading online about it.

So why not dive further into the topic! Here are some handy links we think you might like.

Following the usage of the Murray’s and Baedeker travel guides, The Michelin Star guide began to award stars for fine dining establishments in 1926. In present day, there are 21 Michelin starred restaurants in Ireland (as of 2020). 

According to the Guide, one star signifies “a very good restaurant”, two stars are “excellent cooking that is worth a detour”, and three stars mean “exceptional cuisine that is worth a special journey”. The listing of starred restaurants is updated once a year.

Three Galway restaurants have just been awarded the Michelin Green Star – Kai, Loam and Inis Meáin Restaurant and Suites. This distinction highlights restaurants at the forefront of the industry when it comes to their sustainable practices and who act as role models to us all.

MasterChef is a competitive cooking show and is broadcast in 60 countries around the world. In the UK, it is produced by the BBC. The show initially ran from 1990 to 2001 and was revived in 2005 as MasterChef Goes Large. The revival featured a new format devised by Franc Roddam and John Silver, with Karen Ross producing. In 2008, the name was changed back to MasterChef but the format remained unchanged.

The show proved very popular and became one of BBC Two’s more successful early-evening programmes, leading to an announcement by the BBC in 2009 that it would be promoted to BBC One.

Each series airs five nights a week for eight weeks. During the first six weeks, the first four episodes of each week are heats and the fifth episode is a quarter-final. Six contestants enter each heat and the winner becomes a quarter-finalist. At the end of each week, the four quarter-finalists compete and a semi-finalist is chosen. After six weeks, the six semi-finalists compete in the final two weeks. Prize money is in the hundreds of thousands of pounds (GB£) but also considered a huge career boost.

A fulacht fiadh was a bronze age cooking bath found in the countryside in Ireland. At each fulacht fiadh site, you would find a mount of rocks, a hearth to heat the stones, and a bath or trough dug into the ground which would be filled with water.

How they work is that you would light a fire in the hearth and then heat up the stones. When they are nice and hot, the stones are thrown into the water bath to boil the water. In the boiling water, you would then cook your meat.

As the process of collecting the stones and firewood, burning the wood long enough to heat up the stones and then boiling the meat would take a number of hours, cooking and eating at a fulacht fiadh would have been a ‘whole tribe’ affair. The whole tribe or community would get involved and it was generally was used more for special or significant occasions.

UNESCO established its Lists of Intangible Cultural Heritage with the aim of ensuring better protection of important intangible cultural heritages worldwide and the awareness of their significance Elements inscribed in the lists are deemed significant bastions of humanity’s intangible heritage, the highest honor for intangible heritage in the world stage.

UNESCO recognises 23 food and drink-related traditions as part of its Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. These range from ‘Mexican Cuisine’ to ‘Kimchi of South Korea’ to ‘Belgian Beer’. For more on a selection of these different traditions, check out this cookist.com article on it.

The gustatory system or sense of taste is the sensory system that is partially responsible for the perception of taste or flavor. Taste is the perception produced or stimulated when a substance in the mouth reacts chemically with taste receptor cells located on taste buds in the oral cavity, mostly on the tongue. The gustatory cortex is the area in the brain that is responsible for the perception of taste.

Taste receptors in the mouth sense the five taste modalities: sweetness, sourness, saltiness, bitterness and savoriness (also known as savory or umami). The basic taste modalities contribute only partially to the sensation and flavor of food in the mouth—other factors include smell, detected by the olfactory epithelium of the nose; texture, detected through a variety of mechanoreceptors, muscle nerves, etc.; temperature, detected by thermoreceptors; and “coolness” (such as of menthol) and “hotness” (pungency), through chemesthesis.

Enjoyed this episode? Hopefully you found some of the additional information on this page interesting or useful. Why not check out one of our other episodes – we think you will like them too!  

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