The Conversation Weekly

What is it that makes us conscious? How does the firing of neurons in one part of our brain make us feel aggressive, while others make us hungry or anxious?

These are the questions that drove the discoveries behind the 2026 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine. One of the new laureates, Karl Deisseroth, a professor in the schools of medicine and engineering at Stanford University, speaks to us this week about his pioneering research into optogenetics that led him to become a Nobel laureate.

This episode of The Conversation Weekly was written and produced by Gemma Ware, Grace Jennings-Edquist and Isabella Podwinski. Mixing by Lloyd Barrett and theme music by Neeta Sarl. Ashlynne McGhee is our Head of Editorial Innovation. Misha Ketchell and Stephen Khan are our editors in chief. You can sign up for a free daily newsletter from The Conversation.

If you like the show, please consider donating to The Conversation, an independent, not-for-profit news organisation.

• Read more coverage of the 2026 Nobel prizes on The Conversation
• How pond algae led to a Nobel prize and a new way to study the brain
• Optogenetics wins the Nobel – one neuroscience breakthrough in a line of technological innovations helping scientists map and control the brain

Israel is heading to the polls on October 27 and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is facing perhaps the toughest political battle of his career.

He's been accused of treason over fresh allegations he was warned of a major Hamas plot ahead of the October 7 attacks.

In this week's episode of The Conversation Weekly, Dov Waxman, a political scientist and Professor of Israeli Studies at the University of California explains why Israel's political magician might be out of tricks and how former IDF chief and political novice Gadi Eisenkot could be the one to upstage him.

Read more Israeli political analysis from Dov Waxman here.

This episode was written by Justin Bergman and Isabella Podwinski was the executive producer. Sound mixing by Dan Semo and our theme music by Neeta Sarl. Gemma Ware is our Head of Audio and Ashlynne McGhee is our Head of Editorial Innovation. Misha Ketchell and Stephen Khan are our editors in chief. You can sign up here for a free daily newsletter from The Conversation.

If you like the show, please consider donating to The Conversation, an independent, not-for-profit news organisation.

As more incidents emerge of AI agents going rogue during testing, can we fully trust them?

In the latest hack, Australia revealed OpenAI agents hacked into a government database containing healthcare data.

As calls mount from some within the AI industry for a slowdown, in this episode AI expert Nick Jennings, the vice-chancellor and president of Loughborough University in the UK, says tech leaders have choices about the way they develop these models.

So what's the future for these AI agents? Can we ever fully trust them? And are our lives really at risk?

This episode of The Conversation Weekly was written and produced by Gemma Ware with help from Isabella Podwinski and Ashlynne McGhee. Mixing by Daniel Semo and theme music by Neeta Sarl. Ashlynne McGhee is our Head of Editorial Innovation. Misha Ketchell and Stephen Khan are our editors in chief. You can sign up for a free daily newsletter from The Conversation, and The Conversation AI, a newsletter about how AI is changing society.

If you like the show, please consider donating to The Conversation, an independent, not-for-profit news organisation.

• What does the OpenAI Medicare hack reveal about Australia’s cyber security?
• The next frontier is not artificial intelligence, it’s artificial societies
• Could AI really kill off humanity within the decade? Expert Q&A

The multi-billion dollar AUKUS defence deal between the US, UK and Australia is one of the most significant in our modern history.

The three countries wanted to curb China’s growing military presence in the Indo-Pacific. To do it, Australia was going to get new nuclear-powered submarines.

But in the five years since the agreement was first announced, it’s been anything but smooth sailing.

In this week's episode of The Conversation Weekly, we speak with Hugh White, a security and defence analyst at the Australian National University, to explore how the secretive deal was struck and why it's proving so controversial.

Read more from Hugh White and his take on the AUKUS debate here.

This episode was written by Justin Bergman and Isabella Podwinski was the executive producer. Sound mixing by Dan Semo and our theme music by Neeta Sarl. Gemma Ware is our Head of Audio and Ashlynne McGhee is our Head of Editorial Innovation. Misha Ketchell and Stephen Khan are our editors in chief. You can sign up here for a free daily newsletter from The Conversation.

If you like the show, please consider donating to The Conversation, an independent, not-for-profit news organisation.

To most of the world, former Bosnian Serb military general Ratko Mladić was a brutal war criminal whose actions during the Bosnian War killed thousands.

For others, he was a martyr who defended the Serbian people.

In late August, the 84-year-old died while serving a life sentence in The Hague for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

He was laid to rest in Belgrade earlier this week with full military honours - a move which angered the families of the victims of his crimes.

On this week's episode of The Conversation Weekly, why a war criminal being celebrated by some as a hero and how this is reopening old wounds in one of Europe’s most divided regions.

Read Olivera’s Simic’s article on Mladic’s death and what it means for Bosnia and Herzegovina here.

This episode was written and produced by Isabella Podwinski and Justin Bergman. Sound mixing is by Lloyd Barrett and our theme music is by Neeta Sarl. Gemma Ware is our Head of Audio and Ashlynne McGhee is our Head of Editorial Innovation. Misha Ketchell and Stephen Khan are our editors in chief. You can sign up here for a free daily newsletter from The Conversation.

If you like the show, please consider donating to The Conversation, an independent, not-for-profit news organisation.

Mentioned in this episode:

The We Society

Tackling the big questions through a social science lens, the We Society Podcast from the Academy of Social Sciences brings you some of the best ideas to shape the way we live. Join acclaimed journalist and Academy president Will Hutton, as he invites guests from the world of social science to explore the stories behind the news and hear their solutions to society’s most pressing problems.

It’s the middle of the night in April 2023 in the East China Sea.

A North Korean-linked oil tanker sailing under another country’s flag suddenly goes dark. It stops transmitting its location and simply vanishes from the map.

Ten days later, the New Konk reappears on global tracking screens. It’s signal places it off the coast of southern China.

Except it’s not. It’s actually in a bay hundreds of kilometres away.

Commonly known as a “shadow fleet”, the New Konk is part of a clandestine network of vessels which are used to evade international sanctions.

See pictures of the ship and track its journey in a visual feature Justin Hastings and his team have written for us here.

This episode was written and produced by Isabella Podwinsk and Justin Bergman. Sound mixing is by Lloyd Barrett and our theme music is by Neeta Sarl. Ashlynne McGhee is our Head of Editorial Innovation and Misha Ketchell and Stephen Khan are our editors in chief. You can sign up here for a free daily newsletter from The Conversation.

If you like the show, please consider donating to The Conversation, an independent, not-for-profit news organisation.

It was 1967, and country musician Porter Wagoner was introducing a guest on his weekly TV show.

The camera cuts to a woman with big, blonde beehive, wearing a magenta mini dress with the same shade of lipstick to match. It was in that moment a star was born.

Her name was Dolly Parton. In the following decades after that performance, Parton went on to become the “Queen of Country”.

In this week's bonus episode of The Conversation Weekly, musicologist and Professor of Music at Hamilton College Lydia Hamessley explains the music that made Dolly Parton a global superstar.

If you're after more stories about the life and legacy of Dolly Parton, read them here.

This episode was written by Gemma Ware. Isabella Podwinski was the executive producer. Sound mixing is by Eloise Stevens and our theme music is by Neeta Sarl. Ashlynne McGhee is our Head of Editorial Innovation and Misha Ketchell and Stephen Khan are our editors in chief. You can sign up here for a free daily newsletter from The Conversation.

If you like the show, please consider donating to The Conversation, an independent, not-for-profit news organisation.

In recent weeks, Ukrainian drones have targeted large warehouses across Russia, destroying millions of dollars of merchandise stored inside them.

These warehouses and logistics hubs belong to Wildberries, the Russian equivalent to Amazon. They're also taking aim at Ozon, Russia's second largest online retailer too.

Ukraine says it’s targeting these companies because they’ve been providing supplies to soldiers on the front line.

But as the war drags on well into its fourth year, is there anything that could put pressure on Putin to withdraw troops from Ukraine?

Read more from Matthew Sussex here.

This episode was written and produced by Isabella Podwinski and Justin Bergman. Sound mixing is by Lloyd Barrett and our theme music is by Neeta Sarl. Ashlynne McGhee is our Head of Editorial Innovation and Misha Ketchell and Stephen Khan are our editors in chief. You can sign up here for a free daily newsletter from The Conversation.

If you like the show, please consider donating to The Conversation, an independent, not-for-profit news organisation.

Mentioned in this episode:

The Making of an Autocrat

Search "The Conversation Weekly" for our new series: The Making of an Autocrat.

🔁 Rerun: originally published 12/12/25. We're revisiting this episode as we take a quick break but we'll be back next week with a new instalment of The Conversation Weekly.

Oecusse, a rugged, remote district of Timor-Leste in south-east Asia, is usually a pretty sleepy place. But in August, Oecusse was rocked by a large police raid on a suspected scam centre, later linked by a UN report to organised crime networks running scamming operations across south-east Asia.

And then in early September, a Facebook post by one of Timor-Leste’s highest political officials made some explosive allegations about a murky criminal underworld trying to get a foothold in the country.

In this episode, we speak to Michael Rose, an anthropologist and adjunct lecturer at the University of Adelaide who has lived and worked in Timor-Leste, about how Asia’s scamming gangs set their sights on Timor-Leste as their next frontier – and the movement to keep them out.

This episode was written and produced by Katie Flood and Gemma Ware with assistance from Mend Mariwany. Mixing by Michelle Macklem and theme music by Neeta Sarl. Gemma Ware is the executive producer. Read the full credits for this episode and sign up here for a free daily newsletter from The Conversation.

If you like the show, please consider donating to The Conversation, an independent, not-for-profit news organisation.

It's pretty grim when your main political opponent is a man with a bin for a head.

That's the situation that's faced Nigel Farage in the Clacton byelection in the UK.

Count Binface has pledged to nationalise the singer Adele, cap the price of ice creams and build at least one affordable house.

It might sound surreal, but the count isn’t the first satirical candidate in election history.

Historian Richard Toye argues we should take them seriously. You can read his analysis on our website.

This episode was written and produced by Isabella Podwinski, Justin Bergman and Ashlynne McGhee. Sound mixing is by Michelle Macklem and our theme music is by Neeta Sarl. Ashlynne McGhee is our Head of Editorial Innovation and Misha Ketchell and Stephen Khan are our editors in chief. You can sign up here for a free daily newsletter from The Conversation.

If you like the show, please consider donating to The Conversation, an independent, not-for-profit news organisation.