Futureproof Extra

Here Jonathan McCrea speaks with Jared Farmer, historian, geohumanist and author of “Elderflora: A Modern History of Ancient Trees”, who studies landscapes and environments. Listen and subscribe to Futureproof with Jonathan McCrea on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.    Download, listen and subscribe on the Newstalk App.     You can also listen to Newstalk live on newstalk.com or on Alexa, by adding the Newstalk skill and asking: 'Alexa, play Newstalk'.

Now, while we may not be aware of it, each and every one of us is a slave to an unseen and unknowable master. It rules the sun and the earth, roving the cosmos with indifference - presiding over the birth and death of stars and galaxies and every living thing.It is Time. And, consequently, we have a long-standing obsession with measuring it. But just how far back does that obsession go? Chad Orzel, Associate Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Union College in Schenectady, NY, and author of ‘A Brief History of Timekeeping – The Science of Marking Time, from Stonehenge to Atomic Clocks’ joined Jonathan to discuss. Listen and subscribe to Futureproof with Jonathan McCrea on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.    Download, listen and subscribe on the Newstalk App.     You can also listen to Newstalk live on newstalk.com or on Alexa, by adding the Newstalk skill and asking: 'Alexa, play Newstalk'.

Now, when you lay your heads down to sleep at night, you might do so with the lingering hope that you’ll have sweet, and pleasant dreams. But so often dreams are bizarre and non-sensical,  but why do we do it? What is it that causes us to hallucinate while unconscious? Is it some sort of biological inheritance that serves no function or are we being trained by our minds to expect anomaly and change? Erik Hoel is a neuroscientist, neuro-philosopher and author of the novel ‘The Revelations’. He joined Jonathan to discuss Dreams and how they are more than simply images that accost us when we go to sleep. He argues that dreams serve a much more important purpose than they have previously been credited with, not so much random images and scenarios but something else entirely. Listen and subscribe to Futureproof with Jonathan McCrea on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.    Download, listen and subscribe on the Newstalk App.     You can also listen to Newstalk live on newstalk.com or on Alexa, by adding the Newstalk skill and asking: 'Alexa, play Newstalk'. Photo by Merlin lightpainting from Pexels

In the animal kingdom "Strangers are Danger!" So how is it then that humans are tolerant? How do we build a society where strangers feel safe among us and we among them? Well to answer those questions, Johnathan McCrea was joined by Mark Moffett - Research Biologist at the National Museum of Natural History at the Smithsonian and the author of ‘The Human Swarm: How Our Societies Arise, Thrive, and Fall’ Listen and subscribe to Futureproof with Jonathan McCrea on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.    Download, listen and subscribe on the Newstalk App.     You can also listen to Newstalk live on newstalk.com or on Alexa, by adding the Newstalk skill and asking: 'Alexa, play Newstalk'.

Brad Pitt is white. Serena Williams is black.  For better or worse we humans seem to have this compulsion to categorize ourselves in these terms But what, if any, merit do these categories of race have?   Gavin Evans is the author of Skin Deep: Journeys in the Divisive Science of Race. H