Keeping a healthy outlook on life is critical as we age. By using current research and personal stories, this program will focus on the importance of family, friends and the support systems we need as we age. At this stage of our lives and our parents’ lives, a sense of loss is normal. Friends and family die, and on top of the emotional turmoil, other monumental changes can occur. Dramatic changes in health, housing and income can also have significant impacts on our mental well-being. How do we cope with these losses and how do we support loved ones going through challenging times?
Subjects: Life Science
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Why the Greeks?
Why did the thinkers and society of pre-Christian Era Greece have such a profound effect on the development of rational thought and “scientific” reasoning? Why does the name Aristotle still ring down through the ages although his work is now over 2,500 years old? This program will talk about the interconnection between an ordered, somewhat democratic, and highly competitive society, and the development of rules of nature, separate from the workings of the gods.
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The Great Bazaar of Science
The importance of Arabic thinkers has long been overlooked, and considered merely as an interlude and repository for Greek and Roman knowledge, but such scholars as Al-Hazen made major contributions to scientific development. Has the history of science been appropriated by the Euro-Centric view?
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Science in the Renaissance
Using Galileo as an example, this program delves into the ongoing relationship between science and power, and how first the Church, then the nobility and now the state and commerce, drives the direction and value of scientific research.
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Was There a Scientific Revolution?
Exactly what was the scientific revolution? Common wisdom would have us believe a progression of thought from the obscurantist “Dark Ages” to the Enlightenment, but was this period of time a revolution at all, or just a convenient intellectual construct?
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The Age of Empire
As European nations ventured out to grab other lands – and to fight their European rivals in other theatres – they believed they had the right and responsibility to name everything, producing an amazing series of classificatory systems, some of which are still with us today and still greatly disputed.
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The Origin of Species
Who was Darwin? What is his argument? And what is its relationship to the brutal social Darwinism that, in some ways, led to the First World War?
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The End of Classical Physics
Einstein, Planck and other physicists of the early 20th century proposed a world of relativity which stood in sharp contradiction to the certainties of classical physics. How did this “relativity” affect other areas of social and cultural structure? How is relativity an example of how scientific theory affects the way in which the world is generally perceived?
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Women’s Role in Science
Is science a masculine enterprise, suited to the male intellect and unsuited to the female? Or has science developed in an insular male world for so long that women are excluded automatically by a rigid male hierarchy? This episode examines the various arguments feminists have made about the relationship between women and science.
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Plant Adaptations
Investigates the basic characteristics of aquatic and terrestrial environments and the adaptations of the plants that live in those environments.