At dawn on October 28, residents of Rio de Janeiro woke to the sound of gunfire. Battles continued throughout the day in the favelas of Alemão and Penha, as police mounted a huge operation targeting the Commando Vermelho, or the Red Command, one of Brazil’s largest organised criminal gangs.In the days that followed, as graphic images showed lines of bodies on the streets, it emerged that at least 115 civilians and four police officers had been killed, making it the most violent police operation in Brazilian history. In this episode, we speak to Robert Muggah, founder of the Institute Igarapé and a research collaborator at the Brazil LAB at Princeton University, about how organised crime become so deeply embedded in Brazil – and if there's a better way to confront it.This episode was produced by Mend Mariwany, Katie Flood and Gemma Ware. Mixing by Eleanor Brezzi and theme music by Neeta Sarl. 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.Análise: O crime organizado se tornou o maior negócio do Brasil - e sua mais séria ameaçaRead more about the Cop30 climate summit in Belem, BrazilThe rise of Brazil’s fuel mafias and their gas station money laundering machines
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Ghosts vs demons: a 16th century Halloween showdown
In the 16th century, witches and demons weren’t just for Halloween. People were terrified and preoccupied with them – even kings.In 1590, James VI of Scotland – who was later also crowned James I of England – travelled by sea to Denmark to wed a Danish princess, Anne. On the return journey, the fleet was hit by a terrible storm and one of the ships was lost.James, a pious Protestant who would go on to sponsor the translation of the King James bible, was convinced he’d been the target of witchcraft. A few years later, James decide to write a treatise called Daemonologie, setting out his views on the relationship between witches and their master, the devil.Meanwhile, another firm Halloween favourite – ghosts – had fallen out of favour in the wake of the Protestant Reformation because they were seen as a hangover from Catholicism.In this episode, Penelope Geng, an associate professor of English at Macalester College in the US who teaches a class on demonology, takes us back to a time when beliefs around witches, ghosts and demons were closely tied to religious politics. She explains how these beliefs have come to influence the way witches and ghouls have been portrayed in popular culture ever since. This episode was produced by Mend Mariwany and Katie Flood with mixing by Eleanor Brezzi. 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.From printing presses to Facebook feeds: What yesterday’s witch hunts have in common with today’s misinformation crisisSamhain: the true, non-American origins of HalloweenWhat’s the difference between ghosts and demons? Books, folklore and history reflect society’s supernatural beliefs
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Bitcoin buys: the risks and rewards of companies buying crypto
One American company called Strategy owns more than 3% of all bitcoin in existence. In August 2020, its executive chairman, Michael Saylor, pioneered a new business model where publicly listed companies buy cryptocurrency assets to hold on their balance sheet.More than 100 other public companies have since followed Saylor’s lead and become bitcoin treasury companies, together holding more than $114 billion of bitcoin. There’s been a new rush into crypto treasury assets in 2025 following the general crypto enthusiasm of the new Trump administration.But holding bitcoin assets also comes with some big risks, particularly given the volatility of cryptocurrency prices, and the share prices of some of these companies are now coming under pressure.In this episode, we speak to Larisa Yarovaya, director of the centre for digital finance at the University of Southampton in the UK, about whether bitcoin treasury companies are the future of corporate finance, or another speculative bubble waiting to burst.This episode was produced by Mend Mariwany and Gemma Ware with assistance from Katie Flood. Mixing by Michelle Macklem and theme music by Neeta Sarl. 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.Cryptocurrency’s transparency is a mirage: New research shows a small group of insiders influence its valueBitcoin: why a wave of huge companies like Tesla rushing to invest could derail the stock marketCould digital currencies end banking as we know it? The future of money
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The hidden sources of forever chemicals
As one of the birthplaces of the industrial revolution, the River Mersey in northern England is no stranger to pollution flowing into its waters. Now it's got a new problem: monitoring shows the amount of forever chemicals, also known as PFAS, entering the Mersey catchment area is among some of the highest in the world.In this episode we speak to water scientist Patrick Byrne at Liverpool John Moores University in the UK about why so many per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), are still making it into our rivers, many from sources that are lying hidden. Identifying these sources of pollution, can help prioritise how to clean them up. This episode was produced by Mend Mariwany, Katie Flood and Gemma Ware. Sound design and mixing by Michelle Macklem and theme music by Neeta Sarl. 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.You can be exposed to PFAS through food, water, even swimming in lakes – new maps show how risk from ‘forever chemicals’ variesAustralia has banned 3 ‘forever chemicals’ – but Europe wants to ban all 14,000 as a precautionHow I tracked the biggest hidden sources of forever chemical pollution in UK rivers – new study
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Nobel laureate Shimon Sakaguchi on his immune system breakthrough
Back in the 1980s, when Shimon Sakaguchi was a young researcher in immunology, he found it difficult to get his research funded. Now, his pioneering work which explains how our immune system knows when and what to attack, has won him a Nobel prize.Sakaguchi, along with American researchers Mary Brunkow and Fred Ramsdell, were jointly awarded the 2025 Nobel prize in physiology or medicine for the work on regulatory T-cells, known as T-regs for short, a special class of immune cells which prevent our immune system from attacking our own body.In this episode Sakaguchi tells The Conversation about his journey of discovery and the potential treatments it could unlock.This episode was produced by Mend Mariwany, Katie Flood and Gemma Ware. Sound design and mixing by Michelle Macklem and theme music by Neeta Sarl. 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.Metal-organic frameworks: Nobel-winning tiny ‘sponge crystals’ with an astonishing amount of inner spaceNobel physics prize awarded for pioneering experiments that paved the way for quantum computersHow does your immune system stay balanced? A Nobel Prize-winning answerNobel medicine prize: how a hidden army in your body keeps you alive – and could help treat cancer
A show for curious minds, from The Conversation. Each week, host Gemma Ware speaks to an academic expert about a topic in the news to understand how we got here.
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