Counting sheep, but with the Periodic Table - detailed review of the elements, sleep story

In this soft-spoken story, I tell you about Greek mythology around the Trojan War. We explore its storylines and numerous characters, from gods like Zeus, Athena, Apollo, Aphrodite, and Hera to heroes and other mortals: Menelaus, Agamemnon, Odysseus, Achilles, Ajax, Patroclus, Hector, Priam, Paris, Aeneas, Helen of Troy, and many more. Discover how the feud between the gods over Eris’ golden apple spilled over into the world of men, and everything that ensued. I also tell you about the Trojan Horse, various other myths, and archaeology: When and how did Greek mythology take shape? Was Troy real? Where is the frontier between legend and history?

Tonight, I take you to the wonderful world of bees. I tell you about the most famous social species, the western honey bee, but there are thousands more and not all of them are social. We will also discover solitary species like carpenter bees, mason bees or leafcutter bees. Other species are parasitic brood, like the cuckoo bumblebee. Apart from these, eusocial species live in elaborate societies in which all individuals are specialized by function and only live for and thanks to the nest they belong to. The way they collect pollen and nectar, and their production of beeswax, honey and royal jelly all serve to ensure the survival and development of the hive.

This episode will give you an overview of the concept of multiverse: where does it come from? What are the various meanings and ideas behind that term? I detail different versions of this idea, coming from cosmology such as the "Eternal Inflation Multiverse" and the "Cosmic Landscape Hypothesis" derived from String Theory, quantum mechanics (the "Many-Worlds Interpretation"), and the "Computational Multiverse" hypothesis. I also tell you about thinkers such as Anaximander, Copernic, and Giordano Bruno, who all contributed in their own ways to the intellectual revolutions necessary for this concept to emerge.

Tonight’s episode is a remastered version of one of the first stories ever released on the podcast. The original version covered cosmetics and perfumes; in this new version we expanded the history of cosmetics and left the history of perfumes for a future story.

In this relaxing story, I tell you about the history of castles in Europe, from the first earthworks from the Bronze Age to Roman castra and finally medieval castles. We follow their development from motte & bailey castles to giant fortresses of the 14th century with dungeons, concentric walls, drawbridges, portcullis, machicolations, moats...