Maddie Long: Tales from the 3 Minute Thesis

Maddie Long

PPLS PhD student Maddie Long has just been awarded the People’s Choice Award in the National 3 Minute Thesis Competition, beating 1000s of students from all around the UK with her presentation: ‘Language and the Brain: The Skye’s the Limit.’ We caught up with her to chat about her research and her experiences of the 3 Minute Thesis competition.

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Dr Guy Fletcher: Well-being and other topics

Dr Guy Fletcher: Well-being and other topics

This month we talk to Dr Guy Fletcher, a lecturer in philosophy here at Edinburgh. In April Guy published a book on what is becoming an increasing hot topic: The philosophy of well-being. The concept of well-being and happiness has fascinated philosophers of ethics and politics since ancient Greek times and beyond, but recently it has become an increasingly central theme in popular psychology, self-help and even government, with the latter spending increasing amounts of money and resource to promote it.

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Dr Lauren Hall-Lew: Tourist attitudes to linguistic variation in Scotland

Lauren Hall-Lew

This month’s podcast comes from Dr Lauren Hall-Lew, a lecturer in Sociolinguistics. With tourist season well and truly upon us it’s the perfect time to find out more about Lauren’s research into tourist attitudes to Scottish accents. Lauren and her team hit the streets of Edinburgh during a recent Edinburgh Festival Fringe to quiz tourists about their attitudes to Scottish accents in different contexts.

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Dr Caroline Watt: The Science of the Paranormal

Caroline Watt, Koestler Parapsychology Unit

This month’s podcast is a fascinating interview with Dr Caroline Watt. It coincides with the recent launch of her book; Parapsychology: A beginners guide (2016). The book draws on Caroline’s years of experience as a senior lecturer in Psychology, and a founder member of the Koestler Parapsychology Unit (KPU), based here at the University of Edinburgh. Last year was the 30th Anniversary of the KPU and we were lucky enough to catch up with Caroline following her successful Fringe show,  to talk to her about the history of the unit, her scientific research, and people’s attitudes to parapsychology and the paranormal.

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Aidan McGlynn: How Pornography Works: Pornography as Undermining Propaganda, and Freedom of Speech

Aidan McGlynn: How Pornography Works: Pornography as Undermining Propaganda, and Freedom of Speech

This month’s podcast comes from Dr Aidan McGlynn, who discusses a paper he recently presented called ‘How pornography works: Pornography as undermining propaganda.’ Aidan is a lecturer in philosophy in the school of PPLS and has worked on a wide range of philosophical topics.

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Putting Dementia on the Map

Tom Russ

Dementia: it’s difficult to think of a more pressing topic. But what do we really know about dementia and about the ways to prevent it? In this podcast, Dr Tom Russ tell us that people living in the north of the UK and Sweden are 2 to 3 times more likely to develop dementia. Why is this the case? Dr Russ explains that we have some good candidates to explore in more detail.

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