Reflecting on recent science news stories and current events, authoritative thinkers unpack the implications for society. Naked Reflections is chaired by Ed Kessler, director of the Woolf Institute, Cambridge.

21 May 2023

It’s easier said than done...

28 March 2023

Tell the Ukrainians to turn the other cheek and you’d probably get short shrift. So what does this advice really mean?

05 March 2023

In the blue corner: National Anthems and military marches; in the red corner: protest songs. Politics and music often...

05 February 2023

A light- hearted discussion about positive thinking in bad times...

10 January 2023

Is it sometimes necessary or even productive to stop negotiating?

15 December 2022

Is the world population, at eight billion and rising, too high?

27 November 2022

The UK asylum system is broken. The Woolf Institute Commission on the Integration of Refugees aims to help fix it...

13 November 2022

Are we witnessing the collapse of the NHS in real time?

06 November 2022

We reflect on the secular and the religious approaches to mental ill health and find that they are not mutually...

30 October 2022

The Slave Trade was abolished in 1807, but modern slavery still blights society...

23 October 2022

We all face death, and this sense of an ending is expressed in religion and art. Does science provide a more comforting...

16 October 2022

Hatred is a powerful human emotion. It can motivate individuals and nations, sometimes with tragic consequences...

25 September 2022

In a world of threatened resources and growing population, how should we eat sustainably and responsibly?

14 September 2022

When the film LADY OF HEAVEN was released, there were vigorous protests and Cineworld withdrew the film. What was going...

21 August 2022

Extracts from two of our favourite episodes, combined into a Summer Special covering QAnon and Sex...

12 August 2022

Can you have one without the other?

21 July 2022

Gambling can take place in a bedroom, on the High Street or on a train. Is it’s ubiquity a problem for a few or for...

14 July 2022

Irish writer Rose Doyle talks to Ed Kessler about her son’s suicide...

07 July 2022

Victor Orban coined the phrase Fortress Europe, expressing a desire for Christianity to keep Islam at bay...

30 June 2022

Memory is mysterious and we are only now beginning to understand how it works in our brains...

25 June 2022

Many families in the UK open their homes to provide refuge for fleeing Ukrainians. What is the history and the future...

16 June 2022

The Archbishop of Canterbury and Archbishop Kirill of Moscow both got into trouble recently for mixing up religion with...

09 June 2022

There’s a pizza joint in Washington DC where a cabal of satanic child abusers meets to brag about their exploits.

02 June 2022

Is diaspora community just a posh phrase for immigrant community?