If law enforcement said we need to legalise all drugs, would you ask them why? Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP) are a global and domestic organisation of police, intelligence personnel, judges, undercover drug detectives and military who have all seen the failures of current drug policy from their up-close and personal perspective. The global illicit … Continue reading "Why These Former Law Enforcement Officers Say End The War On Drugs"

Inside AA: Can A Non-Existent God Cure Alcoholism? Alcoholics Anonymous offers a commonly accepted and media endorsed "spiritual" programme of recovery. Yet while AA's social worth is rarely challenged, its efficacy rate appears comparable to that of spontaneous remission. We're all affected by alcoholism and addiction in some way. Can a non-existent Higher Power really … Continue reading "Inside AA"

When Neil Armstrong stepped onto the moon in 1969 - the Americans entered history as the winners of the Space Race. This isn't their story. Micky Lachmann is going to talk about their competitors the Soviets, and how they managed to beat the Americans to almost every milestone in Space. It's a story we don't … Continue reading "Adventures With Cosmonauts- An Unofficial History Of The Russian Space Program"

Since 2011, a team of 200 civilians has been predicting the future more accurately than US intelligence agencies. Formed five years ago under the auspices of IARPA (the US Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity, informally known as 'DARPA for spies'), the Good Judgement Project's 'Superforecaster' teams have been forecasting the specifics of North Korean missile … Continue reading "Superforecasting and Geopolitical Intellegence"

There is no doubt that quantum physics embodies mind-blowing concepts that force us to question the very nature of reality. And if there's a contender for our current best "theory of everything" then quantum mechanics wins hands down. But, far too often, the word "quantum" signals the worst type of vacuous pseudoscientific gobbledegook. It's exploited … Continue reading "The Wow and the Woo of Quantum Physics"

For 6 weeks in late 2015, the COMPare team monitored every clinical trial published in the top 5 medical journals for "outcome switching": when trialists report something different from what they originally said they would report. Of 67 trials assessed, 58 (87%) were found to contain discrepancies between pre-specified and reported outcomes. Outcome switching is … Continue reading "COMPare: what happened when we tried to correct the record on 58 misreported trials"

By 2050 the global population will reach 9 billion and this will put ever increasing pressure on food and environmental resources. How can we ensure global food security without further damaging the environment with intensified farming practices? One UN backed solution is to focus on alternative sources of protein, such as insects for food and … Continue reading "Why Eating Bugs Will Soon Become The New Normal"

CHANGED FROM THE 1ST OF AUGUST TO THE 3RD OF OCTOBER. The brain is the most complicated computational device humans have access to. It is a network of 86 billion neurons, each with 1000 connections, allowing communication inside our minds, but also with the rest of our body. The workings of the brain are better … Continue reading "How Experience Shapes The Brain"

Jim Killock is the executive director of the Open Rights Group. Since joining Open Rights Group in January 2009, Jim has led campaigns against three strikes and the Digital Economy Act, the company Phorm and its plans to snoop on UK users, and against pervasive government Internet surveillance. He is working on data protection and … Continue reading "How Much Surveillance Is Acceptable In Democracy"

Our world would be one of anarchy without the "Rule of Law". Our interactions with others and with the state depend on the rules of contract law, consumer law, land law, employment law, financial law, the law of nuisance and negligence, family law, criminal law, and of course, public and constitutional law. These are just … Continue reading "The Rule Of Law"