Two episodes in so far:

Episode #193 - The main export of the western world is trash. - Anarchism Pt. 2 (Bookchin, Social Ecology)

Episode #192 - Should we overthrow the government tomorrow? - Anarchism Pt. 1 (Chomsky, Malatesta)

more episodes to come.

If you have not heard this show so far, it has been running for something like 10 years, is very well presented and well worth a listen.

A man under arrest by Russian internal security forces was seen confessing to a “crime”, in a video posted on January 2. He had been apprehended after allegedly posting a video on social media that purportedly showed air defences near the Russian city of Belgorod. This city, on the border with Ukraine, was the target of Ukrainian missile attacks on the same day.

What was notable, though, about this confessional was that the man was flanked by two internal security officers who had the word Smersh emblazoned on the backs of their jackets.

Many people in the west remember Smersh from Ian Fleming’s early James Bond novels (and early films). It was the shadowy Soviet spy agency bent on eliminating the fictional British agent.

But there was nothing fictitious about Smersh itself. It was a real counterintelligence agency set up in Joseph Stalin’s Soviet Union during the second world war.

All organisms are made of living cells. While it is difficult to pinpoint exactly when the first cells came to exist, geologists' best estimates suggest at least as early as 3.8 billion years ago. But how much life has inhabited this planet since the first cell on Earth? And how much life will ever exist on Earth?

In our new study, published in Current Biology, my colleagues from the Weizmann Institute of Science and Smith College and I took aim at these big questions.

For the first time, researchers have analyzed the impact of antibiotic use on the rise of treatment-resistant bacteria over the last 20 years in the UK and Norway. They show that while the increase in drug use has amplified the spread of superbugs, it is not the only driver.

Researchers from the Wellcome Sanger Institute, the University of Oslo, the University of Cambridge, and collaborators conducted a high-resolution genetic comparison of bacteria. They compared over 700 new blood samples with nearly 5,000 previously sequenced bacterial samples to answer questions about what factors influence the spread of antibiotic-resistant Escherichia coli (E. coli).

The study, published in The Lancet Microbe, shows that greater antibiotic use does drive an increase in treatment-resistant bacteria in some instances. However, researchers have confirmed that this varies depending on the type of broad-spectrum antibiotic used. They also found that the success of antibiotic-resistance genes depends on the genetic makeup of the bacteria carrying them.

Reading stories regularly strengthens social-cognitive skills—such as empathy—in both children and adults. And this, in turn, ensures that we can empathize with characters more effectively and more quickly when we are reading. This is the subject of linguist Lynn Eekhof's Ph.D., which she will receive at Radboud University on 15 January. "I think we need to capitalize more on the wonder of what stories do, rather than merely seeing reading as a practical skill."

Astronomers have discovered a ring-shaped cosmic megastructure, the proportions of which challenge existing theories of the universe.

The so-called Big Ring has a diameter of about 1.3bn light years, making it among the largest structures ever observed. At more than 9bn light years from Earth, it is too faint to see directly, but its diameter on the night sky would be equivalent to 15 full moons.

The observations, presented on Thursday at the 243rd meeting of the American Astronomical Society in New Orleans, are significant because the size of the Big Ring appears to defy a fundamental assumption in cosmology called the cosmological principle. This states that above a certain spatial scale, the universe is homogeneous and looks identical in every direction.

“From current cosmological theories we didn’t think structures on this scale were possible,” said Alexia Lopez, a PhD student at the University of Central Lancashire, who led the analysis. “We could expect maybe one exceedingly large structure in all our observable universe.”

In a system with two known planets, astronomers spotted something new: A small object transiting across the sun-sized star. This turned out to be another planet, which was extra hot and Earth-sized.

The newly spotted planet, called HD 63433 d, is tidally locked, meaning there is a dayside that always faces its star and a side that is constantly in darkness. This exoplanet, or planet outside of our solar system, orbits around the star HD 63433 (TOI 1726) in the HD 63433 planetary system. This scorching world is the smallest confirmed exoplanet younger than 500 million years old. It's also the closest discovered Earth-sized planet this young, at about 400 million years old.

It is already the most in-demand spot on the London transport network, but plans to install stickers and cardboard steering wheels in driverless Docklands Light Railway (DLR) trains could intensify the scramble for its front seats.

London’s mayor, Sadiq Khan, has said the trains, in which tens of thousands of Londoners have sat pretending to be the driver, could now include a steering wheel and stickers mimicking control panels to make the experience more realistic.

In an effort to bring to life “driving the DLR” for children – and older enthusiasts – TfL will introduce new vinyl stickers for the front panels of 10 of its trains, featuring pretend buttons and switches. The trial begins this month but could be introduced more widely in the future.

A new species of tyrannosaur from southern North America that may the closest known relative of Tyrannosaurus rex is described in a study published in Scientific Reports.

Sebastian Dalman and colleagues identified the new species—which they have named Tyrannosaurus mcraeensis—by examining a fossilized partial skull, which was previously discovered in the Hall Lake Formation, New Mexico, U.S.

Although these remains were initially assigned to T. rex and are comparable in size to those of T. rex (which was up to 12 meters long), the authors propose that they belong to a new species due to the presence of multiple subtle differences in the shape of, and joins between, the skull bones of the specimen and T. rex.

Just 2% of rainforest tree species account for 50% of the trees found in tropical forests across Africa, the Amazon and south-east Asia, a new study has found.

Mirroring patterns found elsewhere in the natural world, researchers have discovered that a few tree species dominate the world’s major rainforests, with thousands of rare species making up the rest.

Led by University College London researchers and published in the Nature journal, the international collaboration of 356 scientists uncovered almost identical patterns of tree diversity across the world’s rainforests, which are the most biodiverse places on the planet. The researchers estimate that just 1,000 species account for half of Earth’s 800 billion trees in tropical rainforests, with 46,000 species making up the remainder.