Olly Mann and The Week delve behind the headlines and debate what really matters from the past seven days.
In this week’s episode, we discuss:
Fruity robots
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Fieldwork Robotics, a tech start-up link linked to Plymouth University, has developed a robot that can pick 25,000 raspberries per day - 10,000 more than professional human fruit-pickers. Until now raspberries have been seen as a particularly robot-resistant fruit because of their fragility when they’re ripe. People are very good as applying just the right amount of pressure without causing damage, but robots have tended to reduce the berry to a pulp. Now, though, the balance of power is shifting.
Happiness
New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Arden has set out a national budget whose spending will be determined by what most encourages the “well-being” of its citizens. Is this a radical, progressive way forward for the country, and something the rest of the world could learn from, or nothing more than lofty ideals and slick branding?
Read more about New Zealand's well-being budget in our briefing here.
Dystopian TV
With the return of Black Mirror this week to our television screens, why is it that the near future has become so frightening? Is it a symptom of our ever more troubled times, or as technology advances increasingly swiftly, can we simply no longer imagine a time futher ahead than the next 10 years?
You can subscribe to The Week Unwrapped on iTunes, SoundCloud or wherever you get your podcasts. It is produced by Matt Hill and the music is by Tom Mawby.
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Israel: Losing the American publicFeature A recent poll finds American support for Israel's military action in Gaza has fallen from 50% to 32%
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Unmaking AmericansFeature Trump is threatening to revoke the citizenship of foreign-born Americans. Could he do that?
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EPA: A bonfire of climate change regulationsFeature The Environmental Protection Agency wants to roll back its 'endangerment finding,' a ruling that lets the agency regulate carbon emissions
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The Week Unwrapped: Korean succession, terror by algorithm and German disquietpodcast Could a 10-year-old girl rule North Korea? Will an Isis victim upend web law? And why is Germany upset with its Oscars contender?
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The Week Unwrapped: Chinese chips, the Pope in Africa and podcastingpodcast Is China losing the microchip war? What is the Vatican doing in South Sudan? And has the podcast tide turned?
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The Week Unwrapped: Sex and health, the Earth’s core and another new yearpodcast Is the NHS failing British women? What’s going on at the centre of our planet? And what’s in a date?
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The Week Unwrapped: Antisocial Saudis, hormone therapy and retro techpodcast Why is Saudi Arabia investing in – and banning – social networks? Will new research make life easier for trans women? And is the future of technology dumb?
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The Week Unwrapped: AI in court, Germans in Taiwan and ghostwriterspodcast Could artificial intelligence replace lawyers? What does Taiwan want from Germany? And are ghostwriters becoming less ghostly?
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The Year Unwrapped: White refugees, Aegean islands and celebrity gossippodcast Was 2022 the year of the white refugees? What’s really going on in the Aegean sea? And why are we so obsessed with showbiz scandals?
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The Week Unwrapped: Tracking apps, BTS and stay-at-home girlfriendspodcast Does China’s U-turn mark the end of Covid-tracking apps? Has South Korean pop passed its peak? And are we really seeing the rise of the stay-at-home girlfriend?
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The Week Unwrapped: Africa alert, ticket touts and the words of the yearpodcast Is South Africa at risk of terrorist attacks? Why are ticket touts in such high demand? And are we really in a ‘permacrisis’?
