Anatomy

Misha Glenny and guests discuss one of the wonders of the natural world. In 1875 in the western Pacific, the crew of HMS Challenger discovered the Mariana Trench which turned out to be deeper than Everest is high, by two kilometres. Trenches like Mariana form when one tectonic pl ...  Show more

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the evolution of lungs and of the first breaths, which can be traced back 400 million years to when animal life spread from rock pools and swamps onto land, as some fish found an evolutionary advantage in getting their oxygen from air rather than w ...  Show more

For much of human history, the interal geography of our bodies has been a mystery. We’ve walked a long, dark road as we’ve sought its secrets – taking many wrong turns, and leaving a trail of casualties in our wake. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. 

Why did the Ancient Greeks depict a womb as an octopus in their textbooks?Their writings and (mis)understandings of the female body might seem borderline comical now, but how did these beliefs on the physical indicators of womanhood still impact us today?Joining Kate is Helen Kin ...  Show more

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss Robert Burton's masterpiece The Anatomy of Melancholy.In 1621 the priest and scholar Robert Burton published a book quite unlike any other. The Anatomy of Melancholy brings together almost two thousand years of scholarship, from Ancient Greek p ...  Show more

<span style="font-weight: 400;">Diagnosis is arguably the most important job of a physician. But what does it actually mean to make a diagnosis? In this episode, we'll explore this question by tracking the development of the "classical" model of diagnosis and pathological anat ...