A Sense of Direction
Seriously...
BBC
4.1 • 885 Ratings
🗓️ 25 February 2020
⏱️ 30 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Many animals can navigate by sensing the earth's magnetic field. Not humans, though. But might we have evolved the sense but forgotten how to access it? 40 years ago a British zoologist thought he had demonstrated a homing ability in humans. But his results failed to replicate in America and the research was largely discredited. But new evidence suggests that our brains can in fact detect changes in the magnetic field and may even be able to use it to navigate. Jolyon Jenkins investigates, and talks to a Pacific traditional seafarer who has learned to navigate vast distances across the ocean with no instruments, and who describes how, when all else fails, he has been able to access what he calls "the magic". Is the magic still there for all of us, just waiting to be rediscovered?
Producer: Jolyon Jenkins
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This was an impregnable fortress. The only way you get out was in a wooden box. |
| 0:05.0 | The controversial maximum security prison impossible to escape from. |
| 0:09.0 | And one of the duties of a political prisoner is the escape. |
| 0:12.0 | The IRA inmates who found a way. of a political prisoner is the escape. |
| 0:12.5 | The IRA inmates who found a way. |
| 0:14.5 | I'm Carlo Gableer and I'll be navigating a path |
| 0:19.5 | through the disturbing inside story of the biggest jailbreak in British and Irish history. |
| 0:25.0 | The narrative that they want is that this is a big achievement by them. |
| 0:28.5 | Escape from the maze, listen first on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:35.0 | BBC Sounds. |
| 0:34.0 | BBC Sounds, music radio podcasts. |
| 0:39.0 | Hi everyone, Russell Kane here. |
| 0:41.0 | I've got just a few seconds to tell you about evil genius. Our hit podcast, |
| 0:45.6 | two and a half million downloads in 2019, top 10, where we take people from history, |
| 0:50.4 | Gandhi, Margaret Thatcher, John Lennon, and detonate fact bombs around their |
| 0:54.6 | reputations. It's stuff you don't want to know, but you really do want to know. |
| 0:58.3 | At the end of a lively debate, my panel of esteemed guest, read comedians all have to vote evil or genius |
| 1:06.3 | there's no gray area this is cancel culture turned into an innovative format |
| 1:10.8 | subscribe to evil genius on BBC Sounds now. |
| 1:14.0 | Hello and thanks for listening to the Seriously podcast. |
| 1:18.0 | I'm Julian Jenkins and I want to tell you about Out of the Ordinary, the Radio Force series I present, which aims to uncover stories |
| 1:26.0 | from the left field. I've spoken to people who've drilled holes in their heads to expand |
... |
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