One of the more unusual symptoms of Covid-19 is the loss of the sense of smell. While this often occurs temporarily during and after many viruses: stuffy, inflamed noses can block the passage to the smell receptors at the top of the airway and sometimes these receptors are also damaged by inflammation, taking time to recover. The Covid-19 loss of smell, however, occurs without any of that typical nasal blockage. And this has opened new doors to understanding our most neglected sense.

I am often outraged by the way humans view vision as the primary sense. Sight is the main way we perceive the world, the plethora of visual metaphors and idiom that pervade out language attest to this point. Note the first sentence of this paragraph.

As an audio producer, I feel annoyed in the many situations in which our hearing is at best ignored, at worst abused. I want to scream when I walk into a new restaurant in which obscene sums have obviously been spent on a new fit out but NO money or attention has been paid on treating the space for sound. Turns out people working with our sense of smell share similar frustrations. “While we have long understood the basic mechanisms of vision and audition, it has been less than 30 years since the neural receptors that allow us to perceive and make sense of the smells around us were even identified. The discoverers — Linda Buck and Richard Axel — were awarded the Nobel Prize in 2004.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/31/podcasts/the-daily/coronavirus-loss-of-smell-anosmia.html

This series is among the best things I’ve listened to this year. In-depth interviews, field reporting, audio diaries and conversations are expertly weaved together to tell the stories of refugees and asylum seekers stranded in Indonesia. They are without the right to work, study, marry, travel, or even hold a bank account. Many thousands of people are in this situation and the policies of the Australian Government play in important role in their ordeals.

Since the Liberal government ‘stopped the boats’, the plight of asylum seekers in the region has faded from the headlines. The Wait shines a much needed light on the impacts of the government’s policies.

Made by an impressive team led by Nicole Curby and Mozhgan Moarefizadeh, this project was years in the making and you can tell. One particularly moving moment had me sobbing on a sports field during my morning run. Episode one is below. Listen to the whole season.

Everything that’s wrong with the internet in terrifying detail. Some of it you already know, a lot of it you don’t, but all of it well worth listening to. Deibert argues that the internet, especially social media, has an increasingly toxic influence in every aspect of life. The problem is how can we get away from it when we can’t fathom how we ever lived without it….

This lecture is split into six parts and this is the first: Look At That Device In Your Hand.

This potted history of the public concession was published well before the US Election. Considering how it all unfolded, it was eerily prescient.