Samba, Strings and the Story of HIV

The Thought Show

Can medical statistics be transformed into music? That was the challenge set by epidemiologist Elizabeth Pisani for composer Tony Haynes. The result was Song of Contagion to be performed this month by his Grand Union Orchestra with steel pans, saxophones and singers telling the story of diseases including Zika and AIDs.

What Is 4Chan? How an anonymous social network spawned some of the biggest and most recognisable online political movements. We look at the origins, the people who use it and where it’s going.

And why do we talk to ourselves? Matthew Sweet hears how it can calm us down, help us organise our thoughts, and in the case of Sarah Outen, who spent four and a half years rowing, cycling and kayaking around the planet, he hears how it saved her life on more than one occasion.

(Photo: Detail close up of French Horn musical instrument, part of the Brass family of instruments. Credit: Shutterstock)