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What's the best way to make a decision?
CrowdScience
Dec 10, 2021

Life is full of choices, from the mundane (like what to wear today) to the critical (how should we deal with the pandemic?). So how can we make the best decisions? That’s what listener David wants to know.

To investigate, Caroline Steel learns how being smarter doesn’t necessarily make you a good decision maker. She speaks to researchers about the importance of ‘gut feelings’ – and how certain people with no intuition whatsoever can struggle to make choices. She also learns why it’s easier to give advice to other people than to follow it yourself, and how we can work together to make the best decisions in a group.

Presenter: Caroline Steel Producer: Anand Jagatia

Contributors: Wändy Bruin de Bruin - Professor of Public Policy, Psychology and Behavioural Science, University of Southern California, USA David Robson, science journalist and author Valerie van Mulukom, Assistant Professor, Coventry University, UK Liz Steel Igor Grossmann, Associate Professor of psychology, University of Waterloo, Canada Anita Williams Woolley associate professor of organisational behaviour and theory, Carnegie Mellon University, USA

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Apr 10, 2026
When will the next super-volcano erupt?

Is the world sitting on a ticking time bomb? CrowdScience listener Christel recently watched a documentary about a volcanic eruption in 536 AD that left her native Sweden under a cloud of ash for three years. It got her thinking, do we know when this could happen again?

With more than 300 volcanoes – and 24 of them listed as currently active – the Philippines is a country where trying to predict eruptions has huge real world consequences.

Presenter Anand Jagatia travels to Manila to meet the scientists at PHIVOLCS, the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology, including the head of their Volcano Monitoring and Eruption Prediction Division, Mariton Antonia Bornas, to find out how they try to predict volcanic activity in the country and help make sure communities are evacuated out of harm’s way.

He travels with the team to Taal volcano, which experienced violent eruptions in 2020 and has been active again this year, to visit the observatory monitoring for signs of future activity and to hike to the main crater of the volcano with resident volcanologist Paolo Reniva.

He also speaks to Dr George Cooper from Cardiff University in the UK about what makes a volcano a supervolcano, and to ask the all important question of if we know when this will happen again.

Presenter: Anand Jagatia

Producer: Dan Welsh

Editor: Ben Motley

(Photo: Smoke Emitting From Volcanic Mountain Against Sky - stock photo -EyeEm Mobile GmbH via Getty Images)


29min 05sec




What's the best way to make a decision?

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