Ideas from CBC Radio (Highlights)

About 2,500 years ago, Thucydides travelled ancient Greece, gathering stories about a brutal war that plunged the ancient world into chaos. He set high standards for accuracy, objectivity and thoroughness in his reporting.

How do we find things out? Four of Canada's top research scholars come together to discuss the idea of discovery. Is it an art or a science? Can anyone do it? And who owns what's discovered?

Christians against Muslims, the Crusades that began in the 11th century were wars for control of the Holy Land. The Knights Templar, the Hospitallers and the Teutonic Knights held unparalleled power. Philip Coulter tells the story.

Off the northern tip of Vancouver Island, a small group of people has survived since time began. Their stories capture the essence of their relationship with the sea and its creatures.

Nahlah Ayed, correspondent for CBC's The National, delivers the 2012 Dalton Camp Lecture in Journalism at St. Thomas University in Fredericton. She's the author of, A Thousand Farewells: A Reporter's Journey from Refugee Camp to the Arab Spring.

In a cluster of quiet mountain villages in Sardinia, Italy, something unusual is happening. A remarkable number of people are living into their hundreds. Psychologist and authorSusan Pinker takes us to Sardinia as she searches for answers.

In 1942 the Allied forces had a plan to build a gigantic warship to help win the Battle of the Atlantic. It would be built in Canada and made from ... ice! Richard Longley tells the story of iceberg ship Habbakuk.

The idea of the chosen has its roots in ancient Judaism, but it is a belief that continues to shape us today, consciously or unconsciously. Frank Faulk examines how this Biblical concept is central to Western thought and culture.

Eleanor Wachtel speaks with the Canadian architect, philanthropist and social entrepreneur Phyllis Lambert.

What happens when a "sonnet" of Canadian Poets Laureate meets the Makar of Scotland, the Laureate of that land, in a Laureate Symposium? We eavesdrop as the poets ponder the role of poetry in a world of twitter.

Baruch Spinoza was a 17th century lens grinder known for his precision optical work. But it was his philosophy that made this Dutch-Jewish thinker famous. Spinoza's thoughts on God and the universe helped ignite the flame that became the Enlightenment.

Every pair of shoes tells the story of a life. Canadian novelist Katherine Govier helps immigrant women tell their stories by having them write about the shoes they were wearing when they arrived in Canada.

We are all well aware by now of how the seas have become fished out. But reports of overfishing go back to the Middle Ages. Historian and mariner W. Jeffrey Bolster takes us on a centuries old tour of a very modern problem.

On the simplest level, we take risks to derive benefits. If the benefit outweighs the risk, we've made a good decision. But decisions are subject to bias, even those of experts. How do we live with uncertainty and make good decisions?

Be it resolved: Should the rich be taxed more? That's the resolution at this spring's Munk Debate. Featuring debaters: George Papandreou, Paul Krugman, Newt Gingrich and Arthur Laffer.