Ideas from CBC Radio (Highlights)

Ancient stories depicting life and creation from traditional Inuit oral legends, retold, dramatized and recorded in Iqaluit, Nunavut. CBC Radio's Legends Project compiles traditional oral stories, legends and histories of Canada's Inuit and First Nations, gathered in communities across the country.

Bees are remarkable among insects. They can count, remember human faces, and communicate through dance routines performed entirely in the dark. But are they intelligent? Even creative? Bee aficionado Stephen Humphrey, along with a hive of leading bee researchers and scientists, investigates the mental lives of bees.

The War of 1812 wasn't the only important event that year in nascent Canada. That fall, the Earl of Selkirk established a small colony in what would become southern Manitoba. IDEAS host Paul Kennedy tells the story of how that tiny settlement changed Canada, introducing new ideas of what the west could be, including an early version of a multicultural Canada.

At a time of widespread obsession with everything from money to celebrity to the latest in techno gadgetry, does the idea of idolatry have more than religious significance? IDEAS producer Frank Faulk explores the meaning of idolatry in a secular age.

Human beings have a unique evolutionary history. We are at the mercy of neither biology nor luck. We survive by learning from each other. Evolutionary biologist Mark Pagel tells us humans are successful because we are "wired for culture."

Bees are remarkable among insects. They can count, remember human faces, and communicate through dance routines performed entirely in the dark. But are they intelligent? Even creative? Bee aficionado Stephen Humphrey, along with a hive of leading bee researchers and scientists, investigates the mental lives of bees

An ongoing annual series about the connection between Sport and Society, "Footprints 2012" takes IDEAS host Paul Kennedy to the Great Rift Valley, in Kenya. He spends time in the training camp for distance runners that may produce pots of gold at this summer's London Olympics.

Can you come up with an answer? Most of us can't. And those who do have an answer-those in the field-often respond in technical language and with explanations that are intellectually counterintuitive. Barbara Nichol asks experts in the field a simple question: where is the Internet?

The 2012 Muskoka Environmental Summit brings together prominent scientists and influential policy makers to discuss critical questions about biodiversity and the environment. IDEAS host Paul Kennedy moderates the plenary panel discussion.

Thirty years after pivotal constitutional negotiations, an Edmonton conference brings together many of the original participants to consider what happened and how it changed Canadian history.

How should European societies respond to the influx of peoples with different traditions, backgrounds and beliefs? In the 2012 Milton K. Wong Lecture, Kenan Malik looks at multiculturalism policies in Europe, at the ways in which different countries have approached immigration and diversity, and at the reasons for the current dissatisfaction.

It was a war that nobody really wanted, although both sides ultimately claimed to win. IDEAS host Paul Kennedy considers the causes and the consequences of the War of 1812-14, from both sides, and includes an "Indian" perspective that is all too frequently ignored.

Christians against Muslims, the Crusades that began in the 11th century were wars for control of the Holy Land. The Crusaders themselves were a hybrid of warrior and priest, defending the pilgrim, attacking the Infidel. These Military Orders were also the first multinational corporations, and until their eventual destruction and diminishment, the Knights Templar, the Hospitallers and the Teutonic Knights held unparalleled power, enough to threaten whole kingdoms and the Papacy itself. Philip Coulter tells the story. Part 3: The Teutonic Knights.

Christians against Muslims, the Crusades that began in the eleventh century were wars for control of the Holy Land. The Crusaders themselves were a hybrid of warrior and priest, defending the pilgrim, attacking the Infidel. These Military Orders were also the first multinational corporations, and until their eventual destruction and diminishment, the Knights Templar, the Hospitallers and the Teutonic Knights held unparalleled power, enough to threaten whole kingdoms and the Papacy itself. Philip Coulter tells the story.

Christians against Muslims, the Crusades that began in the eleventh century were wars for control of the Holy Land. The Crusaders themselves were a hybrid of warrior and priest, defending the pilgrim, attacking the Infidel. These Military Orders were also the first multinational corporations, and until their eventual destruction and diminishment, the Knights Templar, the Hospitallers and the Teutonic Knights held unparalleled power, enough to threaten whole kingdoms and the Papacy itself. Philip Coulter tells the story.