The 2008 Massey lectures entitled, Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Life are given by the award-winning writer Margaret Atwood. The five lectures (in English) cover not how to get out of debt or avoid it, but rather the debtor/creditor relationship in the broadest sense and debt as a human construct. As Margaret Atwood says, “What we owe and how we pay is a feature of all human societies, and profoundly shapes our shared values and our cultures.” > > >

Did you ever consider becoming a writer instead of a scientist? As it turns out, the gap between the two is small – at least for science fiction writers, who conceived terms like “genetic engineering”, “computer virus” and “gas giant”, which are now commonly used in actual science. > > >