Ballast: not just for ships and giggles.

Ballast might be old technology, but in this final episode of the Ballast podcast we explore how this basic feat of engineering is now being used in planes and state-of-the-art building designs, and discuss how the future of shipping may never be the same. Will it include ballast?

Find show notes and a transcript at www.hakaimagazine.com/ballast-podcast.

A little emotional ballast can help keep us afloat when life gets heavy.

In this episode of Ballast, we sit in on Elin’s impromptu therapy session to explore ballast as a psychological metaphor and look at how ballast can lend emotional stability. We also look at how the concept of ballast has been twisted in dark ways throughout history to justify atrocities such as the Holocaust.

Find show notes and a transcript at www.hakaimagazine.com/ballast-podcast.

It’s a sink or swim world.

Ballast doesn’t just help to stabilize objects on the surface of water; it comes in awfully handy underwater as well. In this episode we listen in on the vertical migrations of plainfin midshipmen, follow local adventure seeking freedivers to talk buoyancy and where to stash your ballast, learn how buoyancy control strategies of fish and cuttlefish inspired a water-free ballast system for ships, and find out which creatures have developed a penchant for swallowing stones.

Find show notes and a transcript at www.hakaimagazine.com/ballast-podcast.