In 2022, the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) Telescope in the Western Australian outback will embark on a massive project to map the southern skies in radio waves. This survey, the Evolutionary Map of the Universe (EMU), will help us understand how the first stars and galaxies formed, and how they evolved into what we see today. The project involves over 400 researchers from around the world, and it’s being led by Australian astronomers. Cosmos journalist Lauren Fuge spoke t...
Oct 11, 2021•16 min
Today we present the Nature of Politics session from the Nature Festival held in Adelaide between the 25th of September and the 4th of October this year. These days, everything feels like a partisan issue, be it immigration, national security, renewable energy or even lockdowns. More and more decision making seems to feel like a political football, even if it doesn't make sense. Despite its history, a basic concern for the environment seems to have been caught in this trend and in recent years, ...
Oct 06, 2021•58 min
Where you live affects your health. Every day we walk through cities without considering how they’re designed and how they assist – or delay – our ability to live well. As the climate warms, cities are heating up too – and without interventions, this could make them more deadly. But we can now collect data on this at unprecedented levels, which can help us to change cities for the better. To help us address these issues, we are joined by Jason Byrne, Professor of Human Geography and Planning at ...
Oct 04, 2021•57 min
Global semiconductor industry sales top $400 billion; China has called chip independence a top national priority in its latest five-year plan; and U.S. President Joe Biden has vowed to build a secure American supply chain by reviving domestic manufacturing. Even the European Union is mulling measures to make its own chips. Given our increasing dependence on semi-conductors in everything from cars and ATMS to phones and household appliances, what can Australia do to guarantee supply? Today we tal...
Sep 29, 2021•40 min
South Australian-based company Micro-X has recently won $8 million in funding to further develop their small, portable CT scanner, which they aim to fit on an ambulance or in a plane. It’s a device that can mean the difference between life and death in patients having a stroke. The technology they use to enable a CT scanner to be produced that weighs just 30kg, instead of the normal three-quarters of a tonne, can be applied across many forms of x-ray from medical to airport security to military ...
Sep 27, 2021•12 min
Today we have an incredibly special podcast for you. We speak to two amazing women about the effect Taliban rule will have on education, especially for women and girls, in Afghanistan. Farkhondeh Akbari, originally from Daikundi province in central Afghanistan. Akbari was born in 1991 in Afghanistan and migrated with her family to Australia when she was 12 years old. She has visited friends and relatives in Afghanistan throughout her life, most recently in 2019. She joins us today from Canberra,...
Sep 23, 2021•30 min
Today we are joined by Elizabeth Finkel, a multi award-winning science journalist, author, biochemist, and the co-founder of Cosmos magazine. She's recently written a letter and a series of articles on cosmosmagazine.com that delve deep into the science behind the COVID-19 vaccines, speaking specifically to people who are hesitant about getting a job. It is a true COVID toolkit, and it’s fascinating to hear her talk through the challenges she faced in explaining the science. Today’s interview is...
Sep 20, 2021•25 min
Australia may seem like an isolated country, but it is part of a wider ecosystem in the Asia-Pacific – especially when it comes to food. As food scarcity threatens, is food security a problem we need to tackle as a collective? What is Australia’s role in achieving food security in the Asia-Pacific region? We talk to Professor Andrew Campbell, CEO of the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research, and Mr. Sridhar Dharmapuri, Senior Food Safety and Nutrition Officer for the Food and...
Sep 15, 2021•38 min
Frogs have been vanishing in large numbers along the east coast of Australia since June, and we're not entirely sure why. They've been turning up sick and dying, with some populations disappearing within a week or two. We spoke with Dr. Jody Rowley, the amphibian and reptile curator at the Australian Museum to find out what's happening. Today’s interview is hosted by Cosmos journalist Lauren Fuge. Find the science of everything at the Cosmos Magazine website Subscribe to Cosmos Magazine (print) ...
Sep 13, 2021•20 min
With its low rate of COVID-19 vaccinations, Australia is in the rare position of being able to continue vaccine trials on unvaccinated people. This is especially necessary because even vaccines with high efficacy, such as Pfizer and AstraZeneca, have no guarantee of remaining effective as the virus mutates. Today Cosmos journalist Ellen Phiddian talks to Adelaide’s Dr Chris Rook, fellow of the Royal College of General Practitioners, who will be conducting a phase III clinical trial of a protein ...
Sep 12, 2021•14 min
Back in the 1940s, South Australian geologist Reg Sprigg first discovered Ediacaran fossils on the north end of Nilpena Station, to the west of the Flinders Ranges, redefining the Earth’s history by adding in a whole new period. The Department for Environment and Water in South Australia has recently teamed up with several non-profit organisations to purchase a chunk of Nilpena Station and turn it into the Nilpena Ediacaran National Park. They’re currently building trails, planning tours to the ...
Sep 08, 2021•13 min
The fledgling discipline of eco-acoustics has added a remarkable diagnostic tool to field biology: a valid and reliable way to prove the absence of our most secretive species. Where many species are incredibly hard to see, the needs of the genetic line still demand they reach out to potential mates. They do so through calling. Today, Royal Institution of Australia Editor-in-chief Ian Connellan talks to Professor David Watson from Charles Sturt University about the Australian Acoustic Observatory...
Sep 05, 2021•20 min
During the current pandemic, intensive care units in hospitals have had to manage a significant number of critically ill COVID-19 patients. So what is it like on the frontline that is ICU? We talk to Associate Professor Jai Darvall, an anaesthetist and intensive care specialist at the Royal Melbourne Hospital, where he’s co-leader of the perioperative medicine service within the Department of Anaesthesia and Pain Management. He holds dual appointments at the University of Melbourne in the depart...
Sep 01, 2021•28 min
Today our expert panel is going to discuss a fairly simple proposition: whether science has played a role in the decline of truth. ‘Truth decay’ is a subject that’s been growing in visibility; the shift away from an accepted and agreed set of facts and data has been eroding trust in public institutions for many years. The trend may have been more profound in the United States (culminating as it did in the election of President Donald J. Trump), but Australia hasn’t been immune. The challenges pr...
Aug 31, 2021•47 min
Since COVID-19 hit, the science of modelling has moved into the spotlight. Today we’re talking about the reasons for the difference between two recently published examples from the Doherty Institute and a preprint from ANU. Professor Ivo Mueller, an epidemiologist at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute in Melbourne, working across population health and immunity, explains the assumptions inherent in each. At a time where modelling is so prevalent, it’s important to build modelling literacy and un...
Aug 26, 2021•22 min
Today we talk with Adam Smith, Adjunct Associate Professor at James Cook University and managing director at Reef Ecologic, and Nathan Cook, a marine scientist at Reef Ecologic. In March this year they discovered the widest coral on the Great Barrier Reef. Happily, given the challenges the reef is facing, it is in good health. Monitoring these corals can have multiple scientific and climate related benefits. This interview is hosted by Cosmos journalist Lauren Fuge. Find the science of everythin...
Aug 23, 2021•11 min
Given location and area, Australia has an unlimited capacity in sustainable electricity, yet the country lags behind the rest of the world in electric vehicle purchase. EV new vehicles sales in Australia in 2020 were 0.6%. In Norway this number is 54%, with the aim to be 100% by 2025. Why is this the case and what’s being done to change it? To find out some answers we are talking today to Ben Warren, National Manager of Electrification, Nissan Australia, and Gail Broadbent, a PhD candidate from ...
Aug 19, 2021•47 min
Today we talk with Ian McKeown, Head of High Performance at the Port Adelaide Football Club. Off the back of the Olympics, and now as we head towards the finals of the winter codes, maximising the performance of athletes in their chosen pursuits is front of mind. The role that sports science plays in improving performance continues to grow, as people such as Ian find new ways to train the human body. Today’s interview is hosted by Royal Institution of Australia Editor-in-chief Ian Connellan. Fin...
Aug 16, 2021•22 min
As the Australian Space Industry forges ahead, data gathered from space will connect farmers, land managers and emergency services with the real-time changes on Earth in minute detail. But the discoveries made don’t simply jump from lab to industry; they need to be translated into products and companies to reach national impact. So, what is impeding the connection between cutting-edge research and the people who can benefit from its use as a service? And who are the space entrepreneurs paving th...
Aug 12, 2021•35 min
Polymer brushes are substances with a range of medical and environmental uses - environmentally friendly cleaning products, environmental remediation, minerals processing, biotechnology, sensors, drug delivery, and membranes -, but the way they behave at the nano level isn't entirely clear. Today we talk to Dr Andrew Nelson, an instrument scientist at ANSTO, Dr Isaac Gresham from UNSW, and Hayden Robertson, a PhD candidate at the University of Newcastle. All three are working on research to get ...
Aug 11, 2021•17 min
Cybersecurity – the suite of practices used to protect digital assets and information – is regularly in the news, through stories about cyber threats such as ransomware and spyware attacks, and foreign actors hacking into critical systems. Do cyber threats mean that computers are our weakest boundary fences – as individuals, companies/institutions, and nations? Will the next world war be an online one? Today we talk with Dr Dennis “Darknet” Desmond, a lecturer with the University of the Sunshine...
Aug 09, 2021•36 min
Today we talk with Dr Christian Schwab, an astronomer at Macquarie University who has just helped develop one of the most precise tools ever built for detecting new planets outside our solar system. The NEID spectrometer was funded by NASA and the National Science Foundation, and has just started scanning the skies at the WIYN 3.5m telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory in the US. This interview is hosted by Cosmos journalist Lauren Fuge. Find the science of everything at the Cosmos Magazin...
Aug 04, 2021•14 min
One of the coolest things about living at this point in human history is that we are now able to visit other worlds. From rovers trundling over the rocky surface of Mars to probes in orbit around Jupiter and Saturn, we have the incredible opportunity to collect information about other planets – but to do this, scientists need to develop cutting-edge tools. A team at RMIT University in Melbourne has just developed a miniature radar device that will help us see below the surface of the Moon and Ma...
Aug 02, 2021•12 min
As we build a clean energy future, solar energy research is diversifying. This is one of the focuses of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Exciton Science, a collaboration between Australian unis and industry that explores how light interacts with advanced materials. In particular, they study Excitons, an excited state of matter that is crucial to semiconductors, which are used in light-based applications from lasers to solar cells. One group within the ARC is working on building better solar pane...
Jul 28, 2021•10 min
Today we talk to Dr. Chadden Hunter, an Australian wildlife biologist and filmmaker. After completing a PhD on gel-ada baboons in Ethiopia, Chadden worked with National Geographic and Discovery Channel, filming everything from tribal ceremonies in Africa to snow leopards in Pakistan. On the BBC series “Planet Earth” he became known as ‘the guy covered in bat poop’, and whilst filming arctic wolves for “Frozen Planet” learnt that minus 40C was cold enough to freeze his eyes shut. His credits incl...
Jul 26, 2021•22 min
Today we talk to Dr Nicholas Eyre, a Molecular virologist at Flinders University. We recently ran an episode about the controversial gain of function research, which is a technique used in virology and genetics to knock a function into a virus, such as transmissibility, to learn how it evolves. One thing that resonated from that particular interview was the importance of understanding the properties of a virus well before an outbreak occurs. Our previous episode looked at the Zika virus, and tod...
Jul 22, 2021•10 min
Today we talk to Associate Professor Michael Beard, Head of the Viral Pathogenesis Research Laboratory at the University of Adelaide. Our topic is the controversial gain of function research, a technique in virology and genetics which is often used knock a function into a virus to change its transmissibility. The idea is that this kind of research helps us learn more about how a virus evolves, predict future pandemics, and influences vaccine design. However, there is renewed public focus on the ...
Jul 19, 2021•10 min
Today we talk to Professor Alan Duffy, Swinburne University of Technology astrophysicist and lead scientist of the Royal Institution of Australia. With growing interest in the world of commercial space travel, Alan discusses the current status is, the major players, and who else is going to benefit. Today’s interview is hosted by RiAus editor-in-chief Ian Connellan. Find the science of everything at Cosmos Magazine website Subscribe to Cosmos Magazine (print) or the Cosmos Weekly Watch and liste...
Jul 14, 2021•14 min
Today we talk to Dr Allison Young, who has recently received a junior fellowship from The Garnett Passe and Rodney Williams Memorial Foundation. Vertigo is a common but under-treated medical condition with a lifetime prevalence up to 40%. Currently, the diagnosis and treatment of vertigo is done primarily by specialists who represent only 1% of the doctors in Australia. Her project, in collaboration with clinicians, data scientists and statisticians, will use machine learning techniques to devel...
Jul 12, 2021•14 min
Today we have a special podcast. Dr Deborah Devis is reading a story she wrote that featured in Cosmos Weekly, our online subscription-based deep dive into the biggest issues. She looks at the world of fracture testing, and a new device that is making the task of finding flaws in a thing – like every thing – a whole lot easier. Find the science of everything at Cosmos Magazine website Subscribe to Cosmos Magazine (print) or the Cosmos Weekly Watch and listen to all our Cosmos Briefings...
Jul 07, 2021•10 min
