Psychiatrist Dr Jane Turner from the Mental Health Centre at the University of Queensland's School of Medicine talks about her research into the impact that parental cancer and subsequent death has on children.Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
2010-01-31 Black Saturday Geoff Hudson, inventor, author and computer programmer, lives in an area close to the devastating bushfires of last year. Today he looks at what went wrong with the warning system and suggests what could be done to prevent such a catastrophe happening again.Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
2010-01-24 Early language and reading skills in indigenous children in Australia Professor Margot Prior from the Department of Psychology at the University of Melbourne has been working in Aboriginal child health for over 10 years. In this program she talks about the terrible state of literacy in Aboriginal children and some of the reasons for it.Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
2010-01-17 Edison the organizational innovator Professor Mark Dodgson from the University of Queensland talks about the achievements of inventor Thomas Edison. He also tells us about some of the less pleasant aspects of Edison's life, i.e. his lack of personal hygiene, the harsh way he treated people who worked for him and his electrocution of animals.Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
2010-01-10 Is fructose the root of all evil? On 12th July last year lawyer and author David Gillespie presented an Ockham's Razor talk telling us that fructose is very bad for us. In this program nutritionist Chris Forbes-Ewan refutes some of the claims made by David Gillespie.Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
2010-01-03 Aboriginal astronomy Professor Ray Norris from the CSIRO Australia Telescope National Facility, together with his wife Cilla, has written a book called Emu Dreaming - An Introduction to Australian Aboriginal Astronomy. In this talk he tells us about Aboriginal Australians' amazing depths of knowledge about the sky.Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
2009-12-20 A short history of cell deaths Many cells in our bodies are programmed to die. In a human about one million cells divide in two every second. Professor David Vaux from La Trobe University in Melbourne looks at how cells function and behave.Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
2009-12-27 A response to evangelical atheism Philip Ponder teaches chemistry at a High School in Melbourne. In this program he tackles the rise of what he calls aggressive atheism and tries to reconcile creationism and evolution by suggesting that every major religion was created or has evolved to answer four big questions.Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
2009-12-13 The coral reef crisis The former Chief Scientist at the Australian Institute of Marine Science, Dr Charlie Veron, discusses the situation of coral reefs and the environmental challenges ahead.Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
2009-12-06 Ching Chong China Girl - From fruitshop to foreign correspondent Helene Chung, author and former ABC Foreign Correspondent, wrote her biography: Ching Chong China Girl: From fruit shop to foreign correspondent. She recalls what it was like growing up Chinese in 1950s Tasmania and gives insights into her life as an adult.Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
2009-11-29 Look back with pride Emeritus Professor of Ethology at the University of Queensland, Glen McBride, gives us a different view of natural selection as we celebrate the birth of Charles Darwin 200 years ago and the 150th anniversary of On the Origin of Species.Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
2009-11-22 A Gunn and two Hookers - Part two Last week Dr Jim Endersby, from the University of Sussex in the UK, told the tale of how Joseph Dalton Hooker met Tasmanian Ronald Gunn who, over the years, sent hundreds of carefully dried and preserved specimens of unknown flora to Kew, where Hooker named and classified his finds. Today Europe's museums and botanic gardens are full of dried plants, stuffed animals etc, as a result of the dedication of these men.Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
2009-11-15 A Gunn and two Hookers - Part one Dr Jim Endersby is a lecturer in British History at the University of Sussex in the UK and he's the author of a book called Imperial Nature - Joseph Hooker and the Practices of Victorian Science. Joseph Hooker was an internationally renowned botanist and a close friend and early supporter of Charles Darwin and he was one of the first British men of science to become a full-time professional. Dr Jim Endersby talks about Hooker's career and offers interesting insights into the 19th century na ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
2009-11-08 The role of undergraduate education in Australia Michael Bradley is in his 4th year studying engineering at the University of Sydney. In this talk he discusses some interesting thoughts about the role of university education.Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
2009-11-01 The evolution of world peace In recent history we've seen numerous acts of global terrorism, invasions, genocides, wars and the growing threat of nuclear proliferation. Dr Scott Field is a lecturer at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey and a Visiting Scholar at the Institute of International Studies at the University of California Berkeley and he argues that we are on the path to eventual world peace.Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
2009-10-25 Women, science and politics Politics used to be known as 'a man's business'. However, the situation seems to be changing globally to some extent. Emeritus Professor Sol Encel from the University of New South Wales looks at female politicians, past and present, and found that a large number of them have a scientific background.Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
2009-10-18 Professor Ian Plimer replies to his critics In June this year Professor Kurt Lambeck, President of the Australian Academy of Science, discussed Professor Ian Plimer's book Heaven and Earth. Professor Plimer has been criticised in some circles about his views on climate change and in this talk he answers his critics.Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
2009-10-11 How T.H. Huxley helped me teach my students how to write Dr Susan Lawler is a teacher of evolution and genetics at the Albury/Wodonga campus of La Trobe University. The lack of writing skills in her students gave her the idea to correspond with her students as T.H. Huxley.Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
2009-10-04 Is our sustainability science racist? Dr Ariel Salleh is a sociologist in political economy at the University of Sydney and today she focuses on the ecological debt notched up by affluent societies as main contributors to global warming.Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
2009-09-27 The Coolibah story Paediatrican Dr John Boulton retired from the University of Newcastle in 2005 and now works part-time in Aboriginal Child Health in the Kimberley region in Western Australia. Recently he had an opportunity to glimpse the life of an Aboriginal man called Coolibah who was looking after his sick 3-year-old grandson, who was suffering with severe nephritis. So, what will it take for an Aboriginal child to have the same life chances for health as a white child?Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
