Australian Highlights

Not all innovations are gears and coding. Some are a cultural awareness and, always, an ability to use what you have to improve the situation.

Between the Wars, Ethel Anderson was bringing visibility to a new art movement that was being overlooked by those in charge of the nation's galleries and newspapers. She supported artists to ensure that Australia had a Modern voice that would endure. Artists like Grace Cossington-Smith, who h...

What does it mean to communicate and, more specifically, what does it mean to communicate science? And then, how can we learn to be better science communicators?

Who is helping us understand the big science topics, and what did they do to get there?

A niche field of research and career pathway is having its moment as our connected and complex world requires more and more people to accurately communicate the science underpinning it al...

Nearly all of us have a close-encounter story or two. With spiders, that is.

In our previous episode, we spoke to arachnologist Caitlin Creak about her work with funnel web spiders. What also came about were our personal interactions with the creatures that live in and around our homes. Collected here are our recollections and questions on what to do with the spiders amongst us, with a bit extra on the behind-the-scenes of Caitlin's...

How much do we know about the world’s deadliest spider, which lives only in Australia’s largest city?

Turns out, not much!

The Sydney funnel web, Atrax Robustus, has a venom only toxic to primates. While their venom has been studied in depth, resulting in an antivenom, little is known about their life and habits.

Arachnologist Caitlin Creak studies the Sydney funnel web spider unlike anyone else before – in the wild. This dangerous, c...

Why do we not know this? Why is this not in the mainstream?

This is a catch up that generates more questions than answers. As we unfold insights from each episode in our latest flash, there are a few tangential revelations: Rachel drops a koala-related bombshell; Kirsty learns about Australia’s feral cat problem; and Rachel wants everyone to know about the true Australian highlight, the numbat. 

Overall, Kirsty is astounded at h...

A great discussion on writing practice came out of our science poetry episode with poet Tricia Dearborn and comedian Jeeves Verma. While it did not make the final episode, the discussion has been saved here in a special bonus episode, perfect for those of us wanting practical insight for writing something wonderful - whether it be a poem or a comedy set.

Tricia and Jeeves exchange writing tips and tricks: how they deal with the thin...

Can science really be the perfect inspiration for poetry?

Tricia is one of many poets around the world embedding science into their writing. The award-winning writer and editor lives in a world where there is no divide between the artistic and the scientific. She has a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry, Honours in Biochemistry, and a Masters in Women’s and Gender Studies, specialising in literature. After spending some time as a bioc...

This is the recording of our launch event for the Australian Highlight series, which took place at SciTech’s Chevron Theatre on 8 Feb, 2025 in front of a live audience.

See Natasha's radio sky image.

Did you know Australia leads the world in the field of radio astronomy, and is the home to some of the biggest discoveries?

The newest mystery from space is called a Long Period Transient.

Yes, the name is uninspiring, but hearing any astr...

What if we saw rubbish as a valuable resource?

Scientia Professor Veena Sahajwalla is an inventor, engineer and leading expert in the field of recycling science. She is the founding Director of the Centre for Sustainable Materials Research & Technology (SMART) at the University of NSW. 

Making waste valuable, her first invention reduced carbon emissions from the steel industry, and her second is promising to empower communit...

The power of positive role models cannot be understated.

No one knows this best than Associate Professor Corey Tutt OAM, founder of Deadly Science. The results of his work are obvious. As he says:

"Young Indigenous kids in Australia, you know, they used to say they wanted to be a deadly footballer, now they’re saying they want to be a deadly scientist.”

Deadly Science is a not-for-profit, community-led organisation providing STEM...

Rachel Rayner, Science Explainer and confidante, Kirsty Kapp, catch up on a flash of five episodes.

They consider tall poppies, argue about what moths eat, apologise to Perth, and avoid a deep dive into AI. 

Head to each individual episode for more information on each.

Transcript

Credits

Producer: Rachel Rayner, Science Explainer

Guest: Kirsty Kapp

Music: Michelle Cashman

Editing: Graham Hunter

Made possible through Meta Australia Jour...

Can you build your own collaborator? And what goes on behind the scenes of our big, complex, scientific infrastructure?

Astronomer Dr Vanessa Moss is Head of Science Operations for CSIRO’s ASKAP radio telescope. Situated in a remote location, the telescope was always planned to be controlled remotely – by a human. But Vanessa has taken this a step further by building a system to autonomously control the telescope, called SAURON.

Whic...

Dr Vanessa Finney, Head of World Cultures, Archives and Research Library at the Australian Museum introduces us to the Scott sisters, possibly Australia’s first professional female illustrators. Their scientific paintings of life-sized moths and butterflies must have been produced with microscopes and single-hair brushes to capture colour, texture and details of tiny features like caterpillar legs and moth antennae.

Vanessa oversees...

Astronomer Dr Kat Ross has been frustrated many times by the ‘lone male genius’ myth in science. Pervasive narratives that ‘women don’t do science’ are not accurate, and Kat is on a mission to prove it. 

Kat is a proud bisexual, agender person who loves pink and is the founder of IncludeHer, an international not-for-profit organisation working with teachers, governments, curriculum developers and students to help create a ...

In our previous episode, we spoke to Mandy Scotney and Jonathan Englert about innovation in Australia and particular types of innovators and what inspired them.

During that talk, we actually spoke a little bit about Jonathan's journalistic approach to interviewing these people and finding their stories. Captured in this episode is our discussion of the Bueller Method, one of Jonathan's interviewing methods.

The name may sound familia...

Where does Australia’s culture of innovation come from, if it exists at all?

Dr Jonathan Englert unravels the conundrum, fresh from his PhD looking into Australian innovation, where he interviewed various inventors and explored his relationship to Australian culture.

We uncover the stories of inventors like Barry Marshall, who rejected the establishment to change medicine forever, Lawrence Hargrave whose kites paved the way for fligh...

Rachel Rayner, Science Explainer and confidante, Kirsty Kapp, catch up on the first four episodes of the series.

Rachel is thankful she can explain a bit of quantum physics, and Kirsty is excited about recognising Traditional Knowledge, and horrified at the lack of women in arts leadership in Australia’s recent past.

They argue about whether an octopus has eight arms or eight legs and celebrate science's role in making trivia great a...

There were so many great astronomy discussions in Jeeves Verma and my conversation with Naomi McClure-Griffiths (Episode 3), that did not make the final cut.

This bonus episode is a collect of fun facts on radio astronomy for anyone who wants to know a bit more about astronomy research happening right now.

And really, who doesn't?

Radio astronomy has an incredible strong Australian origin story, so be prepared for a lot of radio astro...

How do we know what our galaxy looks like if we are stuck inside it?

In this episode we're talking about something that happened at a time when we were dancing to Spiderbait’s Black Betty and crooning to Britney Spears’ Every Time: it was a time when humanity learnt more about our home in the Universe, as an incredible discovery on our own galaxy came to light.

And this is thanks to radio astronomer, Professor Naomi McClure-G...