Science Friction

Two groups of boys on a camp in the wilds of America are pitted against each other. But the camp leaders have only one thing on their minds. Science. The mind-blowing story of a psychological experiment that crossed a line. Big time.

What family secrets lie deep inside your cells? A story of survival against the odds, hope after the Holocaust, and the eye-opening new science of epigenetics… Can biology help you transcend the traumas of your ancestors, or forever burden you with their legacy?

At the heart of this moving and extraordinary medical mystery is Robbie, a man in a genetic lottery. Two rare mutations made his life uniquely interesting. Then came a third, random event...a chance encounter, a global detective quest and science at the cutting edge.

Tai Poole is a self-described scientist and the teenage star of multi-award-winning podcast Tai Asks Why. Love, climate change, death, dreaming…there is nothing Tai's tenaciously, voraciously hungry mind won't take on. He joins Natasha Mitchell to talk life, the universe, and everything.

When pioneering Australian RNA biologist Archa Fox was a  child, her parents were drawn into the orbit of the guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. Her family packed up their life to join the Orange People communes in India and Oregon as disciples. Archa shares her candid, confronting story of what happened when this spiritual movement morphed into a cult.

Nuclear weapons are not toys. But what happens when children get their hands on nuclear know-how? Two explosive stories of two smart kids — both with a radioactive obsession, but with very different outcomes — one celebrated as a child genius and given his own university lab as a teen; the other dead at age 39. Meet Taylor Wilson and David Hahn.

Natasha Mitchell, presenter and co-producer of Science Friction, has some special news she wants to share with you. Listen in.

(Spoiler alert: You can catch her as the new host of the ABC's Big Ideas from April 10 2023. Follow the show on the ABC Listen app or wherever you get your podcasts).

How has fusion inspired the imaginations of science fiction writers? In The Expanse blockbuster book and TV series, fusion energy has changed the course of civilisation in extraordinary ways – for better and worse. Ty Franck, one half of the James S.A Corey writing duo behind The Expanse, and Canadian futurist and science fiction writer Karl Schroeder join Erica Vowles to weigh in on the fantasy and future of fusion.

The promise of nuclear fusion is clean, limitless energy for all. But why do start-up entrepreneurs think they can solve a problem that's perplexed scientists and fuelled the imagination of science fiction writers for decades? Are they kidding themselves, or inching closer to a breakthrough? Big name billionaires like Bill Gates and George Soros are now in the fusion game too.

It started with one post on Instagram. What followed was unimaginable. Scientists turned social media giants Darrion Nguyen (aka Lab Shenanigans) and Dr Cindy Pham (aka The Scholar Diaries) share moving stories of trauma, self-discovery, and growth.  Superficial shiny stereotypes of social media celebrity ... they are definitely NOT.

Chinese scientist Dr Jiankui He flouted the law and bioethics basics to create the world's first CRISPR gene edited babies. Now out of jail, he's back on Twitter recruiting patients and raising funds for more trials, this time in adults not embryos. A dangerous distraction or a cautionary lesson for the world's scientists?  Dr Joy Zhang has an extraordinary insider view after a recent encounter. Dr Katie Hasson is part of a global Coalition to Stop Designer Babies. They join Natasha Mitchell on Science Friction.

Science is political. So let's go straight to the heart of political power in Australia. 10 months into role, the Federal Minister for Industry and Science Ed Husic joins Natasha this week. From the muzzling of scientists to stemming the brain drain, from the corporatisation of CSIRO to connecting science to more people — will the state of play for Australian science change?

Self-proclaimed TikTok mystics, healers, wellness influencers are increasingly turning to quantum physics to give their claims credibility, with potentially dangerous consequences. How do you disentangle the woo from the wow in quantum physics? And can it be deadly?

Chemist Kim Kwan didn’t realise how much they needed to find their queer crew in science until they did.  Rami Mandow threw in a successful career in finance and business to find true love — astronomy.  They share frank, fearless stories about coming out as third culture kids and why bringing their whole selves to science - their queer self and their nerd self - has been transformative.

Australia is hosting the 2023 World Pride festival and queer botanists are celebrating by bringing their full selves to their science.Ryan O'Donnell is an accomplished opera singer and musical theatre performer turned botanist studying orchids and fungi.Botanist Hervé Sauquet is piecing together the evolutionary history of flowering plants – most of which are bisexual.  They're here, they're queer, they're fabulous and join Natasha to discuss why connecting the personal and the professional matters to science. 

From the nomadic world of the Sahara Desert to a fantasy wonderland inside a Melbourne industrial warehouse ... meteorites are a growing business and a controversial one. Are the secrets inside space rocks at risk of being lost to wealthy collectors in the West? And, the battle of the Arab world’s first — and first female — meteorite scientist to save her geological heritage.

A rock celebrity with a wild biography.  Saharan nomads, a weight-loss doctor feeding an unusual addiction, scientists seeking the origins of Everything. 'Black Beauty' has it all. The meteorite with a mighty story, with love from Mars.

Scientists Jonathan Napier and Cathie Martin remember when they needed armed guards and high fences to protect their genetic experiments. But the rules around genetically modified crops are rapidly changing. What could this mean for your dinner plate? (REPEAT)

A pair of twin girls is born in the late 1980s and their mother, Chris, is told a series of ‘facts’ about them.Each born with their own placenta, Chris is told it’s extremely unlikely that her twins are identical, but, if they were, they’d be a perfect DNA match. She’s also told that her daughters have a much higher likelihood as adults of conceiving twins themselves.These were the foundations of how Chris and her daughters understood their ‘twin-ness’ as they grew. But in recent years, new research has proven that none of these assertions is true.So what has science learned about twins in recent years and what are the mysteries that researchers are still trying to solve? And even if you’re not a twin, maybe you were at some point in your development? There could be a way to find out very soon.For RN Summer we're playing some our favourite programs from the past year. This program was first broadcast in February 2022.GuestsProfessor Jeff Craig@DrChromoProfessor in Epigenetics and Cell Biology at Deakin University School of MedicineDeputy Director, Twins Research AustraliaChris KulasElizabeth Kulas’s motherJennifer KulasElizabeth Kulas’s twin sisterHostElizabeth KulasScript editing by Joel Werner

Science journalist, biologist, podcaster, teacher and activist Dr Ilya Kolmanovsky is a superstar science communicator.He hosts one of the biggest Russian language podcasts. Bigger than podcasts on sex or politics.But he's no stranger to the brutality of Russia's political leadership.Now, with Putin's violent invasion of Ukraine and as a new Iron Curtain descends, Ilya and thousands of others inside Russia have just made the most wrenching decision of their lives.

For RN Summer we're playing some our favourite programs from the past year. This program was first broadcast in March 2022.Guest:Dr Ilya KolmanovskyScience journalist, biologist, podcaster, presenterFurther information:Goliy Zemlekop (Naked Mole-Rat) podcast

https://zemlekop.libsyn.com/websiteSound engineer: Matthew Sigley

Leading computer scientist and co-founder of Black in A.I, Dr Timnit Gebru, was hired by Google to co-lead its Ethical AI team with another tech industry trailblazer Dr Margaret Mitchell.

The team investigated the ethics of artificial intelligence to understand and prevent its potential harms.

Timnit was the first Black woman the company had employed in a research scientist role.

Then Google terminated her contract sparking an international outcry.

Some 7000 industry colleagues and others, including thousands within Google itself, signed a petition protesting her departure.

Then Dr Margaret Mitchell was fired too.

Now Timnit is driving "community-rooted" artificial intelligence research free from what she describes as "Big Tech's pervasive influence".

For RN Summer we're playing some our favourite programs from the past year. This program was first broadcast in April 2022.

Guest:

Dr Timnit Gebru@TimnitGebruComputer scientist and engineerFounder of the Distributed A.I Research Institute (DAIR)Co-founder, Black in A.I

Further info:

The Algorithmic Justice League

Coded Bias (documentary film)

Data in Society

Gender Shades: Intersectional Accuracy Disparities in Commercial Gender Classification (Buolamwini, Gebru; 2018)

Timnit Gebru's publications (Google Scholar)

Petition in support of Dr Timnit Gebru

Why Timnit Gebru Isn’t Waiting for Big Tech to Fix AI's Problems (Time, 2022)

Timnit Gebru is building a slow AI movement (IEEE Spectrum, 2022)

On the Dangers of Stochastic Parrots: Can Language Models Be Too Big? (Bender, Gebru, McMillan-Major, Mitchell; 2021)

AI at Google (Sundar Pichai, 2018)

"The withering email that got an ethical AI researcher fired at Google" (Platformer, 2020)

"We read the paper that forced Timnit Gebru out of Google. Here's what it says" (MIT Technology Review, 2020)

"Inside Timnit Gebru's last days at Google - and what happens next" (MIT Technology Review, 2020)

Google fires top AI ethics researcher Margaret Mitchell

On racialised tech organisations and complaint - a goodbye to Google (Alex Hanna, 2022)

Constructing a Visual Dataset to Study the Effects of Spatial Apartheid in South Africa (Sefala, Gebru, Mfupe, Moorosi, 2021)

The In/justices of AI (Science Friction, ABC RN, 2020)

Chatbot mania and algorithms of oppression (Science Friction, ABC RN, 2017)

What does it take to reimagine your life?In this occasional Science Friction series, scientists who end-up their lives and strip themselves of their professional identity to become artists.Kolkata-born engineer Nishant Jain flew in the face of expectations, threw in a PhD in biomechanics, and reinvented himself as a cartoonist, writer, and self-taught artist.Now the self-described 'Sneaky Artist' hosts a podcast of the same name and sells his urban artworks to a growing global fanbase.For RN Summer we're playing some our favourite programs from the past year. This program was first broadcast in April 2022.Guest:Nishant Jain@SneakyArt

The Sneaky Artist

Artist, cartoonist, writer, urban sketcherVancouver, Canada

It started with an idea.

Then came the university car park full of tonnes of fish heads.

Now this extraordinary 20-something couple have deployed a mighty maggot army to turn 50 tonnes of food waste a week into … well, you'll want to listen to find out.

A story of science, ingenuity, and revolution.

We throw out a third of the food we produce, and the food system is one of the biggest contributors to global warming. Let's stop the rot!

For RN Summer we're playing some our favourite programs from the past year. This program was first broadcast in July 2022.Guests:

Phoebe GardnerCEO and co-founder, BardeeArchitectAlex ArnoldCTO and co-founder, BardeeScientistStephanie StubbeVet and founder, AniPalAnna AugustineProject ManagerTrader HouseJames GrantJunior sous chefCumulus, MelbourneFurther information:

Bardee

The Melbourne Accelerator program

Two teams. Scientists and science journalists. Brains vs brains. Boys vs Girls. From the small (bed bug sex) to the big (er, the whole cosmos), it's the year in science with a tongue firmly in our cheeks.

The long prison sentence given to Sydney climate protester Deanna 'Violet' Coco for blocking traffic on the Sydney Harbour bridge has surprised many, including her fellow protester Jay, who spent 42 days under house arrest. Are new laws suppressing fundamental human rights to protest, or a proportionate response to disruptive blockades?

Note: Since making the show, Violet Coco, has been released on bail, as from 13th December.

We make machines, but do our machines make us? And who's in control really? Superstar anthropologist, technologist, futurist, cyberneticist, and Silicon Valley insider Genevieve Bell and guests talk machines, minds and messing with the code to make the world so much better.

If the universe began with a big bang, how will it end? This question has suddenly got very personal for acclaimed science poet Alicia Sometimes.Physicists have got some hair-raising ideas, from the Big Crunch to the Big Rip. The personal, the poetic, and the physical of endings this week on Science Friction.Hear Part 1: What Came Before the Big BangGuests:

Alicia SometimesPoet, writer, broadcaster, podcaster

Chris FerrieQuantum physicist, Associate Professor, Centre for Quantum Software and InformationUniversity of Technology, SydneyAuthor, Quantum Physics for Babies (and other children's books)

Katie MackTheoretical cosmologist, Associate professor, Department of PhysicsNorth Carolina State University,Hawking Chair in Cosmology and Science CommunicationPerimeter Institute for Theoretical PhysicsAuthor, The End of Everything (Astrophysically Speaking)

Writer: Alicia SometimesWriter: Alicia SometimesProducers: Alicia Sometimes, Natasha MitchellSound Engineer: Matthew Crawford 

Should solving climate change be left to politicians? What if YOU could drive policy without ever running for an election?WHO'S GONNA SAVE US? is an ABC podcast about the people who are trying to map out a better future in the face of the climate crisis.France gave so-called 'deliberative democracy' a crack, where lay citizens are assembled to deliberate and shape vital policies. Europe is ahead of the game in this, but find out what happened next in the French experiment.Catch up on the whole series HERE, or wherever you get your podcasts.Guests: Amandine Roggeman, Louis-Gaeten Giraudet, Professor Nicole Curato.

Host: Jo LauderReporters: Jo LauderSeries Producer: Cheyne AndersonExecutive Producer (audio): Joel WernerExecutive Producer (digital): Clare BlumerSound engineer: Hamish Camilleri

Saul Griffith has an ambitious plan to save the planet. It all begins at home and it's completely electrifying!

WHO'S GONNA SAVE US? is an ABC podcast about the people who are trying to map out a better future in the face of the climate crisis. Catch up on the whole series HERE, or wherever you get your podcasts.Guests: Saul Griffith, Andrew Davies, Cameron Gardiner

Host: Jo LauderReporters: Joel Werner, James PurtillSeries Producer: Cheyne AndersonExecutive Producer (audio): Joel WernerExecutive Producer (digital): Clare BlumerSound engineer: Hamish Camilleri

Science and culture ... with extra spice. All species welcome.

When intrepid botanist Tim Collins went sleuthing in the wilds of Australia in pursuit of a papery daisy's DNA, little did he know he'd find himself at the heart of an historical saga, a complicated romance, and a botanical mystery.  A floral story of love, exile and serendipity. Oh, and an Emperor and Empress!

Too much. Not enough. Too weird. Not weird enough. Sex is enjoyed, explored, exploited, and policed in countless ways. The pleasure and pain of writing about sex … with authors Jennifer Mills (The Airways, Dyschronia), evolutionary biologist Rob Brooks (Artificial Intimacy: Virtual Friends, digital lovers, and algorithmic matchmakers), and Josephine Taylor (Eye of a Rook).

2022 Hugo Award winning science fiction author, Becky Chambers, is loved by fans for her brilliantly hopeful imagined worlds in her Monk and Robot and Wayfarers book series. Archaeologist Dr Emma Rehn investigates the ancient relationship between humans and fire.

Science Friction brings Becky and Emma together to share a conversation about worlds past, future, real, and imagined.

What came before time as we know it began? A time before. Can we ever really know?

Four big minds on the next steps for our species.

Sex is complicated. Oh yes indeed.

Science is way personal.

 Three rising stars in science on why they can’t come back.  

An explosive love triangle with a difference.

They hold their secrets close. But these scientists are getting Tasmania's "living fossil" trees to talk. And whoa, we need to listen!

There's a wild tale inside every trunk. The trees join us alongwith Peter Wohlleben (The Hidden Life of Trees & The Heartbeat of Trees) and other tree lovers.

Comedian Craig Reucassel (The Chaser, The War on Waste), mathematician Barbara Holland and their teams are out to change your mind.

Flower power, and a botanical battle that divided nations.

What’s violent nationalism got to do with Nature?

It's out there somewhere... they just have to find it

Follow the silvery trail and enter the world inside a shell. To be or not to be.

You just never know when you'll need a rat will save your life.

Some people dream of changing the world. Others do. Thank the flies.

There is nothing this physicist with radical roots won't think about! [REPEAT]

Once fences and armed guards protected genetically modified (GM) crops. But the rules are rapidly changing. From Vitamin D-boosted tomatoes to low GI potato chips, what say should citizens have?

Meet the neuroscientist turned bestselling rom-com novelist who's exposing the underbelly of science, the passion, and the power games.

Would you be game? Hear what happened when scientists make themselves vulnerable AND hilarious.

Two words. Tweeted then deleted. A meeting meltdown. Has #BlackLivesMatter put international science on notice?

Lace up your boots. Get down and dirty. We're hunting the impossible.

Nature's rules are made to be broken. Paul Steinhardt just had to find a way.

Big Pharma has helped get life-saving COVID-19 vaccines into billions of arms. The profits are pouring in, but at what cost?

Jane Goodall wants you to gird your loins. What does that mean? Well ... for hope, push PLAY.

By day, she's making molecules dance. By night, this vintage fashionista has a different dance on her mind.

Timnit Gebru was fired by Google in a cloud of controversy, now she's making waves beyond Big Tech's pervasive influence

You need a new organ. But there aren't enough to go around. Would you accept one from a pig? Hearts, kidneys, corneas ... xenotransplantation is here.

Indian-born engineer Nishant Jain flew in the face of expectations to radically reinvent himself as the Sneaky Artist

Ilya Kolmanovsky is a popular science superstar in Russia. Like so many anti-Putin activists, he’s just made the most wrenching decision of his life. 

Why are we so weirdly paradoxical about food? Food, farms, revolution with two women closer to it all than most.

If you sell the gun but don’t pull the trigger ... are you to blame?  

After 25 years of painstaking research, could scientists be getting close to unlocking the mysteries of Buruli ulcer?

When people from a small beach town on Phillip Island started developing severe skin lesions, scientists were left scratching their heads as to what was causing them.

Despite being very different people, sisters Masha and Dasha spent their entire lives conjoined.

A pair of twin girls is born in the late 1980s and their mother is told a series of ‘facts’ about them. But just how much of what she was told is true?

Covid-zero was once a dream pursued by many countries, but the arrival of highly transmissible variants has brought an end to such aspirations for most. However there is one place where the Covid-zero dream is still alive: China.

A sliding door moment. A test of character. A career on the line. What would you do?

Few scientists can say they saved the planet. Paul Crutzen did. Legit. (RN Summer highlight)

Dark Matter sleuth. #BlackinSTEM pioneer. Particles for Justice co-founder. This incredible physicist will change your sense of the universe and your role in it. (RN Summer highlight)

Pass the scalpel - taxidermy is on the menu. (RN Summer highlight)

This scientist's childhood in a cult was... wild. The light and dark of the path to enlightenment. (RN Summer highlight)

No-one thought they would work. This dogged scientist persisted with a difficult idea. Now it's driving the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines. (RN Summer highlight)

Two teams. Scientists and science journalists. And your quiz mistress with a whip. Let the mischief begin.

Blink and you'll miss it. Eyes wide open and you can't comprehend it. Life beats to all kinds of pulses.

Is the era of family secrets over? Is love deeper than DNA?

If a controversial river could speak, what would it say? Climb aboard and be prepared to get wet.

Frank, fearless stories of personal reinvention and career resuscitation. Are we giving young scientists false hope?

The Australian government wants to use technology to keep the fossil fuel dream alive. But will it work?

Crunch time at the COP26 Climate conference. Is Net Zero by 2050 a distraction? ABC Environment reporter Nick Kilvert joins Natasha and guests.

Sex is complicated. Oh yes indeed.

Science is way personal.

Is the key to a battery-powered future lying 4000 metres below the sea surface?

12 rabbits that turned a nation crazy. Cue: a plague, the founder of immunology, a famous actress, and ten million dollars.

A life and death mission. An extraordinary relationship.

They were pursuing their dreams, now they're running for their lives. Afghan scholars speak. Will the world listen?

This deadly pair of scientists are smashing ... barriers.

One, two, three ... and then ... more. When humans learnt how to count to more, then came mayhem and marvels. Bestselling science writer Dr Michael Brooks on The Art of More.

Raymond Schinazi has been fighting viruses his whole career, with some mighty wins against these molecular mischief makers. Can we learn from the past to treat this coronavirus?

Two artists making the invisible visible. What does making nanoart reveal about us — gargantuans in a world of atoms? (REPEAT)

Who will win? Spin and hope or raw, sobering reality?

Two baby teeth and a whole world of secrets. Meet the DNA detectives hunting for the ghosts of pandemics past.

In the windy, wet, wild world of the subarctic, science is done differently.

Don't mess with this virus. Extraordinary stories from the 3 UK doctors we first met a year ago, all living with 'long COVID'

Three UK doctors share their moving, eviscerating personal experiences of 'long COVID' [REPEAT]. And next episode, how are they nearly a year on as England opens up? [NEW]

Deep in the dirt are stories that need to be told ... by artists, scientists... and those damn (wonderful) ants.

Ouch, that hurts. But who will listen? Down on the farm, understanding the biology of pain could make a real difference.

Yolgnu women want to make the the land shake again. Why?

Lace up your boots. Get down and dirty. We're hunting the impossible.

Nature's rules are made to be broken. Paul Steinhardt just had to find a way.

Research on human embryos has been very constrained. Will that change?

Flower power, and the mighty battle that divided nations.

A skeleton with a back story that's almost too bizarre to believe. What would Suzy think? [REPEAT]

Psychotherapist Maurice Temerlin called Lucy his "daughter"...but then things got weird. [REPEAT]

Death threats. Cyber harassment. Meet three dogged scientists on a mission ...

Few scientists can say they saved the planet. Paul Crutzen did. Legit.

Dark Matter sleuth. #BlackinSTEM pioneer. Particles for Justice co-founder. This incredible physicist will change your sense of the universe and your role in it.

This scientist's childhood in a cult was ... let's say ... wild. The light and dark of the path to enlightenment.

Pass the scalpel - taxidermy is on the menu.

Science Friction breathes life into the bones of an ancient medical curiosity...and investigates the story of a child lost in time.

88 metres underground, in the labyrinth of chambers and corridors of the world’s large particle accelerator, art and science collide in wild and wonderful ways.

How has one of the world's poorer nations become a shining star in this pandemic, when rich countries failed to save lives? Two African movers and shakers tell it like it is.

An athlete plays detective to clear her name from scandal. Is anti-doping science to blame?

Don't forget this. You're an animal. And it just might be lovely.

There is nothing this physicist with radical roots won't think about!

The pandemic is personal and political for data scientist Inioluwa Deb Raji and historian of medicine Evelynn Hammonds.

A sliding door moment. A test of character. A career on the line. What would you do?

When Jimena Canales went looking, she found them everywhere. But Science's demons are not the supernatural souls of religion.

No-one thought they would work. This dogged scientist persisted with a difficult idea. Now it's driving the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines.

You're a top cancer scientist. And then you get cancer. Suddenly you become "A Cancer Patient", and one of your colleagues is wielding the (robotic) scalpel. A story about science, knowledge, and vulnerability. (Summer Season highlight)

Why do deadly viruses love bats so much, why don’t bats get crook, and what’s with China’s wild wet markets? The curious making of a pandemic. (Summer Season highlight)

Three generations with powerful, personal stories of family lost and found, racism, and the right to education reclaimed. This is not your average Science Summer School. (Summer Season highlight)

Pack your pyjamas, we’re heading to camp! From Arnhem Land to Adelaide, Caboolture to Coffs – let's gather from far and wide to meet on Kaurna country. A scientific and cultural odyssey in two parts. (Summer Season highlight)

A flesh-eating botanical saga. Outside the hallowed halls of science, revolutions are made. (Summer Season highlight)

From Day of the Triffids to Little Shop of Horrors, meet a most sagacious animal. What the hell is a plant doing eating flesh? (Summer Season highlight)

Imagine holding in the palm of your hand an object that holds a big secret - one that could unlock the history of the Australian continent.

A million migratory birds, a 26 year civil war...what's an Australian mining company got its eye on?

Decorated, detachable, curly, spiked, thorny, hooks, claspers, valves, flaps, spirals...is it time to reconsider what makes a penis...a penis?

Two teams...science journalists...scientists...and twenty big years of big science to bone up on. Let the hilarity begin. Ready, set, go!

It's the cosmic glue that tethers us together in the universe, ever-present but invisible. Poet Alicia Sometimes meets Australia's dark matter detectives.

If we made machines our kin, our siblings, our children...would we think differently about their design? Why Indigenous thinking can change A.I...

Two seasoned journalists pick up stethoscopes to become doctors...in the middle of a global pandemic. And a punk band in the making.

How do you climb inside the mind of someone who commits an evil act?

The showdown between Donald Trump and Joe Biden is on. Why are many scientists angry, frightened, and galvanised?

The long haul of 'long COVID'. Are we facing another global pandemic...this one silent, confusing, and harder to understand?

A skeleton with a back story that's almost too bizarre to believe. What would Suzy think?

Psychotherapist Maurice Temerlin called Lucy his "daughter"...but then things got weird.

When Jade was 21, she was charmed by a wellness influencer. Then she got a big shock.

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, Kathrin's friends have been sending her a range of wild theories about the virus.

Two families, two posts...and two stories of how seemingly benign shares on social media can turn bad.

A vaccine arms race is on to get us out of this pandemic, but could we all lose out if we don’t do things differently?

Even big diseases start small...PATIENT ZERO is a new podcast that tells the stories of disease outbreaks: where they begin, why they happen and how we found ourselves in the middle of a really big one.

When Whanganui River in New Zealand was declared a legal person, Maori scientists knew exactly what they meant. But how do you unearth the science hidden in ancient oral stories?

The algorithms are out to get you and to protect you. Meet the directors of two films that will shock, surprise and move you, Welcome to Chechnya and Coded Bias.

Seventy-six women and a boatload of spin and soul-searching on the way to Antarctica. What happened next?

How much did Einstein’s first wife contribute to his work? Mileva's supporters and skeptics go head to head over the evidence in Part 2 of this Science Friction series.

Who was Einstein’s first wife? Muse or collaborator? The plot thickens. The battlelines are drawn.

COVID-19 is a pandemic of medical misinformation. But could it also provoke a revolt in ivory tower culture? Two scientists talk big data, big visions and Black Lives Matter.

Artist A.G. survived. Now the fossil fuel industry is in the cross-hairs. Correction: The President of the Philippines in 2013 was Benigno Aquino III.

A giant energy company is being sued. Now it speaks. So does the scientist who's become a thorn in their side over fossil fuels. Is the courtroom the new frontier for climate action?

In this playground of adventurers and mountain home to Peruvians, they don't know if or when it will happen. But they want fossil fuel companies to pay.

A Neanderthal girl lives amongst us. A mammoth narrates history. The animals speak to us. 3 novelists with surreally timed stories.

A sonic adventure into the minds of scientists

Don't believe everything you see. Art, science and the curious making of fake news.

A mystery about two Californian millionaires and two "orphan" embryos at the very beginning of the IVF revolution.

A flesh-eating botanical saga. Outside the hallowed halls of science, revolutions are made.

From Day of the Triffids to Little Shop of Horrors, meet a most sagacious animal. What the hell is a plant doing eating flesh?

Girls. Boys. Brains. Biology. Society. The game of Whac-A-Mole that is the science of sex differences.

A shady story about seeds, China, the FBI, and industrial espionage. Mara Hvistendahl delves into America's pursuit of ethnic Chinese scientists.

Doing is a PhD can screw with your mind at the best of times. Isolating and exciting all at once. What’s happening to PhD students locked out labs worldwide right now? What will their options be as the clock ticks towards D(eadline) Day?

In the 1960s, when gay sex was still treated as a crime in Australia, science intervened in shocking ways.

What do we know, what will it take, and why have we struggled to effectively act on climate change? Don't miss the compelling new series, Hot Mess.

Exploding stars and killer cells. Then comes a pandemic. Drop everything. Head into the battle-zone. It's Survivor but not as you know it.

Extraordinary scientists doing extraordinary things. Then came the pandemic.

After the pandemic, what else can we make work better? Here are some dumb things to start with. We flush fresh water down our toilets. We throw out perfectly edible food by the tonne.

Why do deadly viruses love bats so much, why don’t bats get crook, and what’s with China’s wild wet markets? The curious making of a pandemic.

At the frontline of the COVID-19 fight right now, Adam Kucharski is author of The Rules of Contagion: Why Things Spread - and Why They Stop. He sees patterns of contagion everywhere – in viruses, memes, markets.

The stories we construct about biology, viruses, and beyond can reshape the course of our lives. When the world suddenly feels very small, connected by a virus that’s porous to people and borders, let's consider the power and porosity of science.

If you could 3D print a new body part, what would it be? For marine scientist Pia Winberg that question was about to become intensely real. The science and the ethics of a wild frontier for medicine.

Three generations with powerful, personal stories of family lost and found, racism, and the right to education reclaimed. This is not your average Science Summer School.

Pack your pyjamas, we’re heading to camp! From Arnhem Land to Adelaide, Caboolture to Coffs – let's gather from far and wide to meet on Kaurna country. A scientific and cultural odyssey in two parts.

How would you react if you received this SMS? BUSHFIRE WARNING. LEAVE NOW.When we evacuate from a bushfire, we fall into one of seven types of evacuee; from Threat Deniers, to Worried Waverers, to Experienced Independents. This is the story of a bad evacuee turned good.

This Summer's overwhelming bushfires have produced overwhelming numbers - hectares burnt, animals killed, carbon dioxide emitted. But who's fact checking the numbers? We are.

The poetic cosmos drips with mango juice. Pigs might fly when porcine cells are your paint and wings your canvas. Rap lyrics that challenge science denialism. Artists pushing at the boundaries of the imagination and the possibilities of science.

You're a top cancer scientist. And then you get cancer. Suddenly you become "A Cancer Patient", and one of your colleagues is wielding the (robotic) scalpel. A story about science, knowledge, and vulnerability.

In pursuit of a predator. A sting operation. A black list. Big law suits. Is this the biggest threat to science since the Inquisition?

This audio has been updated due to technical glitch. Science Friction's fresh season for 2020 kicks off next episode.

Palestinian-American cartoonist and illustrator Marguerite Dabaie thought she understood her ancestry. But then she had a genetic test and things got messy. It’s not her DNA, it’s the technology

A young ornithologist. A Nazi expedition to Tibet. A Faustian pact in the name of science, but at what cost? This story gets very weird, very fast. But the animals are watching.

One Amish childhood + one strict Christian upbringing = two 21 year olds questioning everything they were ever taught. On the afterlife, evolution, and making your own way. (Summer Season highlight)

Lolita had one of the world's first uterus transplants - then what happened? (Summer Season highlight)

Who needs to get pregnant anymore when you can use a baby pouch? FullLife has the product for you. The sci fi imaginings of Helen Sedgewick. Utopia or the ultimate dystopia?A Science Friction mini-series that takes a womb's eye view of the future of reproduction.

It's boys against girls. Unleash the nerds and mischief. Play along.

Are you a little bit evil or a lot?

The selfish gene. The selfish ape. Survival of the fittest. Remarkable stories of two renegades who challenged a scientific orthodoxy about selfishness.

On poo, pooing and all that palaver. A children's author, a colorectal surgeon, a psychologist walked onto stage...

In the 1950s computers were so big they filled whole rooms. Women were employed in big numbers to work with them. But then something weird happened.

Hidden amongst astronomy's nineteenth century effort to map the stars, is a tale about some of the first women working in computing in Australia.

It's there if you look...under the sea. But how would we know? Join Science Friction on a journey into the lost heart of Doggerland.

What if you suddenly found out you aren't quite who you thought you were? Matty and family's story will move you.

What should you do with the embryos you have left over after IVF treatment?

A mystery about two Californian millionaires and two "orphan" embryos at the very beginning of the IVF revolution.

The signals were weird. But was what happened afterwards even weirder?

Have you heard these stories of what was and what could have been? You'll want to. If we CARE enough, could the internet be way, way better?

Will bioterrorism become more targeted with the help of new tools in biotechnology and synthetic biology? From your cells to crops, pandemics to plagues - are the risks real or far-flung? Natasha Mitchell was the only journalist in a NATO security workshop considering the threats. Hear what insiders have to say.

Scientists can now 'engineer' biological organisms never before found in Nature. What if they make a mistake, and a synthetic virus escapes the lab? Or a rogue mind turns to synthetic biology to wage bioterror? Is anyone watching?

Meet three couples who have taken their romances way further than most. Frank, passionate, hilarious stories of making it work.

Meet a 12 year old scientist who's got a whole lot of questions...enough to take you to the moon and back.

The battlelines are drawn, brains tuned, arguments sharpened and teeth gnashing as two teams go head to head at the BeakerStreet@TMAG festival at Hobart's Tasmanian Museum & Art Gallery for National Science Week. Your fearless adjudicator, Science Friction host Natasha Mitchell, cannot and will not be bribed*. (*Except with wombats).

Why is a famous physicist and cosmologist usually interested in Big Questions about the Universe now diving into the deep history of cancer?

88 metres underground, in the labyrinth of chambers and corridors of the world’s large particle accelerator, art and science collide in wild and wonderful ways.

How can a Nobel Prize winning scientist feel like an outsider?

A whistle-stop tour into the lives of adventurous young European scientists and their wunderlust.

For them Brexit is deeply personal. Moving stories of lives shaped by bitter politics.

Could one volcano cause global carnage? Making sense of a mystery. Your DNA and the archaeological record are full of surprising clues.

They’ve struck before, and they’ll hit again. Can we save our skins in time, or will we go the way of the dinosaurs?

A storm strikes from space, with little warning, and electrifying impact. Put away your umbrella, it won't help one iota.

Born just months after the Tiananmen massacre, Yangyang Cheng grew up in the shadow of those shocking events. Now this young particle physicist has found a potent voice - her own - on history, human rights, science, and freedom.

Brant Guichard has heard The Music for as long as he can remember.

A musician gives up the rock n' roll dream for number theory, and a glimpse of the infinite.

Meet three homosapiens who are passionate about preserving the future of other species.

Wall Street Journal journalist Preetika Rana has unearthed extraordinary new information about the Chinese scientist who created the world's first gene-edited babies.

Palestinian-American cartoonist and illustrator Marguerite Dabaie thought she understood her ancestry. But then she had a genetic test and things got messy. It’s not her DNA, it’s the technology. 

Pull on your black t-shirt or spandex. Turn up the volume. A heavy metal loving professor with guitar in arms and physics in his soul. [From the archive]

Are science and politics alien to each other? From climate change to coal mines, are scientists cutting through in policy debates?

In pursuit of a predator. A sting operation. A black list. Big law suits. Is this the biggest threat to science since the Inquisition?

Nuclear fission. That Nobel Prize. The Nazis. Lise Meitner's story has it all and more.

How much did Einstein’s first wife contribute to his work? Mileva's supporters and skeptics go head to head over the evidence in Part 2 of this Science Friction series.

Who was Einstein’s first wife? Muse or collaborator? The plot thickens. The battlelines are drawn.

Genetic profiling of persecuted Muslim people in China. Forensic investigators using popular ancestry services to solve crimes. Who owns your DNA? And who protects your privacy? Think before you spit.

One-on-one, casual hook ups, group sex parties...the illicit drug Ice is being used to enhance sex. Is there a fine line between pleasure and pain?

The sexbots are coming. How will it change our sex lives - for better and worse?

A young ornithologist. A Nazi expedition to Tibet. A Faustian pact in the name of science, but at what cost? This story gets very weird, very fast. But the animals are watching.

From artificial baby bags for preemies to 3D printed ovaries – the future of the uterus is here.

Lolita had one of the world's first uterus transplants - then what happened?

Who needs to get pregnant anymore when you can use a baby pouch? FullLife has the product for you. The sci fi imaginings of Helen Sedgewick. Utopia or the ultimate dystopia?A Science Friction mini-series that takes a womb's eye view of the future of reproduction.

Who protects the human guinea pigs? (Repeat)

One Amish childhood + one strict Christian upbringing = two 21 year olds questioning everything they were ever taught. On the afterlife, evolution, and making your own way.

Meet a water baby turned aquanaut turned astronaut candidate. Sarah Jane Pell is an astronomical performance artist. Will artists make life in space more humane?

A search for a beguiling beauty. And a saga about people power.