 Radio National's science flagship: your essential source of what's making news in the complex world of scientific research, scandal and discovery.Primary Format :
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Science Show - 2009-11-21 Spacesuits for Mars
A possible future Mars habitat has been constructed in the desert in Utah. It contains rooms and workshops, as well as an airlock with simulation spacesuits. James Waldie designs spacesuits. Current suits are big body shaped balloons filled with gas from the Earth´s atmosphere. The new approach is to use a skinsuit. Pressurisation is attained by way of physical compression. It´s like thermal underwear. This kind of suit may be used on missions to Mars. But what happens ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
Science Show - 2009-11-14 Chemistry improves brown coal
In the third part of our Coal: beyond burning series, Nicky Phillips talks to Len Humphries, the CEO of Ignite Energy Resources, about a chemical technique his company has developed that can improve the efficiency of brown coal by more than 30%.
Scientists at World Economic Forum meeting
In 2007 The World Economic Forum launched its Annual Meeting of the New Champions. The aim is for business leaders from developing economies to meet with those from developed ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
Science Show - 2009-11-07 Catch up on Coal
In the second part of our series Coal: beyond burning, Nicky Phillips presents your responses to last week´s piece on alternative uses for coal. We also hear from Len Humphries, CEO of Ignite Energy and George Domazetis from La Trobe University about their ideas for the future.
Multisensory dining and driving
Professor Charles Spence from the Department of Experimental Psychology in Oxford explains why we should stimulate all the senses to maximise our dining experience ( ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
Science Show - 2009-10-31 Coal: beyond burning
Australia, like many countries, has vast resources of coal, but what can we do with it if we don´t burn it?
Why burn coal?
Could our vast supplies of Australian coal be used other than for running power stations? How about a chemical or plastics industry, or as a fertiliser on the land? The Science Show will review the options and ask for your input on the possibilities; the Prime Minister´s prizes for science announced this week.
The Prime Minister's prizes for sci ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
Science Show - 2009-10-24 Coastal erosion and king tides
Coastal erosion is a significant problem in Australia, as with many other nations, and it's set to get worse. Reinhard Flick is studying the problem at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in California. But he's also an expert on king tides. He says they can be predicted well into the future, which is pretty useful to know if you live on the coast.
Business tackles Copenhagen
How to deal with science-driven upheavals in board rooms around the world? Why n ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
Science Show - 2009-10-17 Life on Mars
Scientists have being trying to find life on Mars for years. First they found water. Another glimpse of hope came when methane was detected, which scientists suggest could be produced by living microbes. Lewis Dartnell is studying the cosmic rays that beat down on Mars, to determine how far into the Martian surfaces scientists may have to dig to find life.
Planet formation
Sarah Maddison is studying how planets form. She´s looking at young planetary systems outside our own, w ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
Science Show - 2009-10-10 Nobel prizes
This years Nobel prizes saw molecular biologist Dr Elizabeth Blackburn become Australia's first Nobel laureate. Blackburn, and her colleagues Carol Greider and Jack Szostak, were honoured for their work with telomeres and cell divison. The research has not only revolutionised our understanding of ageing, but holds great promise for cancer treatment. Nicky Phillips and Sarah Castor-Perry give a full report of the prizes.
Climate change and wine
Australia is already feeling the ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
Science Show - 2009-10-03 Attitudes to climate change
Despite the science becoming clearer, a survey has shown up to about 20% of people are still sceptical about climate change; whether it exists, and if it does, whether human activities area related. These figures are from Britain. Scepticism is greater in the United States.
Solar thermal electricity
Sarah Castor-Perry presents an update on research into solar thermal electricity. Colin Duck describes a demonstration plant at the Liddell Power Station in NSW. Row ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
Science Show - 2009-09-26 The beginnings of quantum computing
A quantum algorithm has been encoded on a chip for the first time. The approach is known as waveguide on chip. It was first proposed in 2001. Single photons of light are controlled and store information. Compared to an electron spin or a neutron spin, a photon doesn´t react with the environment and thus has very low noise. When used in computing, it increases the speed and power of the computer many times. The challenge has been in preserving the infor ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
Science Show - 2009-09-19 Muscular dystrophy - genomics raises hopes
Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy is a degenerative disease that strikes around 1 in 3,000 boys every year. Symptoms appear when they are toddlers and most do not live beyond their early twenties. There is currently no effective treatment, but now some new work is giving hope. Professor Dame Kay Davies from the University of Oxford explains how they can trick muscle cells into thinking they are in the developmental stage so they produce utrophin, a prote ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
Science Show - 2009-09-12 Naked in LA
We´ve been promised The Science Show would go naked in LA this week. While Americans have been spared the sight of Robyn streaking down Hollywood Boulevard, we join The Naked Scientists radio program for their jaunt through San Diego and beyond. When Chris Smith isn´t speaking to Fran Kelly on Radio National's Breakfast, or delivering lectures on virology to Cambridge medical students, he runs a popular science radio program heard on the BBC and online. In this edition of The ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
Science Show - 2009-03-07Expanding universe leaves us all alone
Lawrence Krauss says it´s only going to get worse. We live in the worst of all possible universes. As the universe expands, our galaxy will be left all alone. Cosmology will end and all evidence of a big bang will disappear. As newly appointed director of theArizona State University´s Origins Initiative, Lawrence Krauss will be looking at the origins of the laws of physics, the universe, planet Earth, life, human origins, consciousness and culture.
... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
Science Show - 2009-09-05 Genius in Germany
This may be one of the greatest concentrations of massive IQs in broadcasting history. Put a `scintillation´ of Nobel laureates together with an `effervescence´ of young talented hopefuls and see what happens. David Fisher is in Lindau, Germany, as some of the top scientists of our age meet with up and coming researchers from around the world. Listen to the future on this Science Show special.
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Science Show - 2009-08-29 Emission from ships
Ships burn a very dirty fuel, with high sulphur content. When this fuel is burnt, the emissions contain large amounts of sulphur dioxide, and sulphates in the solid particles. Global sulphur emissions attributable to ships are close to 10%. Ships are supposed to burn cleaner fuel close to shore to protect people who live there. Gerardo Dominguez measures emissions from ships and has found specific isotopic signatures which allows them to be tracked.
Chemicals on the Gr ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
Science Show - 2009-08-22 LHC still on hold
Geoffrey Taylor discusses ramifications following the shut down of the Large Hadron Collider soon after it began operation in September 2008. In addition to projects on hold, extra design, building and installation has been required. Full current won´t be run in the first year and will be built up over time. Some of the many projects for the LHC will be to find evidence for the basic particles of matter. This will shed light on events immediately after the Big Bang, the p ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
Science Show - 2009-08-15 PDA controls energy use
Jack Singh demonstrates a program for a PDA or other mobile device which can monitor and control the use of energy at remote sites. It monitors flows and costs of energy use. The system then suggests, by way of a game, how to minimise the use of energy. Simply turning off devices on standby, such as television and computers can save around 30% of their power consumption.
Remote medical diagnosis uses mobile phone images
Cheap digital cameras can be used to measure a ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
Science Show - 2009-08-08 New songbird found in Laos
Iain Woxvold went to central Laos to undertake a biological survey for a mining company. There he discovered a new species of bird. It appeared bald. There were quite a few birds, and it´s been named the bare-faced bulbul. It seems to be the only songbird in mainland Asia. It is thought some animal and plant species are found only in very small areas, and may be threatened as habitats are changed by mining or other factors.
Great Barrier Reef birds in decline
Br ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
Science Show - 2009-08-01 Debate over net addiction
Brain scientist Susan Greenfield argues excessive computer use is not a fad. She describes people isolated from other human contact and ponders the consequences. Her major concern is the meaningless of it all and how the human brain may change as a result.
The Internet - a threat to women?
Laura is concerned women are being replaced by technology.
Ian McEwan on Darwin
Ian McEwan says Darwin fundamentally changed our view of ourselves and the natural world. He des ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
Science Show - 2009-07-25 Hooked on the Net?
The video game market is big business, worth around $2 billion in Australia last year. The best games draw people into an exciting world where anything is possible; demons are slain, riches are made and worries about the real world left far behind. It´s great entertainment, but for a minority of players and net users who get hooked it can be a disaster. `Addicts´ deprived of computer access exhibit rage, distress and even violence. Should video game and internet `addict ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
Science Show - 2009-07-18 Nuclear power plants - now safer and cheaper
Barry Brook traces the history of nuclear power. Today, about 440 nuclear power reactors are in use, known as Generation 2 reactors. These were designed between 1960 and 1980. Recently, Generation 3 reactors have adopted a standard design, allowing for faster approval. 45 are being built. 350 are planned. Chernobyl was a cheap design. There was no containment building. Barry Brook describes Chernobyl as an accident waiting to happen. Newer reacto ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
Science Show - 2009-07-11 40 years since Apollo 11 - first manned mission to the moon
The Science Show celebrates 40 years since Apollo 11 by replaying excerpts from the program broadcast 20 years ago in 1989! The program features a speech by US President, John F. Kennedy, and communications between astronauts and mission control. Peter Pockley describes the challenges of a radio broadcaster covering Apollo missions during the 1960s. Ross Taylor discusses what we know about the formation of the moon. Ian Grant and H ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
Science Show - 2009-07-04 The life of galaxies
Galaxies are not static. They are dynamic clusters of stars which are constantly changing. As galaxies grow, they can consume other galaxies. Indeed our own galaxy, The Milky Way is currently eating two smaller galaxies. Geraint Lewis describes the process of galaxy formation and what happens as galaxies collide.
The possibility of life beyond Earth
Is the universe made for it? Is the universe built for life? The origins of life remain a stubborn mystery. So was the ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
Science Show - 2009-06-27 Music and the cosmos
This week The Science Show presents a special event celebrating the International Year of Astronomy. The University of Sydney gathered its forces from physics and music for this journey around our galaxy and beyond. Hear how violent, chaotic and dangerous the universe is away from the comforts of planet Earth. When stars like our Sun some to the end of their lives, they explode in a catastrophic event known as a super nova. The last one happened in our galaxy 400 years ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
Science Show - 2009-06-20 Making or influencing a million from science
What do we dream from science? To make a million dollars? Or perhaps to influence a million people... or more! The Science Show this week presents a forum where successful science researchers and entrepreneurs describe how their work has changed the world, how the products that have come from their research have influenced a million people, and quite often, made a million... or more! This forum was presented as part of the Australian Science Fest ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
Science Show - 2009-06-13 Heaven + Earth - review by David Karoly
David Karoly reviews Ian Plimer´s book, Heaven + Earth.
James Lovelock: In Search of Gaia
John Gribbin discusses his book James Lovelock: In Search of Gaia, with Michele Field.
The World Without Us
Alan Weisman discusses his book The World Without Us with David Fisher.
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Science Show - 2009-06-06 Heaven + Earth: review by Malcolm Walter
Geologist and planetary scientist Malcolm Walter reviews Ian Plimer´s book, Heaven + Earth.
New Zealand houses: draughty and deadly
Houses in New Zealand don´t protect their occupants from the temperate climate of high rainfall and strong westerly winds. The houses´ designs are based on those from other parts of the world. And now adverse health effects have been measured. More people die in winter than summer, a higher proportion than in other c ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
Science Show - 2009-05-30 Gravity Discovery Centre Gingin Western Australia
David Blair and Chief Scientist Penny Sackett join Robyn Williams 13 storeys up on Gingin´s leaning tower and reproduce, as far as possible, the gravity experiments of Galileo by letting balloons filled with water fall to the ground. David Blair demonstrates displays in the Gingin Gravity Discovery Centre. The Centre combines being a place for scientific research, a gallery, an observatory and an activity centre for visitors.
Lunar dust
Pr ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
Science Show - 2009-05-23 Cars - the crunch! Part 3
Listeners' responses to our series, Cars - the crunch! including some drivers´ thoughts on the distractions experienced whilst driving in our cities and towns; constantly changing speed limits, speed cameras, warning signs and billboards. Nicky Phillips reports. If you´d like to contribute to our online discussion, click here.
Kew Gardens herbarium
Alan Paton describes some of the specimens in the Kew Gardens herbarium originally collected by the missionary Dav ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
Science Show - 2009-05-16 Swine flu: possible escapee from vaccine laboratory
The outbreak of swine flu in humans could be the result of careless laboratory practices, released via a vaccine for pigs that was prepared without being fully inactivated. Adrian Gibbs studied the evolutionary trees of the gene sequences of the new swine flu and found something strange. Parts of the gene sequence came from viruses that already existed in North America, and other parts came from Eurasia. So how did these gene fragments ge ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
Science Show - 2009-05-09 Cars - the crunch!
Driving cars in cities has become like living a nightmare in a mad computer game: distractions all around and within the vehicle. The average driver needs to process 1,340 pieces of information per minute. No wonder car crashes will soon be the third largest cause of death globally. And traffic in cities is set to double. How is the average driver to cope on modern roads? Cameras, speed limits changing rapidly, and a car that cuts you off from reality?
Hydrogen sulphide
... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
Science Show - 2009-05-02 Diabetes type 2 cured by surgery
Type 2 diabetes accounts for 90-95% of diabetes. Despite 20 years of research, the problem has not been solved. There are medicines to take, but when onset is early, patients will die early despite the many treatments. People think of diabetes as a chronic, progressive incurable disease. Richard Stubbs says this is wrong. He performs gastric bypass surgery for severely obese people. These people certainly lose weight. But in addition, if diabetic, their diab ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
Science Show - 2009-04-25 Barry Marshall or Kylie Minogue?
When asked to choose between Australia's latest Nobel Prize winner and our favourite pop star, Asian students can surprise. So who's better known? This will be revealed, together with an assessment of our prospects when faced with the immense resources being provided for science in China. Meanwhile, are we giving full support to Australian-based innovation? One leading economist thinks not.
Generic drug exports
Over the next 10 years hundreds of drug patent ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
Science Show - 2009-04-18 Biofuels
They may be among the oldest forms of life on Earth, but they offer great hope for the future. Blue green algae, pond scum, are also a form of bacteria and may be harnessed in ponds to produce oil. But can they make enough? 'Yes they can!' say scientists in California, and are already doing so. Other microalgae are also promising. Soon they may replace fossil fuels.
Out of body experience
Almost 20 per cent of people who are resuscitated after a cardiac arrest can remember detai ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
Science Show - 2009-04-11 Western Australia´s Zadko telescope opens - peers into the distant past
David Coward describes the capabilities of the Zadko telescope, recently opened north or Perth, Western Australia. Zadco is designed to look at flashes of light from the far edge of the universe. These are gamma ray bursts. Some are the result of the collapse of distant massive stars. Zadko has been the only telescope to observe these flashes, some of which are from a distance of 11 billion light years. These flashes w ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
Science Show - 2009-03-28 Plumage determines sex of offspring in Gouldian Finches
Over eighty per cent of Gouldian finch chicks will be male if their mother sees that the father has a different coloured head. These colourful Australian native birds have three possible head colours-red, yellow and black. Daughters produced from mixed matings-where parents differ in head colour - suffer from genetic incompatibilities between their parents that cause about 84 per cent to die young.
Magellanic penguins swim further for ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
Science Show - 2009-03-21 Imaging Mars and beyond
Hi-rise is a camera. Longhand: High resolution imaging science experiment. It´s the biggest camera to go to another planet. The camera is in orbit around Mars and produces very high resolution images of the surface. Each pixel represents 25cm of the surface. Samples are on Google. The oldest rocks on Mars are 3.9 billion years old and are from a time of heavy bombardment. Now there´s a plan to go to one Io, one of the 63 moons of Jupiter.
Caterpillars get the r ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
Science Show - 2009-03-14 Air pollution reduces rainfall
Kimberly Prather measures soot and determines its origins. New instruments can be taken in aircraft which analyse particles in the air in real time, giving an instant readout. Kimberly Prather says soot from fires pumps billions of extra particles into the sky which collect water vapour. This goes some way to explaining why clouds which are expected to produce rain often don´t. Rather than large drops which fall as rain, the clouds contain a larger number o ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
Science Show - 2009-02-28 DNA from Neanderthals
Sites in Croatia and Spain have revealed DNA sequences of Neanderthals. They are 38,000 years old. Other sites are in Germany and southern Russia. These date back 70,000 years. New techniques allow sequences to be prepared from less than one gram of material. Random fragments are sequenced and mapped to the human genome. Some known genetic variants are in common with people of today. These reveal features such as lactose tolerance. Neanderthals were not tolerant to lac ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
Science Show - 2009-02-21 Climate concern in the US and science in the new Obama administration
The US has about 1,000 mayors and governors who have taken it upon themselves to reduce carbon emissions in their local areas, moving ahead of federal government policy and action. Cities such as Seattle and Chicago and New York are contesting to better each other. People are noticing changes in their environment and looking for an explanation. Science is likely to be taken more seriously by the new Obama adm ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
Science Show - 2009-02-14 Interpreting Darwin´s theory
Richard Dawkins and Stephen Jay Gould debate their differing interpretations of Darwin´s famous theory of evolution. Recorded in Oxford in 1987.
Darwin´s descendants
Two of Charles Darwin´s great-great-grandsons talk about their famous ancestor and how the link affects their lives today. They also reflect on the achievements of Charles Darwin and his theory of evolution, which has become the basis of our understanding ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
Science Show - 2009-02-07 Darwin and show business
Excerpts from Jane Goodall´s series, Science and Show Business, broadcast on The Science Show in January 2004. Jane Goodall looks at the history of tension between science and show business, the contradiction between promoting a sceptical attitude and a respect for evidence, while accepting the magic of show business and conjuring. Scientific principles have been promoted over time and this compares to the rise of magic and razzle dazzle in side shows, ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
Science Show - 2009-01-31 President Obama's new science team
Introducing two of Barack Obama's science advisers:
Transporting chimps
Australian veterinary nurse Debby Cox was awarded an Order of Australia this Australia Day for her work saving chimpanzees as part of the Jane Goodall Institute. Here she talks about her adventure transporting 10 chimps out of politically unstable Uganda to safety.
Early development of babies' brains
Until they learn ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
Science Show - 2009-01-24 One laptop per child
It was the ambition of Kevin Rudd during the last election and it is the plan being realised by Nicholas Negroponte of MIT. The only way Professor Negroponte can realise his dream is by having cheap laptops, costing $100, or eventually less. How is this done? And what difference do these computers make in the villages of Africa, South America and Asia? Professor Negroponte, founder of the Media Lab at MIT and author of the bestseller Being Digital, talks to ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
Science Show - 2009-01-17 The astonishing Dr Joseph Needham - Part 3 of 3
Joseph Needham died in 1995. His contributions to the understanding of Chinese history and innovation are now recognised as one of the great achievements of the 20th century. Is the spectacular industrial growth in China in part due to Needham's revelations? The recordings we hear this week of the man himself are unique and broadcast once more with a new appreciation of his work.
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Science Show - 2009-01-10 The astonishing Dr Joseph Needham - Part 2 of 3
Last week in part 1 of this series the focus was on Chinese philosophy and culture. We saw how that it was the bureaucrat and mandarin who ruled in his Confucian way. Today's program features the yin and yang opposites that governed the nature of the scientific technology produced.
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Science Show - 2009-01-03 The astonishing Dr Joseph Needham - Part 1 of 3
These days everybody knows that the Chinese invented practically everything hundreds of years ago. What people don't realise is that this understanding is so new; in the early 1950s, nobody, not even those in China were aware of this amazing fact. Then Dr Joseph Needham of Cambridge embarked on an exploration of China and the beginning of his massive work Science and Civilisation in China and in 2008 Simon Winchester's book Bomb, Book and Comp ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
Science Show - 2008-12-27 Murray Darling water forum
In 2008 Catalyst ran a moving special on the rare flooding that reached the outback this year. Flocks of birds numbering over 20,000 sprung up, as if from nowhere. The Catalyst team presented their research and feelings in a forum recorded at the ABC Ultimo Centre on our Open Day in August and this features today on The Science Show.
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Science Show - 2008-12-20 Steven Chu energy secretary for Obama
Steven Chu, Nobel Prize winner in 1997, director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has been chosen as President elect Obama´s energy secretary. He spoke with Robyn Williams in 2007 on implications of the growing climate problem.
Disabling stolen credit cards
A small spark applied to silicon causes oxidation and the release of energy. The silicon oxygen bond is very strong. The conversion of weak bonds to strong bonds releases energy. The r ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
Science Show - 2008-12-13 Boost for biodiesel potential
The search is on to develop materials for biodiesel which don´t use crops best used for food, and which don´t use farmland on which crops for food could be grown. Tallow is the fat produced when animals are processed in abattoirs. The Materials and Energy Group at Flinders University has developed technology to ensure biodiesel blended with tallow remains liquid at usual operating temperatures. This technology can also be applied to jetfuel biofuel which nee ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | |
