Australian Highlights

Lyn Harwood literally watches the grass grow. Lyn, along with partner Bruce Pascoe, is bringing back connection to our Country through lived experience and ancient agriculture. She is building widespread recognition for Australian native foods: the grains, grasses and more that were grown and harvested by Aboriginal peoples for tens of thousands of years. This journey is captured in the book, Blac...

Extracted from our conversation on Innovation vs Invention (Ep 26), Mandy Scotney expands on the innovative world of the comedian, the fountains of funny, and where the politics comes in. Follow Mandy and find out what she’s up to next Credits Producer: Rachel Rayner, Science Explainer Guests: Jonathan Englert, Mandy Scotney Music: Michelle Cashman Editing: HoboHut Media Made possible through Meta...

Innovation is a loaded term, a buzzword. When this is a podcast on innovation, what do we mean? Are we using the term correctly? Where does invention sit in all of this? Jonathan Englert and Mandy Scotney from Episode 6, Culture Shocks , are back to unravel the conundrum of language and entrepreneurship. Jonathan draws from his PhD looking into Australian innovation, where he interviewed various i...

What snack would you like on a trip to Mars? Professor Jenny Mortimer is a space horticulturalist, who is looking at the best nutritious solutions for astronauts hurtling through the solar system. She has already sent food into space, all to test whether it would survive a trip to Mars. Will it whet the appetite of cabaret star Minnie Andrews? Credits Producer: Rachel Rayner, Science Explaine...

We’re all about the good life – but we’re not heading to a wellness retreat in Byron Bay. We’re measuring our quality of life using cold, hard stats, and looking at our brains with a portable scanner. No ice baths required! Champagne encouraged. See images discussed in the episode and more on the website. In this live recording of the Australian Highlights series for the Melbourne International Co...

Rachel Rayner, Science Explainer and confidante, Kirsty Kapp, catch up on a flash of five episodes. They consider the statistical definition of deadly, argue about the failures of communicating acid rain, poke at Rachel's hatred of Paul Gauguin, and get excited about ancient trade routes.  Head to each individual episode for more information on our website: Australian Highlights, Season 2 . C...

Innovation in Australia has been happening for tens of thousands of years. Professor Lynette Russell is the co-author of Innovation: Knowledge and Ingenuity , which is part of the First Knowledges series. In conversation with comedian Luke Morris and host Rachel Rayner, we explore the rich history and innovations of Indigenous Australians, particularly in the areas of language, trade, land managem...

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. Artist...

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 commu...

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 o...

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 b...

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 .&n...

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...

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...

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 na...

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 se...

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, co...

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 Hunt...

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 contr...

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 leg...

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 deve...

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 interviewin...

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 Hargrav...

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 sc...

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, s...