Sunday Extra - Separate stories podcast

In the 1960s independent magazine OZ became a cause célèbre when its editors were charged, in the UK and Australia, with obscenity. Edition 4 of OZ magazine is a rare collectors item, valued at $700 by collectors online. One of the founders of OZ himself, Richard Walsh, had been searching for edition 4 far and wide. This missing piece of Richard's collection was finally returned when Jill Bowen re...

Abraham Kuol spent the first seven years of his life in Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya. His family came to Australia as refugees, and this year he is Victoria’s  Young Australian of the Year .  Abraham is an Associate Research Fellow in Criminology at Deakin University, where his research focuses on the post-settlement challenges faced by African Australians, particularly regarding interactions with...

The Magna Carta is one of the world's most famous documents, and Australia has it's own copy from 1297. Libby Melzer recently completed a 10 year project to analyse and conserve this copy of the Great Charter, touching the 700 year old document with the scalpel herself. Libby is the Head of Collection Care at State Library Victoria, and she is giving a talk about the Conservation of the Australian...

Straight from Sydney Festival to Melbourne's Art House, Opera for the Dead is a striking contemporary Chinese cyber-opera that blurs ritual, music and technology. Co-creator Mindy Meng Wang reflects on how her personal experience of grief and funeral rites shaped the immersive visual and musical work she developed with sound designer Monica Lim. Guest: Mindy Meng Wang , world-leading guzheng playe...

Mary Penfold was the driving force behind Penfolds wines, which grew from a small vineyard outside Adelaide in the 1850s to the wine-producing powerhouse that we know today. Being a woman in the agriculture sector in the mid-1800s meant that Mary didn't get much recognition for her contribution to running Penfolds. But following the death of her husband she continued to direct production and expan...

The number of countries planning to relocate their capital cities now also includes Mongolia, where building works are underway on a new capital.

'Good character' as a mitigating factor of sentencing is poised to be abolished in NSW courts. The proposed new bill in NSW parliament relies on the recommendations in the report from the NSW Sentencing Council, but not all members of the council were in agreement.  Barrister Felicity Graham explains why she dissented from the council's recommendations and what the unintended consequences of the c...

17 months after the revolution that ended the 15 year rule of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and her Awami League, Bangladesh goes to a general election on February 12.

Have you ever heard of water cremation? It sounds like a misnomer but it is an increasingly popular way of cremating the dead, which its proponents choose for it's gentle effect on their loved ones, and the environment.  The death industry in Australia mostly consists of funeral homes as we’ve known them, but business owners like Luke Cripps have begun to offer new options for grieving Australians...

This week's mystery caller is a common, aerobatic predator of small insects – the Welcome Swallow.

John Birmingham is perhaps best known for his documentation of the "horror and madness" of Australian share-house living in his 1994 book He Died With A Felafel In His Hand. His book Leviathan: An Unauthorised Biography of Sydney won the Australian National Prize for Non Fiction Award in 2002, and his (self-called) “airport novels” including The Axis of Time series are loved across the world. 1989...

A group of researchers have been (gently) scouring works of art and objects connected to the great Renaissance painter and inventor Leonardo da Vinci in a search for his DNA. 

Tyree Barnette arrived in Australia in 2012 with rose-coloured glasses for the laid-back, multicultural, egalitarian nation. But he soon found that being African-American on stolen land was more complex than he could imagine. Guest: Tyree Barnette, author of Stolen Man on Stolen Land .

You know the jingle but do you know the story of the family behind Australia's iconic hardware retailer and sausage sizzle fundraiser?

Thailand will be heading into a snap general election on February 8. Will the reformist party leading the polls make it first across the finish line? And what are the issues resonating with Thailand's voters? Guest: Aim Sinpeng , Senior Lecturer in Comparative Politics and International Relations at the University of Sydney

Amid escalating tension between the US and Iran, how does Iraq navigate the election of a new Prime Minister that will satisfy both sides? Guest: Dr Marsin Alshamary, assistant professor of political science at Boston College

The trial is likely to see CEOs including Meta's Mark Zuckerberg take the witness stand to testify about what they knew of the potential dangers of their platforms. 

Summer is the season for flies, and while some species may be an annoyance, flies also perform an import role in natural ecosystems. 

This week's mystery caller is common, widespread and definitely not a Magpie! – it's the Magpie-Lark.

L-FRESH The Lion is one of the luminaries of the vibrant cultural scene of Sydney’s western suburbs. Hip-hop artist, music producer, and creative director of the Conscious program at Campbelltown Arts Centre, which mentors and platforms the next generation of Western Sydney's hip-hop and RnB artists. Born and raised in South West Sydney into a Sikh family who migrated from Punjab, India, L-FRESH h...

When we think about the universe, how to we conceptualise numbers so large they are beyond our imagination? Mathematician Ian Le shares the mysteries of a vigintillion, a googolplex, and nameless numbers gigantic proportions.  Guest: Ian Le, Senior Lecturer at ANU’s Mathematical Sciences Institute

One of the people in the running — literally and figuratively — for this year's Young Australian of the Year award is Nedd Brockmann. In 2022, Nedd was a 23-year-old sparkie from Forbes who decided to run across the continent to raise money for people experiencing homelessness. He started in Perth and was greeted by thousands at Bondi Beach 46 days later, having raised over $2 million for homeless...

Each 25th of January marks the night of the Burns Supper, celebrated in Scotland and across the globe to honour the birthday, life and legacy of Scotland's National Bard, Robert Burns.  Professor of Robert Burns Studies at the University of Glasgow Pauline Mackay joins us to discuss all things Burns, and the evolving international celebration of the Burns Supper.  Are you holding a Burns Supper th...

In 2022, investigative journalist Charlotte Grieve was sued for defamation by renowned surgeon Dr Munjed al Muderis, a celebrity doctor from Iraq who came to Australia as a refugee and went on to become a specialist in a novel area of orthopedic surgery called osseointegration.

As Australians continue to reel from the grief of the Bondi Massacre an important questions emerge: When do begin to memorialise the site? Who gets a say in the memorial process? How do we, as Australians, create a memorial to help us heal? Dr Rosemary Hollow shares her thoughts, based on the memorial processes of Port Arthur and the Bali Bombings Guest: Dr Rosemary Hollow, Former Adjunct Associat...