The Science Show - Separate stories podcast

Past winners Maisie Morrison, Joseph Solina and Ruby Tarman tell Amy Briggs how their outlook has changed since writing their essays.

Kat Cermelj describes how to bake gluten-free goodies that taste as good as the real thing.

Warmer ocean water is leading to faster melting of Antarctic glaciers.

A creation story of the Boandik people of the south-eastern coastal region of South Australia and western Victoria provides a timeline for Australia’s geological history.

AI chatbots are helping to crack long-standing mathematical problems, including some of the famous Paul Erdős conjectures that have remained unsolved for nearly 80 years. It's not just researchers finding these solutions, either: it's also amateur mathematicians armed with off-the-shelf ChatGPT.Jonathan Webb wheels out the chalkboard with Dr Melissa Lee to discuss how AI is shaping the field of ma...

Professor of neurobiology Carlos Lois at the California Institute of Technology describes experiments using Australian zebra finches to investigate how memory is stored in the brain.

Amy Briggs takes us to Mulligans Flat, a wildlife sanctuary north of Canberra to see preparations to quarantine a threatened marsupial, the eastern quoll.

The Science Show offers views on education from student Chloe Kwan, Superstar of STEM Jennifer Baker and indigenous rights campaigner Noel Pearson.

Ian Lowe is co-president of the Australian Peace and Security Forum and has many ideas about peaceful alternatives - beyond what is dismissed as ‘woke’.

Old satellites and bits of space junk regularly fall back to Earth, burning up as they pass through the atmosphere. All this burning metal causes a chain reaction and ultimately destroys ozone molecules, which keep us safe from most of the Sun's harmful UVB rays. Could a new era of satellite "megaconstellations", like the one run by SpaceX's internet company Starlink, undo humanity's hard work rep...

In 1926, the organisation now known as Family Planning Australia was created, and eugenics played a role alongside feminism in the birth control movement.

Dan Falk takes us 2Km underground to SNOLAB, the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory in northern Ontario, a Canadian science laboratory specialising in neutrino and dark matter physics sitting in a working nickel mine.

Australian mathematician Terence Tao, now a professor at the University of California Los Angeles, was awarded the AC – The Companion of the Order of Australia on 8th June 2026.

Australian zebra finches are being used to understand how human brains work and answer fundamental questions such as where memories are stored.

A deadly variant of H5N1 avian influenza has finally reached mainland Australia: the last continent without it. Although the risk to human health remains low, this virus has spread through many different species overseas — and not just birds. So are our animals vulnerable? Jonathan Webb speaks with Dr Tiggy Grillo about which animals could be at risk, and what is being done to protect them. You ca...

The coloured lights in the sky at the poles are produced by charged particles exciting molecules in the atmosphere. And not only on Earth.

James Cook University in Cairns hosts Australia’s tropical herbarium.

We can’t ask them. So we must run experiments. Some indications suggest insects do feel pain. So should insects then have rights, such as mammals

We return to an interview back when this famous book was first launched in 1976, when it received sceptical responses from mainstream science.

Lena Pernas studies organelles as active participants in host defence, asking how mitochondria and other organelles sense infection, communicate with one another, and coordinate cellular responses to invading microbes.

In his book, Dangerously Well, Roger Rees writes about his experience in 2018 when his dear friend Anne Marks was diagnosed with a rare type of salivary gland cancer.

The largest, deepest and oldest whale graveyard has been found off the coast of Western Australia: teeming with life.  Jonathan Webb takes a deep dive with environment reporter, Peter de Kruijff, into the science behind whale falls and their importance to underwater ecosystems. You can binge more episodes of the Lab Notes podcast with science editor and presenter Jonathan Webb on the ABC Listen ap...

Max Lu, vice-chancellor at the University of Wollongong says yes. He presents his case.

Easy access to tropical forests via modern highways encourages rapid colonisation, land grabbers, illegal logging, illegal gold mining and animal poaching.  Is this progress?

Not a leftover of evolution but a marvel – Danielle Clode celebrates the enigmatic echidna.