Boiling Point: Recent Episodes
Eastside Radio 89.7FM
Boiling Point is Eastside Radio's 30-minute foray into the scientific world. The BP crew discuss obscure scientific facts, recent developments and play tunes with a tenuous connection to their topics of choice!
Did you know that plants and ecosystems have memory? Not the same memory as you or I, but a type of memory nonetheless. Join us in this episode as we chat to Postdoctoral researcher Jon Page, who uses observations to explore the carbon, water, and energy cycles of terrestrial ecosystems, and importantly, the memory of [...]Read More... from The role of memory in terrestrial ecosystems
Sci fi movies make blockbuster hits. But how much are they Sci and how much are they fi? Find out in this episode. [...]Read More... from Zombification and Museum Collections: the Sci and Fi
Kangaroos are iconic Australian animals that have interesting behavioural characteristics. They live in communities, and their environment plays a factor in their interactions. We are going to take a closer look at the environments kangaroos live in and how certain factors in their environment affect their behaviours. Daphne Willemsen will tell us about their research [...]Read More... from Spying on Kangaroos
Humans are affecting animals in multiple different ways. Our infrastructure is bleeding into forests and our way of life is changing how animals adapt to their environments. But are we aware of how we are impacting animals? In this episode of Boiling Point Anastasia is joined by Dr. Dominique Potvin, a Behavioural Ecologist, Evolutionary Biologist, [...]Read More... from What’s in a song? How urban environments change animal behaviour
What can your teeth tell about you?
Maybe how well you brush them, or in an unfortunate situation what you ate in your previous meal. But for a paleontologist, teeth are a treasure trove of information, helping uncover new species and the ancient history of the Australian continent.
Join our host, Inna as she chats with Antonia Parker who explores the ancient history of Australian marsupials... By looking at their teeth!!
This video illustrates a limestone fossil deposit and how to dig for fossils: www.youtube.com/watch?v=6EMRujEbhQQ
What is it about fungi that make them an exciting conversation piece in today's media, movies, and video games?
In this episode Anastasia chats Vanessa McPherson all about the natural history of fungi. Vanessa McPherson is a Research Assistant in the Environmental Microbiology and Molecular Analysis Laboratory in the School of Natural Sciences, Macquarie University. This laboratory concentrates on the origins and dynamics of genetic diversity, and how such analyses can inform conservation, health, environmental management and evolutionary biology. Most of the core work in the laboratory examines microbial diversity in various environmental compartments.
During the COVID pandemic, the laboratory was closed, providing the opportunity to go back to fundamental natural history, exploring biological diversity in Sydney. Vanessa and her colleagues made multiple discoveries of rare and endangered species, eventually choosing to concentrate further research on a neglected group of fungi: the clubs and corals.
They are interested in why these fungi matter, and illustrating their incredible diversity. They have an ongoing research program, using DNA analyses to understand fungal distributions and identity. Their research shows that even in the urban-bushland environment at our doorstep, there are multiple species that are yet to be described.
You can contact Vanessa here: vanessa.mcpherson@mq.edu.au
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Anastasia: www.ashavrova.com Twitter Instagram
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They’re small, they’re blue, and they’re stingy, but they’re not a jelly fish! What are they? They’re bluebottles of course. They’re a prominent feature of summers spent by the beach, but what brings them to Australian beaches remains a bit of a mystery.
Join us in this episode as we chat to two ECRs, Kim and Maxime, who research the beautifully bizarre world of bluebottles.
For further information:
BluebottleWatch website - https://www.unsw.edu.au/science/our-schools/bees/our-research/bluebottlewatch
iNaturalist citizen science project - https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/bluebottles-in-australia-physalia-physalis
Hailstorms are some of the costliest natural disasters that occur in Australia. One of the most infamous examples is the Sydney hailstorm of 1999 which dumped hailstones over 11cm in diameter and caused $1.7 billion in insurance damages. It’s quite surprising therefore, that we don’t have great observations or understanding of hailstorm probability.
In this episode, hosts Hannah and Inna are joined by Masters student Isabelle Greco who is aiming to improve our understanding of hail storms around Australia.
To find out more, follow Isabelle on Twitter - @Isabelle__Greco.
Some words we hear these days are “machine learning” and “automation”, but what do they actually mean, and where do they come from? In this episode, we take a closer look at the history of machine learning in automation. The origins of automation date back to the industrial revolution, and machine learning has played an important role in modern automation. Our guest Carlos Aguilera Cortes tells us the history of machine learning in automation and what the future of automation and AI may look like.
Carlos is a research intern at Contactile, working on his PhD in Computer Science at The University of New South Wales. Carlos studies machine learning and robotics.
Dreams of visiting Mars have been part of human imagination for centuries. But now that these dreams are closer to realization than ever before, so are the concerns of how we will treat the planets we will visit.
Join us, as we chat to Clare Fletcher. Clare studies the exciting and new field of the exogeoconservation of mars.
You can follow Clare on Twitter - @clarefletcher42
Ecosystems are under threat of collapse from human stresses and climate change. Is your favourite ecosystem at risk?
In this episode of Boiling Point, Sammy and Liz speak with Dr. Aniko Toth, a research fellow at UNSW Sydney who works in ecosystem conservation. Aniko uses modeling to combine satellite data with local species data to classify ecosystems and then assess them for the possibility of collapse, or the possibility that the ecosystem won't be able to function normally. Listen to the episode to understand how she accomplishes this, as well as what her work is used for (IUCN Red List of Ecosystems)!
Catch up with Aniko on:
Twitter Her Website An Article On Her Work
This episode's song: Burning by TillaTone
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Plants are signaling and communicating with their environment in unique and remarkable ways, we just don’t always know how to interpret their signals. But observing flowers and pollination is the easiest way to tap into their secret language.
In this episode Inna and Hannah chat to Ruby E. Stephens about the weird and wonderful world of pollination.
A risk-taking pilot sounds like the last thing anyone would want on their flight. However, if we ever want the plane to take off, some risk taking is necessary and even crucial. In this episode of Boiling Point, Griff and Inna chat to Yassmin Ebrahim. Yassmin studies the risk behavior of pilots and how it can affect their decisions during emergency events.
It's getting hot in here, but how do plants continue to thrive?
In this episode of Boiling Point, Sammy and Inna chat with fire ecologist Sarah McInnes! Sarah is a researcher at UNSW Sydney who studies the impacts of fire regimes on plant re-establishment and how these may change with climate change.
Catch up with Sarah on:
Twitter Her recent paper
This episode's song: Milkumana by King Stingray
Thumbnail Photo Credit: Kerri-Lee Harris & Paul Whitington (April 2020)
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Getting sick is no joke. Your noise gets stuffy, perhaps you get a sore throat, maybe you feel so bad you have to stay in bed for days! But what happens when coral get sick? Escalating temperatures and climate change are terms that are a part of a scientists daily vocabulary, but what does it mean for coral disease?
In this episode of Boiling Point, Anastasia, Inna, and Liz chat with another Boiling Point host Sammy Burke! Sammy is a marine scientist who studies coral health and the impacts of climate change on coral disease.
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There’s an argument among some evolutionary biologists that the reason why modern humans succeeded over other species of humans was because we are such social creatures. But were not the only social animals out there, so how do other animals compare? Do more social animals show higher intelligence? Find out on this episode of Boiling Point.
In this weeks episode myself Anastasia and Inna chatting with Lizzie Speechley. Lizzie is a behavioural ecologist at the University of Western Australia. Her research explores differences in cognition in the Western Australian magpie.
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Australia is universally renowned for its breathtaking underwater environments that are abundant with a diverse array of iconic marine species, such as the Great Barrier Reef. But as ocean temperatures continue to rise and population numbers continue to decline, the greater the need for thorough monitoring strategies to guide our efforts to conserve Australia’s unique marine ecosystems.
This week on Boiling Point we have the pleasure of talking with Marine Biologist Dr John Turnbull, about how Australia’s reef species are changing in the face of climate change and what we need to do to preserve them for generations to come. Listen to the story in just a moment!
What if detecting lung diseases such as cancer would be as easy as taking a breath? Although this sounds like science fiction, a diseases breathalyser is already under development!Join Griff and Inna as they chat to Merryn Baker who develops methods of detecting diseases with just one breath.Follow Merryn on Twitter: @merryn_baker
Pilates, yoga, lifting weights. What is the right exercise for me? Find out on this episode of Boiling Point!In this episode, Sammy Burke and Anastasia Shavrova chat with exercise physiologist Karen Mackay from the Queensland University of Technology to talk about her work looking into human diet and movement.
You’ve probably heard of heatwaves over land before – maybe you’ve even experienced the effects of one firsthand – but did you know that heatwaves also occur in the ocean? Marine heatwaves, a term first coined as recently as 2011, can have devastating impacts on marine ecosystems and societies, yet they remain a relatively new area of research. Join Hannah and Griff as they delve into the world of marine heatwaves with recently-finished PhD Candidate Charuni (Chai) Pathmeswaran.
What do you think of when you hear about Antarctica? Maybe it’s the vast snow planes or the cute pinguins and seals. But one of the most important things about Antarctica, are the ocean currents around it. They transport everything from heat, to debris, to live organisms and affect our whole planet!In this episode Griff and Inna interview Hannah Dawson, who studies this fascinating topic.
They look like short fat worms that lie motionless on the ocean floor. But sea cucumbers are so much more. They are a high-priced delicacy in many countries, can throw up their guts for self-defense, and sometimes have a parasitizing fish living in their bum. In this episode of Boiling Point Inna, Hannah and Cat interview Natasha Garner, who studies this wonderful creatures.For even more Sea Cucumber content (and much more!), you can follow Natasha on Twitter: @_natashagarner
Glorious gentle giants of the sea. These 700 pound creatures are highly intelligent as they collaborate together to gather food. Yet, these creatures are a threatened species. In this episode we chat about manta rays. In this episode, Anastasia, Sammy, and Inna chat to Hannah Moloney. Hannah is a marine scientist and researcher at the University of the Sunshine Coast and is a principle collaborator at the Manta Trust. Follow Hannah:LinkedInInstagramWebsiteDont forget to follow Boiling Point on:TwitterInstagramFacebook
What would you say if I told you that the answer to sustainable meat production may lie in the consumption of products made from exotic animals like alpacas, peacocks and even the extinct woolly mammoth? And that this meat would be made without harming any animals? You may say that this seems very far-fetched, but our guest today will likely convince that this reality is a lot closer than you may expect.Today we will be talking to Sam Rathbone from Vow Foods, who will be telling us about the prospects of cell-cultured animal products, and their extraordinary benefit for both consumers and the environment. Listen to the story in just a moment!Vow's Website: https://www.vowfood.com/
You are what you eat. And what you eat we can study.In this episode of Boiling Point, Anastasia, Hannah, and Sammy, chat with Aashi Parikh, a PhD Candidate from Macquarie University. Aashi looks at whale poop to find out how they live.Follow Aashi on twitterDont forget to follow Boiling Point on:TwitterInstagramFacebook
How do you signal "STAY AWAY". Do you make a noise? Maybe show your teeth? Perhaps, yell? Have you every thought about wearing something bright?There is a rainbow of warning colours that animals present to fend of predators. On this episode of Boiling Point, Anastasia and new Boiling Point recruit Hannah, chat with Marilia Erickson, a PhD candidate at Macquarie University. Marilia studies the prevalence of aposematism in butterflies. Dont forget to follow Boiling Point on:TwitterInstagramFacebook
Australia’s coastal waters harbour more than 8,000 ship wrecks. But only a quarter of those have been found. Our guest is a maritime archaeologist and will take us on a dive into her watery world. How is maritime archaeology different from the land-based version? How do you preserve a shipwreck and how do you handle things if you find human remains at the site?Our hosts, Griff, Inna and Cat are chatting with Danielle Wilkinson, a senior maritime archaeologist from Heritage Victoria.Interested to learn more? Check out these links:* The Australasian Institute for Maritime Archaeology: Home | Australasian Institute for Maritime Archaeology (aima-underwater.org.au) * Flinders University Maritime Archaeology Program 20 years of Maritime Archaeology - Flinders University * Maritime Archaeology Association of Victoria MAAV ; Maritime Archaeology Association of Victoria, Inc. (vicnet.net.au) * Maritime Archaeological Association of Western Australia MAAWA * Heritage Victoria’s Shipwreck Discovery Program Shipwreck Discovery Program (heritage.vic.gov.au)
Climate change has already caused some animal species to migrate and to seek new and more suitable habitat. But how do plants deal with climate change? They can’t just walk away and find a new place to live, can they?It turned out they can! Our guest is telling us all about migrations of plants and other mechanisms they use to cope with the changing climate.Boiling Point host Griff, co-hosts, Liz and Cat chat with Inna Osmolovsky. Inna is a PhD student at UNSW Sydney and studies the smart ways of how plants are reacting to the warming climate.
One of the most iconic animals in Australia is the kangaroo. It’s on the Australian coat of arms and is one of the first animals most people think of when they think of Australia. Today we are going to take a closer look at one of the less-studied aspects of the kangaroos. Surprisingly, social aspects of kangaroo behaviour have only been mildly explored. But their social behaviour is affected by multiple factorsBoiling Point host in training, Liz, and regular host, Cat are chatting with Nora Campbell. Nora is a PhD student at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, and she is making her radio debut. Nora studies kangaroos and their social behaviour.
Most people would have heard of Darwin finches, the birds that gave Darwin the idea for the theory of evolution. In this episode, we are taking a closer look at a group of species, that may look less spectacular. But they are evolution in the making. Blennies are fish that have started making their way back to land. Our guest is telling us why the blennies would go through such a trouble.Boiling Point host Cat and trainee Hannah Dawson are chatting with Elizabeth Surovic. Liz is a PhD student at the University of New South Wales in Sydney and studies blennies and evolution in the making.
It’s green and it seems to be highly abundant. But this impression is treacherous. Sea grass is in decline worldwide. Not a big deal you might think but the truth is, it’s a huge problem, as seagrasses are essential ecosystem builders that numerous marine creatures depend on.Cat chats with UNSW Honours student Griff Brindley who studies seagrass and explores how seagrass can successfully be restored.
Boiling Point host Cat chats with Charlotte Read. Charlotte has a degree in conservation and currently teaches children about wildlife and conservation at a zoo in Melbourne. Her interests in conservation are the human wildlife conflict, and in particular illegal wildlife trade. Since she is based in Melbourne, Cat talks to her to her via zoom about the sixth major extinction event and illegal wildlife trafficking.@BoilingPointFMhttps://www.facebook.com/boilingpoint/Want to learn more about the sixth major extinction event and illegal wildlife trafficking? Check out these links:WWF Australia (https://www.wwf.org.au/what-we-do/species/illegal-wildlife-trade-and-poaching#gs.nkrmqa)TRAFFIC (https://www.traffic.org/)Interpol (https://www.interpol.int/Crimes/Environmental-crime/Wildlife-crime)CITES (Convention of International Trade in Endangered Species) (https://cites.org/eng/prog/iccwc)Wildlife Justice Commission (https://wildlifejustice.org/)
Did you know that sea stars can get sick, too? Dr Sarah Wahltinez researches the impacts of climate change on sea stars. Cat chats to her for the 2nd episode of the new podcast 'Wildlife Health Talks'.Sarah is a PhD candidate at the College of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Florida but is currently based in Sydney. Sarah studies the impact of changing ocean conditions on sea stars.This is an episode of the new podcast 'Wildlife Health Talk' (available wherever you get your podcasts).Sarah wishes to thank everyone who made her PhD research possible; she is especially grateful to the Wildlife Disease Association Wildlife Veterinary Section and American Association of Zoo Veterinarians Wild Animal Health Fund for grands which funded this research. Boiling Point Links:https://www.facebook.com/boilingpoint#BoilingPointFM
They are small, slimy and most people find them delicious. I am talking about oysters. Once the Sydney rock oyster inhabited large areas of Sydney Harbour. Those days are long gone which is pretty tragic. Rock oysters provide the habitat for a large number of other marine species. Our guest studies them all and will tell us if the Sydney Rock Oyster is doomed or if there is still a glimpse of hope.Boiling Point host Cat chats with Dr Rick Leong. Rick just completed his PhD in marine sciences at the University of New South Wales in Sydney. He spent most of his field work with wet feet researching oysters and their habitat.Resources:Oyster shells used in mortar in Sydney's early buildings: https://blogs.sydneylivingmuseums.com.au/cook/oyster-shells/Some historical facts about Sydney rock oysters: https://dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/sydney_rock_oystersAbout the decline of Sydney rock oysters: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0190914Rick's thesis: https://unsworks.unsw.edu.au/entities/publication/d572951b-362b-44ea-981d-d079d03b16d5
Have you ever been to a tropical rainforest with its endless greenery and wildlife everywhere? Our guest has and she never really left. A part of her stayed and upon her return home to Germany she decided she needed to do something to protect these unique habitats and its biodiversity. So, she founded an NGO and is now spreading the word about the importance of conserving the last wild places on our planet.Boiling Point host Cat chats with Hannah Emde. Hannah is a veterinarian, book author and conservationist and loves the tropical rainforests of this planet. She recently published a book about her time in the jungle and her mission to protect these habitats. Listen in to the story!
Australia has many export hits including iron ore, coal and gold. Another important one that’s easily overlooked is high-quality education. Over 500,000 students from all over the world currently study in Australia. Medical science is particularly popular. What is it like to train as a doctor in a new country and a different culture without any family around? My guest has been through that and just graduated as a doctor. She will tell us about the ups and downs of her journey.Boiling Point host Cat chats with my guest is Dr Rose Phan. Rose is originally from Vietnam and just recently graduated in medical science at the University of New South Wales in Sydney.
How does one get into a career in science communication? Dr. Quill Darby is our science communicator expert today. Quill is an avid science communicator, she is a co-produce of the Science Tent at Splendour in Grass and the Sydney Science Trail Event. Quill has also started her own company, Junkyard Rascals! Listen to the episode to find out about Quills career path and her advice for other science communicators!
Connect with Quill: Twitter Instagram LinkedIn Junkyard Rascals
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During development all animals are vulnerable. So how does the experience one encounters while developing actually impact the adult life and can these effects be passed down to their grand-children? Can overstressing due to environmental change be detrimental to the survival of animal populations?
Anastasia chats to post-doctoral research fellow Dr. Ondi Crino. Ondi studies how developmental stress impacts physiology, behaviour, and general survival of wild and captive birds.
Find Ondi on her website
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In this episode of Boiling Point Anastasia, your host, has "the talk" with General practitioner and lecturer Dr. Melissa Kang.
Technology is moving so fast that parents have a hard time keeping up. So what will social media do to our children? What are kids looking at on their phones when the parents aren’t watching? And most importantly, should you have "the talk" with your kids, about Santa? Find out here
Dr Rachael Sharman joins me, Anastasia in the studio from Queensland. Rachael is a senior lecturer in psychology at the University of the Sunshine Coast who specialized in child and adolescent development.
Find Rachael:
Book Podcast LinkedIn University of Sunshine Coast The Conversation
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The world’s coral reefs are dying. That’s probably not new to you. Let’s start on a slightly more positive note. My guest has committed his career to providing hope and saving our reefs. He has worked on corals all over the world and will tell us what the situation is really like and what he is doing to stop corals from dying.
Boiling Point host Cat chats with coral researcher Prof David Suggett from the University of Technology Sydney, and David saves coral reefs for a living.
Having been so occupied with Covid, it’s easy to forget that there are many other infectious diseases lurking out there. A lot of countries still have to deal with cholera, typhoid fever and many others. How do you make sure such diseases don’t become an epidemic and kill thousands of people? This episode's guest is a researcher and works exactly on that. She focuses on countries in sub-Saharan Africa and South-east Asia to improve the lives of the local people.
Boiling Point host Cat chats with Dr Andrea Haselbeck. Andrea trained as a veterinarian in Berlin Germany. After a few years of treating cats and dogs, she wanted more. She switched to research and to improving public health. Working for a research institute in South Korea, she strives to investigate the consequences of infectious diseases in sub-saharan Africa and South-East Asia and how to prevent them. Cat chatted to her in her home in Bali, Indonesia.
How do you get a career in wildlife research? Is it magic? Most likely it’s rather strong determination, passion for the subject and a touch of idealism to make this world a better place. My guest is an early career researcher in veterinary science and toxicology. Her passion for wildlife research took her to some amazing places around the globe.
My guest today is Anne Fleur Brand. She is a Veterinarian and toxicologist and was born and raised in the Netherlands. Fleur recently started her PhD on chemical pollutants in migratory birds at the Norwegian University for Science and Technology in Trondheim. Before her current research gig in the far north of Europe she did her Masters project on turtles in remote parts of the Great Barrier Reef, she assisted in research on Tapirs in Brazil and even squeezed in two years of teaching biology at an elite boarding school in the UK. I found her career path so intriguing that I invited her on the show to tell us more about her adventures and her motifs behind them.
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Drugs are bad… but are all drugs bad? What is it that categorizes some drugs as bad or ok to use occasionally? Why do some drugs have a stigma against them, while others are commonly portrayed on the big screen as the cool thing to do? And can some drugs, in controlled and monitored doses, be used to treat mental illness? Find out in this episode of Boiling Point at Eastside FM.
In this weeks episode Anastasia, your host, is chatting with Dr. Sam Banister. Sam is a scientist but also an entrepreneur. Sam is a chemist who studies how different drugs effect the human body, he is the founder of Psylo Australia’s first psychedelics biotech company that designs the next generation of medicines to treat mental illness. If you thought that wasn't cool enough, Sam is also a Skydiver.
Connect with Sam: Twitter LinkedIn Psylo Website Psylo Twitter Psylo LinkedIn Purchase Psylo merch with all proceeds supporting Black Dog Institute.
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You know him as the scientist you asks all of your burning questions on Triple J Radio. But today we will know the man behind the answers. We welcome the National Treasure Dr. Karl.
Anastasia asks Dr. Karl the burning questions like: how did he get into science communication? How does he live sustainabilly? And most important who would win in a fight: him or Bill Nye.
Climate change is getting harder to ignore. Do you feel lost in what you can do to be sustainable? Are you looking for opportunities to get involved with Sustainability and climate change? Not all industries are doomed to kill the environment, some are working with science!
In this episode of Boiling Point Anastasia is chatting with Dr. Alex Thomson. Alex is the industry manager for the climate change cluster research institute at UTS and an avid science communicator!
Check out Alex on: Twitter, UTS Profile ,Instagram
Check out Climate Change Cluster
In the pandemic we learned many lessons, one of the most important was that the health of humans and animals are inseparably connected. After all, the corona virus jumped from wildlife to humans. But this is only part of the story that the term One Health teaches us. My guest is an expert on One Health and will tell us why following this concept matters now more than ever.
Your host Cat chats with guest Dr Carlos das Neves, the director for research and internationalization at the Norwegian Veterinary Institute and the past-president of the wildlife disease association. Carlos is a strong advocate of One Health in Norway and internationally.
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Do you need a holiday? You are in luck! We are taking you on a trip to the Bahamas. White sands, turquoise water and … lots of sharks. The Bahamas are a shark haven and they have a strong advocate here. Our guest has dived with sharks for more than 20 years and understands them like only very few people do. The sharks keep coming to her and having their fishing hooks removed. Our guest has dedicated her life to protect sharks and to change our perception of them.
We are on the beautiful island of Grand Bahama, one of 700 islands in the Bahamas. Cat went diving with Cristina Zenato to witness her shark skills firsthand.
Cristina is Italian born but has called the Bahamas home for 28 years now. She is a scuba and cave diving instructor and conservationist.
Links:
Cristina's NGO 'People of the Water': https://pownonprofit.org/
Cristina's personal website: https://cristinazenato.com/
Why do we keep getting more viruses? How do they keep up with our evolution? Are we actually providing the perfect breeding ground for viruses? How have viruses changed over time?
In this weeks show, your host Anastasia is sitting down with paleovirologist Emma Harding. Did you know that viral DNA is in our genes? Emma studies what in the world this DNA is doing in there!
Find Emma on her website and twitter
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How do the things we see make us feel? Do we prefer busy, stimulating visuals like city lights or more calming visuals like the ocean? Will some visuals make us feel relaxed or tense, engaged or bored, refreshed or fatigued?
In this week's episode Anastasia is joined by UNSW PhD student Chelle Roberts. Chelle is a psychology student who studies the form and motion in nature and how we visually process this, as well as how visual experiences make us feel. Welcome to the show on the secret life of our sense of vision.
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From serious to funny. From science to comedy. From biomedical degree to producing, marketing, acting, writing, and stand-up? How do you go from a bachelor of science to a successful career in Comedy?
Anastasia sits down with Writer, Comedian, Presenter, and Actor AJ Lamarque. AJ started with a Bachelor of Science in Biological and Biomedical Science and quickly rose to fame as Australia's rising comedian. He even hosts his own unique comedy show entitled Kweens of Comedy!
Catch up with AJ on:
His Website and Catch his Show Kweens of Comedy and listen to his Podcast Floof Facebook Instagram Twitter
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Everyone old enough will remember the footage of confused ataxic cows that were not able to stand on their own anymore. The 1990s were the time of Mad Cow Disease, an illness caused by a misfolded protein, the prion. While mad cow disease in Europe is well under control by now, a similar illness is currently spreading in the US. Not in cows this time but in deer. What it does to deer and how it has the potential to effect humans, we will chat about with our guest Heather Inzalaco.
Heather is a PhD candidate in wildlife diseases at the University of Wisconsin Madison and thinks outside the box to identify hidden ways of how the disease is spread.
Listen in to Cat's and Heather's chat about all things chronic wasting disease.
Reneweable energy can make a difference in todays changing climate. Moving from environmentally damaging energy sources to ones that use the environment for more sustainable energy sources is key. But how do we do this?
In this weeks episode your hosts Chon and Anastasia will be chatting to Akasha Kaleem a PhD student at UNSW who studies photovoltaic and Renewable Energy Engineering. Akasha works to find which materials are best suited for solar energy panels.
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This week on Boiling Point Science, Tim and Chantelle interview Associate Professor Patrick O’Connor from the University of Adelaide to discuss his recent article exploring the role varroa mite could play in managing feral honey bees, and help Australia’s environment
Following the detection of varroa mites in sentinel hives in NSW, an emergency response is underway to contain the spread of this parasite. We discuss the varroa mite, its threat to the honey and broader agricultural industries and Associate Professor O'Connor's thought-provoking position presented in his recent article, Hear me out – we could use the varroa mite to wipe out feral honey bees, and help Australia’s environment.
For more information on the emergency response here: NSW Department of Primary Industries
Sources:
https://theconversation.com/hear-me-out-we-could-use-the-varroa-mite-to-wipe-out-feral-honey-bees-and-help-australias-environment-185959
https://www.abc.net.au/7.30/the-race-to-save-australia%E2%80%99s-bee-industry/13981824
Academia is hard, no doubt about it. But there are things that are out of your control that can make that journey even harder. We’ve spoken on Boiling Point about 1st generation academics, struggles of university, whether to do a PhD, and so much more! Today let’s look at another perspective.
Today Anastasia is sitting down with Associate Professor Lee Ann Rollins to share our stories as women in stem. Women compromise only 28% of the STEM workforce and only 17% of STEM higher academics, despite women compromising a good portion of these fields in undergraduate. Why are these numbers so low? How can we encourage people who identify as women to stay or pursue STEM careers? Are there any benefits to being a person who identifies as a women in STEM? All these questions we hope to chip away at today.
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The NSW government introduced shark nets to Sydney’s beaches in 1937. They promised to protect swimmers and surfers from shark attacks. But that’s not what shark nets do. In fact, they are a serious case of false labelling. They don’t protect people. Instead, they entangle and kill sharks and other marine species like dolphins, whales and turtles.
Your hosts Cat and Dom chat with two activists campaigning to ban shark nets in NSW and Queensland. Duncan Heuer is the founder of the initiative ‘Saving Norman’. Our second guest, Andre Borell is the founder of envoy foundation and director of the documentary ‘Envoy: Shark Cull’.
Listen in on the unpleasant facts about shark nets, more effective ways to protect ocean lovers and what you can do to protect our threatened marine fauna.
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What can we learn from looking at poopy parasites? That is poops of wild animals. We ask our Ass Pro: Michelle Power!
Michelle Power is an Associate Professor at Macquarie university, AND she's a comedian. Listen in as Anastasia and Caitlin chat all things poop, feces, and guano in this weeks episode.
Find Michelle on Twitter and Instagram
Want to know more about parasites? Check out Michelles Website and Macquarie University profile.
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46 percent of Australians experience a mental health disorder in their lives. One eighth of Australians are on anti-depressants. And 8 Australians take their own lives every day. You can tell, the mental health situation in this country is dire. However, you might have heard of a potential light at the end of the tunnel. Psychedelics seem to be just the answer we all have been waiting for. What are they capable of and do they really hold what they promise? We have some answers for you.
Listen in to Cat's interview with neuroscientist Dr Dilara Bahceci
For help with depression, call
Beyond Blue(Australia): 1300 22 4636
Lifeline (Australia): 13 11 14
Why do people choose to do a PhD? Is a PhD right for you? Is it best to go from Honours to PhD, without having done a masters? Listen to four different perspectives today and decide PhDo or PhDont?
Welcome to Boiling Point. This week Anastasia is joined by three PhD students: Caitlin Creak, Jess Tam, and Soleille Miller. Everyone has a different background, different ways how they came into a PhD, and different views on the path to a PhD.
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Darwin saw evolution through beetles. Our guest today sees evolution through blennies. But why are they leaving the water behind?
Welcome to Boiling Point in this weeks episode our guest is Elizabeth Surovic, a PhD Candidate at UNSW. Elizabeth studies evolution in real time.
Blennies, are little fish that are transforming to land right in front of our eyes!
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What happens when you’re stuck in the middle of nowhere for two years? Perhaps you awaken your passion for researching invasive parasites? Perhaps you discover a new species?
This week's episode is a show of adventure, mystery, surprise, and invasion. I, Anastasia, am sitting down with UNSW PhD Candidate Harry Eyck to chat about the nematodes, an invasive parasite that is abundant, yet we know so little about them.
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Many of us loved them as a kid and still secretly love them today. I am talking about dinosaurs. What’s much less known is how they were first discovered, what consequences this huge discovery had for science and how dinosaurs inspired the myth of dragons. Let’s go back in time to answer these questions.
In this episode your hosts Dom and Cat chat with guest Lachlan Hart, a PhD student in Paleobiology at the University of New South Wales in Sydney. Lachlan studies all things dead, mostly extinct amphibians. We talked about his research a few months ago. This time, he is here as our expert on dinosaurs and how they were first discovered.
Listen in to the interview: https://soundcloud.com/user-982894834/how-dinosaurs-were-first?utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing
Australia is among the world leaders of successful organ transplants. However, nearly 2,000 people are on the transplant waiting list at any one time. There are just not enough organs and tissues for everyone who needs them. Wouldn’t it be handy if we could just make organs from scratch? Sounds crazy, but our guest is working on exactly that. Her technique? She prints them! Unfortunately, there is still a long way to go, but science is under way.
Your hosts Dom and Cat chat with our guest Luca Altevogt who is originally from Germany and currently a PhD candidate in chemical engineering at the University of New South Wales in Sydney. And in her PhD, Luca works on printing organs with the help of a 3D printer.
Pint of Science brings scientists and non-scientists together and provides a platform for scientists to present their work in a jargon-free and easily accessible way.
Pint of Science Australia is presented to you at 11 different locations around Australia this year. Grab a beer and listen to brilliant minds and how they are planning to change the world with their research.
Your host Cat presents the talk of UNSW PhD candidate Patrice Pottier at the Botany View Hotel in Sydney.
Get a glimpse of how animals deal with climate change.
Learn more about the Pint of Science events in Australia!
Rats, pigeons, cockroaches and starlings, they all have in common to be extremely adaptable and resilient when it comes to adjusting to new environments. But how do they do it? Our guest strove to uncover the secrets in their genetic codes. And she got some answers.
Cat and Anastasia chat with Kat Stuart, PhD candidate at UNSW Sydney, about her long and challenging journey to uncover the genetic secrets of starlings and what makes them so successful.
Scientists are trying to communicate their research all the time to the general public, sometimes with great success, but sometimes the research can come across as difficult to understand, difficult to relate to, or difficult to convey its importance. But what if there was another way to not only communicate your research but also make people laugh? What about comedy?
In todays show your host Anastasia is joined by scientists and comedians to chat all things science and comedy. We are welcoming back Luke Steller, our astrobiologist from UNSW and founder of Praxical, as well as Ru Halwala and Tom Stevenson from Scary Strangers, a comedy and improv duo extraordinaire. Luke has worked hard to produce the STEAM room comedy show coming to you at the Sydney Comedy Festival May 4th featuring some of your favourite scientists (including myself and Luke), Sydney’s hottest comedians, and Dr. Karl!
Tickets are sold out but you can sign up for an update on more ticket sales or even more shows here.
'I am surprised they don't attack us more often'. Andrew Fox' reply might seem surprising. But indeed, when we enter the ocean, we automatically become part of the sharks' world and hence part of the marine food chain.
Andrew Fox is the son of Australia's famous champion spearfisherman and shark bite-victim Rodney Fox. Rodney invented cage diving with sharks to lose his fear and to learn about the sharks' behaviour. Not wanting to be deterred by the deathly reputation of the top predators of the ocean, he was one of the pioneers of shark research in Australia and started his own company to take people on expedition to get up and close with the grey giants. Andrew has continued his father's company and vision, supporting great white shark research unlocking the species' secrets.
Join us on a journey to get to know great whites on a personal level. And yes, they do have individual personalities. Cat and Dom interview Andrew Fox about his father's pioneering work, the company’s vision and what Andrew still finds fascinating about these animals.
Listen in to the interview!
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Being social is essential for dolphins in Shark Bay, WA. Especially the male dolphins form lifelong friendships. Our guest, the behavioural ecologist, Dr Livia Gerber, from the University of New South Wales Sydney, wondered why the male dolphins spend so much time nurturing their relationships. Eventually she found, reported in a freshly published paper, that these close bonds between male dolphins are essential for passing on their genes to the next generation. It takes a group of males to convince a female to mate with them. Without his wing men, the single male dolphin doesn't stand a chance.
How Livia found out about these fascinating facts, how male dolphins nurture their bonds and what life in general looks like for a male dolphin in Shark Bay, you will learn in this episode.
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Resources:
Livia's recently published paper on the topic: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982222004225
Sydney’s underwater world has a lot to offer. There are the sponge gardens, the very rare and yet docile grey nurse sharks and the playful and always hungry blue gropers, so basically a whole world to explore. Our guest helps Sydneysiders to do exactly that, to feel at home underwater and to always keep up to date on what’s currently happening in the watery element.
Dom and Cat chat with Marco Bordieri. Marco is one of the organizers of the non-for-profit organization, VIZ Sydney Diving Visibility Reports. Viz Sydney started as a Facebook group and platform for divers to share their diving experience and the visibility under water at different dive sides with the greater dive community. By now, the group has expanded with a regular spot on the radio to keep the listeners up to date on the current diving conditions. In addition, they facilitate and encourage citizen science.
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PFAS or per- and polyfluorinated substances are everywhere, in rivers, the ocean and they have even made their way to the most remote places like the arctic. Polar bears show similar PFAS levels as people working at a PFAS production plant. The problem: PFAS are man-made chemicals that stay in the environment and our body for years and they can have negative effects on our and the polar bears’ health.
Our guest, Dr Heli Routti, from the Norwegian Polar Institute in Tromsø, studies PFAS in arctic wildlife. Cat talks with her about how PFAS made it to such remote places, what PFAS does to arctic wildlife and about the challenge of working with dangerous wildlife.
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Are you afraid of spiders? Our guest, Dr Samantha Nixon, certainly was very afraid before she started studying spiders. By now, she is a venom scientist and regularly handles spiders to milk them for their venom. Spider venom has turned out to be very useful for a number of medical purposes. For instance, they appear very efficient in treating certain parasitic diseases. Samantha is fascinated by spiders and will share her passion in this episode.
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Cat interviews koala researcher and geneticist, Dr Katrin Hohweiler, about her work on population genetics of the popular Australian animal. On the east coast of Australia the population has been reduced by 80 % since the 1980s. One of the main reasons is habitat loss. Koalas have more and more only small pockets of gum forest left and can't move freely between them unless they risk being hit by a car or mauled by dogs. Katrin partners up with koala detection dogs to find her study animals.
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On Boiling Point Science this week, Eastside Radio's intern Brianna Raymond joins us to share her interview with Dr John C Mather from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Centre. We hear all about the James Webb Space Telescope plus some insights from Brianna on science and journalism.
Sponge gardens, kelp forest and sea urchin barrens. Sydney's coastal habitats are as diverse as the creatures that live there. Join us on a trip into Sydney's amazing underwater world professionally guided by our guest, UNSW marine scientist, Dr John Turnbull.
Why do sea urchins sometimes wear shells and other small debris as hats? What is munching away on kelp and what how does cray weed manages to float upright in the water?
Our guest has all the answered. Listen in this week's episode!
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Dinosaurs steal all the limelight when it comes to mass extinctions. But there are plenty of others that deserve our attention. What can we learn from those species that are not among us anymore, what do they tell us about evolution and about Australia? Our guest studies what once was to answer questions about the present.
Today we are talking about Temnospondyls. They looked like stretched out salamanders and got extinct quite a while ago. Despite being long dead, they have a lot of potential. Our guest, Lachlan Hart, is a PhD student in paleontology at UNSW Sydney and will tell us a thing or two about their secrets.
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When the bushland surrounding their home burned, twice, Lise and Stephen were at a loss.
Where to start looking for recovery? Where to find your green again?
It all began for Stephen with a family of Australian Wood Ducks (?????????? ??????), with 17 babies! From there Lise and Stephen have become the Environment Recovery Projects biggest contributors, totalling over 2500 observations of life returning post fire.
Contribute your own sightings via: Environment Recovery Project www.environmentrecoveryproject.org/
Environment Recovery Project · iNaturalist www.inaturalist.org/projects/enviro…ecovery-project
Special thank you to Zoe Elliot for our beautiful music. Music: Zoe Elliot | zoeelliot.wordpress.com/
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Let's talk all about jellyfish! Are they even fish? Or are they an immortal animal of the ocean, multiplying exponentially only to one day take over our oceans? All of this and more in this weeks episode of Boiling Point.
Listen in to your hosts Anastasia and Cat as they chat to jellyfish expert Dr. Kylie Pitt. Kylie is a Professor of Marine Science at Griffith University, studying the ecology of jellyfish. She has also partnered with Sea World in Queensland to open the Sea Jellies Illuminated Exhibit and Sea Jelly Laboratory.
If you would like to find out more on sea jellies check out the Jellipedia and be sure to follow Kylie on Twitter.
You can keep up with all the Boiling Point news and podcast episodes through Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.
We often don’t think of cities as havens for diversity- but they can be- and you can help record it!
Dr John Martin from Taronga Zoo leads a citizen science projects aimed at showing urban areas are home to more than bin chickens- and that these super adapters have some very innovative learning behaviours- like window knocking and door opening.
Listen in to find out how you can get involved with Bird City Birds
As our worlds are getting smaller, we make them bigger by paying attention to the details. This is the motto of The Urban Field Naturalist Project, a place where you can share stories about connecting with natural spaces, places, species and things.
Made friends with your local cicadas or watched clouds swirl into mysterious shapes? Share that moment, in 200 words, with a global network of likeminded storytellers.
Tune in: Soundcloud | iTunes | Spotify | Or wherever you get your podcasts
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Resources:
Big City Birds https://www.spotteron.com/bigcitybirds/info
Cockatoo wing tags Cockatoo Wingtag - Big City Birds (facebook.com)
Urban Field Naturalist Project The Urban Field Naturalist Project | About
In 2019 Peter Ridgeway took a walk- 180km to cross Sydney's unique Cumberland Plain Woodland.
https://soundcloud.com/user-982894834/walking-sydneys-last-cumberland-plain-woodland/s-W9N5r8wxi56?si=bc468656317c466a8b747ab03acaf99a&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing
We leave the studio to visit Pete in the last woodland pockets of western Sydney. We learn about history, ecology and geology, plus our human relationship with this country. The relationship of traditional custodians. And those who have gone after. Plus we spend 10 mins competing VERY noisy cicadas, before loosing the battle and moving!
Links:
Book A Wide & Open Land - Cumberland Plain
Cumberland Land Conservancy Home - Cumberland Land Conservancy (cumberlandlc.org.au)
Scientific research is essential. That’s one of the teachings of the pandemic. However, researchers are humans and as most humans they have flaws and sometimes go astray. It is a minority, but it happens that researchers fake their results and make things up. Luckily there are people who have devoted their lives to keeping science honest and clean. Our special guest is one of them. She identifies scientific misconduct and fraud.
Our host Cat chats with Dr Elisabeth Bik. Elisabeth has made herself a name in checking scientific papers for fraud and misconduct, she calls herself a scientific integrity consultant, in other words, she is a private research detective. Elisabeth talks about why researchers sometimes cheat and what she does to find them out.
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Resources:
Elisabeth runs two blogs:
Elisabeth's recommendations of the most recent microbiome research: https://microbiomedigest.com/
About her work as scientific fraud 'detective': https://scienceintegritydigest.com/
2021 has been one tough year for everyone. But to round things up on a high note we figured we wanted to share our favourite science stories with our listeners. So tune in for the top 2021 science stories picked by your favourite Science Podcast, Boiling Point.
It's all of your favourite hosts in one episode: Anastasia, Ben, Tim, Chon, and Cat! Each of us has picked our favourite story of the year. We chat mammals dreaming in the womb, ant and human brain evolution, a trip to Mars in a helicopter, the first double arm transplant, and the danger hiding in your pots and pans.
Look out for more cool stories and guests in 2022 on BoilingPoint. You can keep up with all the Boiling Point news and podcast episodes through Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.
Happy Holidays and a Happy New Year from the crew at Boiling Point!
Links:
Double arm transplant Jan 2021 Felix (rte.ie) All about PFAS and why it is a problem
Mammals dream in the womb Aug 2021 Eyes wide shut: How newborn mammals dream the world they’re entering | YaleNews
Ant and Human brain October 2021 Frontiers | When and Why Did Human Brains Decrease in Size? A New Change-Point Analysis and Insights From Brain Evolution in Ants | Ecology and Evolution (frontiersin.org)
Mars Helicopter December 2021 NASA's Ingenuity Mars Helicopter reaches a total of 30 minutes aloft (phys.org)
Boiling Point's Christmas Special!
Insects do it, Komodo dragons and other lizards, there is even a snake species that has lived and reproduced without males for millions of years. But did you know that birds can do it, too? Recently, a team of researchers found two Californian condor chicks that came to be from parthenogenesis. But no one has ever observed virgin birth in mammals? Why is that? And what’s the advantage of either way of reproduction? Our guest, evolutionary biologist, A/Prof Tanja Schwander has (almost) all the answers.
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Have you ever come across a sea snake? Chances are high that if you are not a diver or a fisherman on a prawn trawler you have never encountered one. You missed out! They are pretty cool. They adjusted perfectly from a life on land to their marine environment. They give birth to alive young in the water and can even breath through their skin. They are the Darwin finches of the ocean teaching us a lesson or two about evolution.
Our guest, James Nankivell, is a PhD student in evolutionary biology at Adelaide University, and he studies sea snakes.
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Women have been long ignored in scientific research. Many would argue that the reason for this is because of the hormonal cycle females experience that could vary the results. So I guess this means we should just ignore half of our population in scientific research?
Welcome to Boiling Point, this week we are chatting Womens Health! And to answer that question, no, we are certainly not going to ignore half of our population in scientific research and our guest in this episode is Jodie Pestana. Jodie is a PhD Candidate at UNSW in the school of Psychology. She studies how the female brain changes with hormonal cycles and pregnancy. In this weeks show your hosts Anastasia and Cat will be chatting with Jodie on topics surrounding women’s health, mental health, and Jodie's start-up company, Cuura (email Curra: info@cuuraapp.com).
Be sure to follow Jodie on Twitter and Jodies winning 3 Minute Thesis
You can keep up with all the Boiling Point news and podcast episodes through Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.
You think it’s only humans being impacted by a pandemic these days? Think again! Over the past few months, frogs have dropped dead all over the east coast of Australia. They turn dark and shrivel up like dry leaves. Our guest was part of the researchers' team working hard to find the cause. Now they have almost solved the riddle. And it’s not good news for the frogs.
Ben and Cat chat with Britt Mitchell who is a PhD student at UNSW Sydney and Australia Museum. Britt is part of Dr Jody Rowley's lab and studies frogs, more precisely the changes frog populations undergo when living close to humans. However, just recently, Britt’s list of riddles to solve for her PhD has become much longer when her lab started receiving lots of photos of dead or dying frogs.
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Resources
Download the frog ID App and go frogging.
https://soundcloud.com/user-982894834/the-frog-pandemic?si=1f7985e541ad421986aa6e6d62f99fc2
We have heard enough bad news about our oceans. Our guest Dr John Turnbull, marine ecologist and social scientist, has some good news to tell. He researched the 'virtuous cycle': how and why people get engaged with ocean conservation and how it really makes a difference. John went on a roadtrip from Port Stephens to Perth to find out what factors make people care.
One of the outcomes of his work was that marine sanctuaries make it much easier for people to care. And if they do, marine biodiversity increases measurably. So policy makers aren't off the hook. Good policy sets the scene to encourage people to act on ocean conservation.
Listen in to the whole story and catch a glimpse of hope!
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Corals worldwide are under threat. What threatens them and how do corals deal with those threats?
Our guest, Associate Professor Tracy Ainsworth, is a marine biologist and has 15 years of experience in coral research. She looks at the factors threatening coral reefs and the importance bacteria have for corals. In addition, Tracy is the host of a successful ocean podcast called ‘The deep blue on my doorstep’ and she will tell us all about the importance of science communication in her field.
Tune in: Soundcloud | iTunes | Spotify | Or wherever you get your podcasts
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Resources
Check out Tracy Ainsworth's podcast ‘The deep blue on my doorstep’
Did you know that HIV infected its very first human in the Kongo around 100 years ago, or that smallpox was the first virus people invented a vaccine for? And have you ever wondered why bats are so prone to hosting all kinds of nasty viruses?
Our interview with best-selling author, David Quammen, will take you on a journey into the darkest caves of South East Asia and the deepest rainforests of the Kongo to the origins of some of the most devastating infectious diseases in human history.
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Resources
David Quammen's website
Have you ever wondered what it might be like to pilot oceangoing vessels from your dining room table? Are you curious about undertaking science and research in remote areas? This week on Boiling Point, Ben and Tim caught up with Ruth Patterson, a Darwin-based PhD candidate and oceanographer. Tune in to find out about OCIUS Bluebottles, hydrodynamic modelling and more.
https://soundcloud.com/user-982894834/ruth-patterson-oceanvessels
What did ancient scientists and philosophers believe in the past? Were they as far off from modern science as we think? How has science changed over many centuries since Plato, Aristotle, or Carl Linnaeus? Let’s travel back in time and see what we can discover.
In this weeks episode Anastasia chats with Dr Daryn Lehoux. Daryn is a Professor of Philosophy and Classics at Queen’s University, Kingston, Canada and an author of several books pertaining to ancient science and philosophy including “Creatures Born of Mud and Slime”. Daryn and Anastasia go way back to when Anastasia took Daryn's Classics courses during her undergraduate: Ancient Science and Ancient Medicine. You can find out more about Dr. Daryn Lehoux and his work here.
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We have long been interested in where we come from, many human civilization have created different myths and ideas about how the world came to be. But as technology advanced and scientific evidence became clear we accepted the theory of evolution, or did we?
In this weeks episode Anastasia chats to two of four hosts of the Occultae Veritatis (OVpod), Leon Filger and Ood Gallifray about Creationism and how some of the ideas came to be, as well as the current evolutionary facts that may contradict of the these ideas. OVpod is a podcast about where four curious Canadians venture into the darkest, most misunderstood, or contentious parts of our reality, which include true crime and conspiracy theories.
You can listen to OVpod on the same platforms you can find Boiling Point, including but not limited to Spotify, iTunes, and SoundCloud.
Also check out this post to learn more about how we came to the conclusion of evolution.
Seahorses are everybody’s favorite. But despite our wide-spread devotion to seahorses in pop culture, what do we actually know about them? How did they get their unique shape, what’s their role in the ecosystem and how do the males manage to raise their young as single parents? Our guest, Dr David Harasti, is a seahorse expert and provides some answers.
David is a marine scientist at the department of primary industries, based in Newcastle. He has worked on marine threatened species for more than 20 years. But one group of ocean creatures has stayed with him throughout his career. David’s passion are seahorses. Everyone loves seahorses, but funny enough there is still little known about them.
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Resources:
David's DPI profile: https://www.dpi.nsw.gov.au/about-us/research-development/staff/staff-profiles/david-harasti
Fisheries website for the White's seahorse:
https://www.dpi.nsw.gov.au/fishing/threatened-species/what-current/endangered-species2/whites-seahorse/whites-seahorse-hippocampus-whitei
They breed faster than rabbits and survive without food for months. And it's not uncommon that the male impales and kills his partner while mating.
Bedbugs are fascinating creatures and yet, they are terribly unloved. Worldwide travel has turned them into cosmopolitans, feeling at home wherever a traveler is willing to donate their blood.
Our guest, Dr Zac Wylde, worked with bedbugs to figure out the perfect lure for a new type of trap. He ended up getting much more close and personal with them than he would ever have imagined.
Listen in to our bedbug special.
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Resources
Check out the website of Zac's previous employer developing a device for hotels that doesn't only trap but also identifies the nasty insects: https://www.scimitaventures.com
The geomagnetic field of the earth is invisible, and yet it has a huge influence on all forms of life on the planet. If it was gone, our lives would look a lot different. Luckily, right now that’s unlikely to happen. But that wasn’t always the case. Our guest and her colleagues found evidence that the last time the earth was without a magnetic field was only 42,000 years ago and its impact changed the face of the planet.
Our guest in this episode, Dr Zoe Thomas, is a climate researcher at UNSW in Sydney. Zoe, her team members and collaborators recently published a paper in the highly prestigious scientific journal Science. To publish in Science you have to come up with something truly inspiring, and so they did. They determined the time when the magnetic field of the Earth flipped and almost fully collapsed for some time. The effect that had on our planet is truly terrifying and astounding. One of these effects was probably the extinction of the Australian megafauna and an uprising trend in cave art. Listen to the full story!
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Resources
Read more about the Adams Event here
One third of all shark and ray species are currently facing extinction. One of the threats to sharks in Australia are shark nets.
Shark nets are different from so called barrier or stinger nets that enclose a small area for swimmers right at the beach. Shark nets are usually around 150 m long and 6 m tall. They only cover a small part of the entrance to a beach. Sharks can easily swim underneath or around the net. However, large numbers of sharks get entangled in the nets and drown every year. This also applies to other marine species including whales, dolphins and turtles that are not part of the group of target species.
In fact, shark nets were introduced to Australian beaches in the 1930s to cull sharks. Over the decade the perception in the population has grown that shark nets protect swimmers and surfers from being attacked. However, to date there is no scientific evidence backing this view. On the contrary, shark nets might even attract sharks that are looking for easy prey among their entangled and drowned conspecifics and marine mammals in the nets.
The initiative 'Saving Norman' wants to change that. Our guest, Duncan Heuer, is part of this campaign and talks about the environmental impact of the nets and their non-lethal alternatives that might even provide more protection and safety.
Check out the initiative's website!
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Fake news, conspiracy theories, misinformation. These days, we are just too familiar with these terms. But why do some people believe in stories that seem completely unbelievable and made up? Our guest will shed some light on intriguing questions like these. Listen to the story.
Our hosts, Anastasia and Cat, chat with interview guest Dr Saoirse Connor Desai. Saoirse is a postdoctoral researcher in psychology at the University of New South Wales. Her research deals with the situations and circumstances when people come to believe in misinformation and how to avoid it.
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With social media on the rise, and the fear of AI taking over, we are constantly worried about the effects it may have on human relationships. Are we relying on technology too much to satisfy, not just our need for friendship, but perhaps something more? Have we become just shells of ourselves as we scroll right and left objectifying our potential mates? In this week's episode, we delve into human sexual conflict.
In this week's episode, you have your hosts Anastasia and Cat interview Dr. Rob Brooks. Rob is a UNSW professor and evolutionary biologist, science communicator, award-winning author having published “Sex, Genes, & Rock n Roll” and the most recent “Artificial Intimacy”.
Looking to get your own copy of Artificial Intimacy, check out this link. If you want to hear more of Rob's music picks check out the Artificial Intimacy Spotify playlist.
Follow Rob on Twitter, and follow us on Twitter and Instagram.
The Mt Kaputar Giant Pink Slug is a fleshy, moist, 20cm curiosity. It is super cool. When on a short walk Taylor Nodell found a Triboniophorus sp. “Kaputar”, he was surprised that it really was camouflaged- but how?
Taylor's discovery rocketed him to iNaturalist fame, proving this curious mollusc had survived catastrophic bushfires. The sighting also contributed to citizen science database and publication, tracking post fire recovery.
Chantelle talks to Taylor about how he came to be such an avid naturalist. How a hot pink slug is camouflaged. Why he contributes to citizen science. And why a photo today could be a historical legacy of where species occurred and when.
Listen in!
Tune in: Soundcloud | iTunes | Spotify | Or wherever you get your podcasts
Liked this episode? Follow us on Twitter: @BoilingPointFM or Facebook
Resources
Contribute your own sightings via:
Environment Recovery Project Environment Recovery Project · iNaturalist
Music: Zoe Elliot | Zoe Elliot (wordpress.com) The giant pink slugs of Mount Kaputar - Australian Geographic
You put your clothes in the washing and you think this solves the issue. Far from it! It cleans the clothes, but also causes a whole new problem. Clothing fibers end up everywhere in our waterways, and eventually get washed into the ocean. Our guest did her research on the consequences of textile fibers in marine ecosystems. She has experienced what it is like to attach thousands of tiny fibers to sea walls and to bribe dozens of volunteers with chocolate to help with her tedious job.
Our hosts, Anastasia and Cat, talk to marine ecologist Bella Charlesworth, and chat about the conundrum of choosing ethical clothing and why it is more complex than you might thing.
Listen in!
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Resources
Listen in to Bella's podcast 'Life on planet A' via your favorite podcast apps (Spotify, Apple Podcasts, iHeart Radio, Buzzsprout) and find them on social media: Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn.
Love, Hate, Loyalty, Fear. Are these the characteristics that make us human? Why are we driven to separate each other by sex, the colour of our skin, or our social structure. Love, Hate, Loyalty, Fear. Are these the characteristics that make us human? Why are we driven to separate each other by sex, the colour of our skin, or our social structure.
In this week's episode, you have your hosts Anastasia, Cat, and our guest Tim Dean.
We cover topics such as what is morality? Is it specifically human? How do evolution and morality affect each other? And of course, we delve into the many topics covered in Tim's book: "How we became human".
Check out his website. Follow Tim on Twitter
And be sure to also follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram
It is a little-known fact that the cold, but nutrient-rich coastal waters of South Australia are teeming with marine life. One of those occasions is Cuttlefest, when thousands of giant cuttlefish congregate to breed and lay their eggs. The NGO ‘Experiencing Marine Sanctuaries’ (EMS) made it their mission to give people access to such events who might normally not get the chance. EMS takes local underprivileged school kids and people with disabilities out to be part of the marine world.
Our hosts Chantelle and Cat chat to the EMS co-founder Carl Charter about the struggles to protect South Australian marine parks and the joys of taking people out to see incredible marine life who have never seen anything like this before.
Do you wanna be part of next year's Cuttlefest? Visit the EMS website for more info.
Tune in: Soundcloud | iTunes | Spotify | Or wherever you get your podcasts
Liked this episode? Follow us on Twitter: @BoilingPointFM or Facebook
Some fear them, some admire them. And some can’t decide between the two. We are talking sharks today, more precisely hammerhead and bull sharks. They are the nomads of the sea. They can travel thousands of kilometers within a few weeks. But why do they actually migrate such distances? Why not hang around in the same hood all their life.
Our hosts, Chantelle and Cat, chat with Nic Lubitz. Nic is a PhD candidate at James Cook University in Townsville. He studies the reasons behind the migration of bull and hammerhead sharks.
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How would you cope if your home was destroyed by fire? Australia’s Black Summer bushfire season impacted roughly 3 billion animals, excluding invertebrates. Millions of hectares of bushland were burnt. The impacts were too vast for professional scientists alone to record, and so the Environment Recovery Project was created.
Chantelle and songwriter Zoe Elliot visit creator Casey Kirchhoff to find why she and a team from UNSW set up the project on iNaturalist. We also ask, what happened when those same fires hit her property and her home?
The data from this project is important for decades to come and will paint a more complete picture of which species are bouncing back, and which are not.
https://youtu.be/l63GdM3JwPc
Tune in: Soundcloud | iTunes | Spotify | Or wherever you get your podcasts
Liked this episode? Follow us on Twitter: @BoilingPointFM or Facebook
Sources
Get involved
Environment Recovery Project iNaturalist Zoe's songs on Spotify|iTunes and website
Do you like writing? This question polarizes the world, well, at least the academic world. Being a scientist includes many hours spent in front of a computer writing research papers. But writing is an art form in itself. And like every other skill it needs lots of practice. Our guest teaches the art of science writing in a way that is less pain and more fun.
Our hosts Anastasia and Cat, and our guest is Dr Marina Hurley, a Visiting fellow of the Centre of Ecosystem Science at UNSW Sydney and a consultant lecturer.
Marina is based in Melbourne and offers online courses and workshops to students and academics where she teaches scientific writing. Marina is not a researcher in this field. She followed her own experience and academic journey in writing to develop her own teaching perspective and material.
Tune in: Soundcloud | iTunes | Spotify | Or wherever you get your podcasts
Liked this episode? Follow us on Twitter: @BoilingPointFM or Facebook Due to the current Covid outbreak in Sydney we talked to Marina on the phone. Therefore, our apologies for any issues in sound quality.
Sources
Visit Marina's website 'Writing Clear Science'
Marina's blogpost on 'The difference between a writing rule and a good idea' Marina's current online course on "How to be an Efficient (Science) Writer"
Check out the two songs we played on the show: The rules of English by Bruce Watson Rammed Earth by Nancy Kerr
Coral bleaching doesn't even spare the most southern coral reef on the planet. In 2019, the summer heat was too much for the corals around Lord Howe Island, the tiny island in the Tasman Sea. Our guest was part of the first response team of researchers investigating what was happening in one of the most beautiful places in Australia.
Anastasia and Cat chat with Rosie Steinberg, a PhD student at the University of New South Wales Sydney about 16 hour days in the field, smelly soft corals and the most lovely locals of a very special island.
Tune in: Soundcloud | iTunes | Spotify | Or wherever you get your podcasts
Liked this episode? Follow us on Twitter: @BoilingPointFM or Facebook Due to the current Covid outbreak in Sydney we talked to Nicholas on the phone. Therefore, our apologies for any issues in sound quality.
The plastic softener Bisphenol A or BPA is invisible, but it's almost ubiquitously abundant in the environment. We regularly ingest it with our diet, as it is commonly used in water bottles and food packaging. BPA is also called an endocrine disrupter as it messes with our hormonal system. But how does it work and what exactly does it do to our body?
The Boiling Point hosts, Anastasia and Cat, chat to Dr Nicholas Wu to shed some light on the mysteries of BPA. Nicholas is a postdoc in animal physiology at the University of Sydney.
Tune in: Soundcloud | iTunes | Spotify | Or wherever you get your podcasts
Liked this episode? Follow us on Twitter: @BoilingPointFM or Facebook Due to the current Covid outbreak in Sydney we talked to Nicholas on the phone. Therefore, our apologies for any issues in sound quality. Sources
Nicholas' Sydney Uni profile Nicholas' meta-analysis on BPA in aquatic organisms
They are the biggest biomass on earth and they feed the marine world. No life in the oceans without krill. But how do those massive swarms of krill actually form and why? Are krill really as much in decline as some studies say?
Anastasia and Cat chat to behavioural biologist Dr Alicia Burns about her recent voyage on the CSIRO ship, the Investigator, to the Southern Ocean, and her mission to shed more light on the cryptic life of krill.
Tune in: Soundcloud | iTunes | Spotify | Or wherever you get your podcasts
Liked this episode? Follow us on Twitter: @BoilingPointFM or Facebook Due to the current Covid outbreak in Sydney we talked to Liss on the phone. Therefore, our apologies for any issues in sound quality. Sources
Liss' Sydney Uni profile Education opportunities on the Investigator
The oceans seem vast and endless. But for some time now we have known that their productivity is limited. The Netflix documentary Seaspiracy told us that a lot is going wrong in our oceans. Seaspiracy even says we shouldn’t eat any more fish at all. This episode's guest is Iain Suthers, an expert on fish populations and fisheries in Australian waters. He will help us shed some light on the stories behind Seaspiracy and the fisheries situation in Australia.
Anastasia and Cat chat with biological oceanographer Prof Iain Suthers from the University of New South Wales who has worked in his field for several decades.
Tune in: Soundcloud | Itunes | Spotify | Or wherever you get your podcasts
Liked this episode? Follow us on Twitter: @BoilingPointFM or Facebook Due to the current Covid outbreak in Sydney we talked to Iain on the phone. Therefore, please apologize any issues in sound quality. Sources
Education opportunities on the Investigator About Iain's most recent voyage on the Investigator
How did life form on earth? Are we alone in the universe? Can you make life in the lab? Chantelle and Anastasia are asking some of the most fascinating questions of our guests Luke Steller.
Luke is an astrobiologist PhD at UNSW. In addition to his research trying to understand the origin of life, he also is a co-founder of praxical – a collection of scientists and creatives that are passionate about communicating STEM through way such as comedy, dance, and art!
Want to find out more on Praxical and their upcoming comedy show? Check it out here.
Be sure to follow Praxical and Luke on Twitter!
Listen here or wherever you get your podcasts!
https://soundcloud.com/user-982894834/interview-luke-steller/s-Gb67559BXKT
This week on Boiling Point Science we look to the sky above and beyond with our guide to the stars, Dr Vanessa Moss from CSIRO’s Space and Astronomy.
Vanessa has worked in radio astronomy across the globe from a Qantas Lunar Eclipse chasing flight to automating radio telescope arrays in the most remote corners of our world.
Vanessa shares her experiences on what it's like to run a team working in CSIRO and discovering the secrets of our universe via radio waves!
Listen in to the story:
bit.ly/BoilingPointScience | https://eastsidefm.org/series/boiling-point | Soundcloud | Spotify | Or wherever you get your podcasts
Follow us and Vanessa on Twitter: @BoilingPointFM @cosmicpudding
Find out more about Vanessa's work on the Future of Meetings and Forging a path to a better normal for conferences and collaboration.
What is a unique ecosystem with millions of rare species like the Great Barrier Reef worth? Why would you want to keep it if you are not into protecting the environment? You might be a successful business person in the oil industry and find it much more attractive to drill for oil than going snorkeling. Our guest works for an initiative that wants to provide some evidence for our business person to change their mind, as there is no well oiled economy without flourishing ecosystems. Especially since the age of the pandemic, we know that it's all connected.
In this episode, Chantelle, Anastasia and Cat chat with our our guest Jordan Gacutan. Jordan is a PhD candidate at the University of New South Wales and works for the Global Ocean Accounts partnerships hosted by UNSW. What that is? Well, listen in to find out!
Tune in: here| Spotify | Or wherever you get your podcasts
Follow us on Twitter: @BoilingPointFM or Facebook
https://eastsidefm.org/episodes/boiling-point-600pm-1st-jun-2021/
A comfy and cozy lifestyle is just not for her. Our guest Paige Green loves a good challenge. She is a penguin researcher who lived in the most remote places to study her subjects. In this episode, we talk to her about the ups and downs of human life in the Subantarctic and the spell that makes everyone love penguins.
Tim and Cat chat with PhD candidate Paige Green. Paige is originally from South Africa and now does her PhD on penguins at the University of Tasmania. In the course of her PhD, she did a two-week expedition to the Bounty Islands and spend some time at the French Antarctic Base.
Liked this episode? Like us on Facebook or Twitter (@BoilingPointFM)!
Crayweed gives fish and rock lobsters a home and provides food for numerous marine species. Although it’s often overlooked cray weed is an essential part of marine ecosystems. Almost extinct, our guest Adriana Verges and her team brought crayweed back to Sydney’s shores. Adriana is an A/Prof at UNSW in Sydney and one of the founding mothers of Boiling Point.
Tim, Ben and Cat chat with her about the magical seaweed and how Boiling Point came to be.
Liked this episode? Follow on Facebook and Twitter (@BoilingPointFM)!
Resources
http://www.operationcrayweed.com
Science is commonly known as a rigorous and self-correcting process. But what if we can do better? What if we can make science more accessible, more reproducible, and more trustworthy. Realizing that science is not always quick to self-correct can be a hard lesson for young researchers. You might spend years going down one path only to find it’s a dead end.
In this weeks episode of Boiling Point Anastasia and Tim chat to Dr. Rose O'Dea. Rose has recently graduated with her PhD and is now a post-doc at UNSW. Rose is a behavioural ecologist with her research focusing on behavioural variation. She is also passionate about improving the reliability of scientific research and is on the executive committee for SORTEE - Society for Open, Reliable, and Transparent Ecology and Evolutionary Biology.
If you want to find out more about Rose's work you can read her latest paper here
Also, has this episode intrigued you into finding out more how you can contribute to open, reliable and transparent science check out SORTEE and sign up for the upcoming conference!
Image reference: O’Dea, R.E., Parker, T.H., Chee, Y.E., Culina, A., Drobniak, S.M., Duncan, D.H., Fidler, F., Gould, E., Ihle, M., Kelly, C.D., Lagisz, M., Roche, D.G., Sánchez-Tójar, A., Wilkinson, D.P., Wintle, B.C., & Nakagawa, S. (2021). Towards open, reliable, and transparent ecology and evolutionary biology. BMC Biology. 19, 68. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12915-021-01006-3
Men die younger than women. Is it the unhealthy lifestyle, the cigarettes, the alcohol, the higher suicide rate? Our guest found it’s all in the Y chromosome, an inferior chunk of DNA that’s just not up for the challenge.
Also, our guest lived a researcher’s dream and traveled for nine months to collect samples of plants all over Europe. Shortly after, she collected the same plants back home in Australia, here they are invasive. Our guest sought to find out how invasive plants fair in their new environment without natural predators and pollinators.
Chantelle and Cat chat to Zoe about her research and her magical time in the field in Europe.
Listen in to Zoe's story!
Liked this episode? Like us on Facebook or Twitter (@BoilingPointFM)!
Resources:
The press release on Zoe's paper on the age longevity gap: https://newsroom.unsw.edu.au/news/science-tech/why-men-and-other-male-animals-die-younger-it%E2%80%99s-all-y-chromosome
Zoe's blog on her fieldwork adventures in Europe: https://zoexiro.com/blog/
Close your eyes and picture your favorite beach. What does the sand look like? What’s the colour of the sea? If you have a condition called aphantasia you might not be able to answer these questions or even picture the beach. People with aphantasia are blind in their mind’s eye. Our guest in this episode studies this curious condition and talks about how it can affect every day life.
Tim and Cat chat with aphantasia expert Dr Rebecca Keogh, a cognitive neuroscientist and postdoctoral researcher at Macquarie University in Sydney.
Liked this episode? Like us on Facebook or Twitter (@BoilingPointFM)!
Resources:
The UNSW press release about the paper
https://www.futuremindslab.com/
https://aphantasia.com/
Video games are not just for adventure, action, and viral dances (I'm of course referring to flossing). Video games can teach us about science, how science is conducted, how experiments are developed, and most importantly, how science can be fun.
In this hilarious episode of Boiling Point tune into Anastasia, Cat, and UNSW professor Dr. Michael Kasumovic. Michael is an evolutionary biologist, and founder and creator of Arludo, an Australian-based company working to change the way students see and use science in their daily lives through gaming.
The trip of a lifetime. Dr Zoe Thomas went on a fieldtrip to the Falkland Islands to study past climates and to learn about the present. She met lots of lovely penguins and even more lovely humans. She found remnants of trees older than you can imagine and evidence of what our climate once looked like. After four weeks on this magical group of islands she made it back to Australia - just in time for the borders to shut out the pandemic that would rule the world.
Join us on our journey into the history of southern climate!
Liked this episode? Like us on Facebook or Twitter (@BoilingPointFM)!
Resources
Zoe's UNSW profile
Octopus, cuttlefish and squid are often called the closest to alien intelligence on earth. Now, they have even passed the marshmallow test.
The hosts Anastasia and Cat chat with Dr Alexandra Schnell, comparative psychologist at Cambridge University, about the cognitive capability of cephalopods and why they are this smart at all.
Liked this episode? Like us on Facebook or Twitter (@BoilingPointFM)!
Resources:
Alex' article about her recent study (the marshmallow test in cuttlefish) in the Conversation.
Tropicalisation has reached NSW's waters - fish communities and ecosystems are changing Close your eyes for a moment and picture yourself diving into the tropical world of corals and fish right off the coast of New South Wales. Sounds like a dream? Well, it’s not a dream anymore, climate change causes tropical fish to move south and entire marine ecosystems to change.
Our guest studies the changes happening right off our doorstep. And she certainly came across some interesting findings. Tim and Cat chat to Shannen Smith, PhD student at UNSW in Sydney.
Tune in!
Liked this episode? Like us on Facebook or Twitter (@BoilingPointFM)!
Resources: * The UNSW press release of Shannen's paper * Seaweed Forest Festival in Manly * Research project Operation Crayweed
Dendrochronology is the science of tree rings and a branch of science that researchers came up with for the trees in the northern hemisphere. Australian trees and their rings have long lived in the shadows of their northern cousins. But that ignorance is about to end. The tree rings of Australia are equally full of stories waiting to be told.
Chantelle and Cat chat with UNSW's own Ashleigh Ford about the stories behind the tree rings in Australia.
Tune in!
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We throw it in the bin and it is gone. So we hope. But of course it is not. Recyclable plastics like milk bottles are only at the start of their long journey when we throw them away. Until recently, most of it was shipped to China. When China banned the plastic import it went elsewhere in South East Asia. But what happens there is less than ideal and some of the plastic still ends up in the ocean.
Ben and Cat chat with the interdisciplinary sustainability researcher Dr Monique Retamal from the University of Technology, Sydney, about the long journey of our plastics.
Tune in!
Have a read of Monique's article in the Conversation here!
Liked this episode? Like us on Facebook or Twitter (@BoilingPointFM)!
Whale sharks are actually pretty well dressed. But their clothes are invisible. They consist of billions of microbes that protect the sharks' skin.
Tim and Cat chat with marine microbial ecologist and whale shark researcher, Dr Michael Doane, about one of his favorite study subjects.
Wanna follow a tiger, bull or great white sharks on their migration across the oceans? Check out https://www.ocearch.org/
Liked this episode? Like us on Facebook or Twitter (@BoilingPointFM)!
Manta rays can recognize themselves in the mirror, sharks can learn from watching each other’s behaviour, some fish can remember the day of the week and all fish feel pain. Fish cognition specialist Culum Brown finds fish fascinating and in his many years of research, he learned quite a bit about their mental capacities that we didn’t even think were possible. Join us on our 30min-journey of talking fish brains and what they can do.
Anastasia and Cat chat with Macquarie University Professor Culum Brown about his fishy passion that started when he was just a little boy.
Liked this episode? Like us on Facebook or Twitter (@BoilingPointFM)!
Due to technical difficulties we could not include songs in this episode. We also apologize for the sporadically poor sound quality. We will be back with better sound and some songs next week.
Why do sharks attack? What motivates them? Do they sometimes play like a cat? How can we reduce the risk of shark attacks?
These and more questions have been going through Chantelle’s head after she was attacked by a great white shark last year in August.
Tim and Cat chat to Chantelle about her shark experience, her rocky road to recovery and what she learned about shark behaviour.
Liked this episode? Like us on Facebook or Twitter (@BoilingPointFM)!
A creature grows inside its host’s belly and feeds on the hosts’ energy reserves until it finally breaks free to live on its own. What sounds like a scene from ‘Alien’ is actually an every-day scenario. I am talking about pregnancy. Pregnancy is a tricky situation for the immune system of the mother. The baby is technically a foreign body and yet needs its protection. How does our immune system tackle such challenges? Learn more in this episode. After our recent show on blood types immunology researcher Dr Bethany Pillay is back to talk about pregnancy and the immune system.
Our cities are getting hotter and our changing climate is framing all the future challenges ahead of us.
This week on Boiling Point Tim and Ben talk to Alessandro Ossola, researcher coordinator from the Smart Green Cities Centre at Macquarie University.
Alessandro tells us how through proper planning, policy making and through our day to day choices we can make sure that we have a cool future ahead of us.
Liked this episode? Like us on Facebook or Twitter (@BoilingPointFM)!
What do you do with a General Science Degree? Is Academia or teaching your only option? In today's episode three of our presenters: Anastasia, Ben, and Tim talk about their experience working in the industry. We dive into how we got the job, what our day-to-day is like, what our experience taught us, and our future goals. We all do a variety of different work from Ben the terrestrial ecologist, to Tim's public sector positions, and Anastasia's consulting position.
We all do a variety of different work and are here to help you further your career interests or help you decide on what to do next after undergrad!
Almost everyone around the world knows about the most mysterious of mammals, the platypus. But how did it become what it is today? A new study from Denmark provides new insight into its genome. Also on the show, this is the summer of cicadas. They are everywhere and they are deafening. Why are there so many this year? And last but not least, there are two different ways that makes us see colour.
Listen to Ben, Tim and Cat talking some serious science.
You can also listen to the Boiling Point podcast wherever you get your podcasts from.
Liked this episode? Like us on Facebook or Twitter (@BoilingPointFM)!
Sources:
Platypus story:
Mapping the platypus genome: How Earth's oddest mammal got to be so bizarre
Cicada story:
The cicada's deafening shriek is the sound of summer, and humans have been drawn to it for thousands of years Songs of summer: Where can you find the loudest cicadas? The Great Cicada Blitz (NSW, Australia)
Colour story:
Structural coloration in nature
They are small in size and yet, their impact is huge. Without them the world would be different. Well, at least the oceans would be different, as almost the entire marine ecosystem depends on them, as they are the food source of numerous predatory species. Learn more about krill, the crustaceans that mean the world. Listen to Cat's chat with krill researcher, Devi Veytia.
You can also listen to the Boiling Point podcast wherever you get your podcasts from.
Liked this episode? Like us on Facebook or Twitter (@BoilingPointFM)!
Why do we have different blood types? And what do they actually mean? Our guest, Dr Bethany Pillay, is an immunologist and knows her blood types. They are tiny molecules on the surface of red blood cells and yet, they can mean the world. They can even influence our susceptibility to a range of diseases including Covid19. Learn more about the secrets of blood types.
You can also listen to Boiling Point wherever you get your podcasts from.
Liked this episode? Like us on Facebook or Twitter (@BoilingPointFM)!
Sources: How a torrent of COVID science changed research publishing — in seven charts
Genomewide Association Study of Severe Covid-19 with Respiratory Failure
Relationship between the ABO Blood Group and the COVID-19 Susceptibility
Rhinos have been hunted and killed for their horns for many decades. What is the situation like today and how do the African countries try to protect their charismatic megafauna? Our guest spent a lot of time in the South African bush on her mission to help the rhinos to survive. She even flew with them across countries to find them a safer home. Cat chats with Fidu about her passion for rhino conservation and the adventures she experienced in the bush.
Dr Fidu Pohlin is a veterinarian and wildlife ecologist at the Research Institute of Wildlife Ecology at the University of Veterinary Medicine in Vienna in Austria. Before her position in Vienna, she completed her PhD on rhinos at the University of Pretoria in South Africa.
Check out our Facebook page and find us on Twitter (@BoilingPointFM)!
Most people have a pretty set attitude when it comes to topics like sex and marriage. Some value the traditional family, others live in polyamorous relationships and still others are somewhere in between. But how do we form our attitudes on such matters? And do we stick to them til we die? Our guest, Dr. Francesca Luberti, studies these questions and came up with some surprising results. Don’t miss out on sex, songs, and a good chat in this episode of Boiling Point!
In the studio, it’s two of your favorite hosts, Anastasia and Cat. Our guest studies sex and the attitudes that surround it. Dr Francesca Luberti was born in Italy but ventured out into the world to become an evolutionary psychologist. She recently completed her PhD at the University of New South Wales in Sydney and will be moving to Canada where she will continue her studies as a post-doctoral researcher.
Uni life can be great fun. But what happens when you are the first in your family who goes to uni? What are the issues and pressures one has to face and overcome? And how do you manage to get through uni without the financial support of your family?
The three eyewitnesses, Anastasia, Cat & second-time guest Zac Wylde, chat about their experiences when studying on a budget and being the first in the family to go to uni and how they overcame these hurdles.
Check out our Facebook page and leave us a like: https://www.facebook.com/boilingpoint/
You can also listen to the Boiling Point podcast on any podcast app.
We all think we know how zoos work. There are animals in enclosures and zookeepers looking after them. The scientific side of a zoo is much less visible but nonetheless important. Our guest tonight, Dr Alicia Burns, works as a researcher at Taronga zoo in Sydney. Her work focuses on the wellbeing of zoo animals and also explores some of those creatures that roam free in the city.
One of those is the brush turkey. Once almost extinct in New South Wales, the brush turkey is making its way back down the Australian east coast. Even massive landmarks like Sydney harbour couldn't stop its march south, quite amazing when you consider that brush turkeys can't even fly properly.
Tim and Cat chat to Liss about her fascinating work at Taronga.
Learn how you can support Liss' and her colleagues work and become a citizen scientist. Check out their App BigCityBirds.
Check out Boiling Point on Facebook and leave us a like.
Corona virus is keeping the world on its toes. But what about HIV? The Human Immunodeficiency Virus, HIV, might not be in the headlines as much as in the 80s and 90s anymore but it’s still very much alive and kicking.
Cat chats with UNSW Specialist and Researcher Dr Nicholas Medland about the state of knowledge, research and treatment of this once deeply feared of all viruses. Get your update on HIV in Australia…
Have you ever come close to a great white shark? Our guest tonight, Sian Liddy, has and she loved it. After all, she does it for a living and in the name of science. Sian is a PhD candidate and shark microbial ecologist at the University of New South Wales and Sydney Uni. She studies the microbial communities that live in and on the sharks. Cat chats with Sian about the importance of those microbes and what other creatures call sharks their home.
Sian's USyd profile:
https://www.sydney.edu.au/science/about/our-people/research-students/sian-liddy-587.html
We rely on science for many things: To understand how the world works, to make decisions in policy and law, to predict future outcomes of the world, and much, much more. As scientists, it is part of our job to relay information in a digestible manner. Find out on this weeks podcast how our guest, Szymek Drobniak, has been successfully doing this in many different formats.
Anastasia and Ben, chat with Szymek Drobniak. Szymek is an evolutionary biologist at UNSW and Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Poland. In addition to his scientific work, he is also an excellent science communicator using his skills as a science illustrator, graphic designer, and writer to inform the public of his work.
When cities grow bigger, nature suffers – including very fragile animals such as frogs. It is estimated that almost one third of all frog species are listed as threatened or extinct and these are only the species that we know off! But why are frogs so susceptible to human impacted changes in the environment? How do frogs change to human imposed interference? Tune into this episode of a ribbeting frog special to find out!
This week Anastasia and Cat chat to herpetologist Brittany Mitchell. Britt is a frog conservationist doing her PhD at UNSW. Britt studies how human activity and climate effects frog behaviour, ecology, and immunology. She is also one great frog call mimic!
You can find Brittany on Twitter
You can also participate in FrogID week and contribute valuable data to science! Find out more information here
Venom, webs, and 8-legged creatures. Some of us, when we think of spiders, we think run the other way. But when we think of the Sydney-funnel web, we think, run away faster! However, our brave special guest Caitlin Creak would rather catch the deadly creature so she can explore everything from its potent venom to... how it reproduces to make more spiders? Wait a minute this can’t be right!
Meet Caitlin: an arachnologist, ecologist, and PhD student at UNSW.
She is more commonly known as Spider-catcher and arachno-enthusiast extraordinaire.
You can find Caitlin on Twitter and follow her Arachtober posts:@CaitlinNCreak
Let’s dive into the mysterious world of the German forest. For more than a century, it was only the rustling of the foliage and the chirping of the songbirds that interrupted the quiet peacefulness of the woods. But now they are back, the top predators and the protagonist of many stories and folk tales. The wolves have returned to the German woods. But how do the locals deal with the recent canine immigrants?
Cat chats with wolf expert Dr Ines Lesniak about the ups and downs of having the wolf finally coming back home.
Listen in to the interview:
bit.ly/BoilingPointScience | https://eastsidefm.org/series/boiling-point | or wherever you get your podcasts from
In this week's dose of Boiling Point Science, Tim catches up with Suzi Claflin and learns all about her latest project - a podcast called Direct Transmission.
In this five part series, Suzi explores how tuberculosis became fashionable Romantic-era England, how disease shaped Lupin's character in the Harry Potter series and how typhus helped destroy Napoleon's Grand Armee.
Why reinvent the wheel when you can look to nature for inspiration?
Ben and Cat chat to robotics engineer Clyde Webster who is building climbing robots which are modeled after Australian Parrots.
Clyde talks about studying the beautiful design and efficiency that exists in nature and the difficult process of trying to replicate this in machines.
Resources:
Clyde's UTS Profile: https://www.uts.edu.au/staff/clyde.webster
We all think we know what ageing is and what it looks like. But is this the whole story yet? What does ageing really mean? Do all animals age at the same speed and are there species out there that live forever?
Anastasia and Cat chat with evolutionary biologist Dr Zac Wylde from UNSW Sydney about the evolutionary purpose of ageing, immortal jellyfish and flies that never get wrinkly.
Check out Zac's UNSW profile here!
Have a read of Zac's article on the Conversation.
Check out Boiling Point's Facebook page here!
Boiling Point's wolf's special in German language!
Catha spricht mit der Wolfsforscherin, Dr Ines Lesniak, ueber die Vor- und Nachteile, dass die Wölfe als Teil des Ökosystems Mitteleuropas nach Deutschland zurückgekehrt sind. Welche Risiken bergen die neuen/alten Mitbewohner und welche Chancen haben sie in petto?
Science that make you first laugh and then think, that's the slogan of the annually awarded Ignoble Prizes. Tim and Cat discuss the work of some of this year's winners.
No tools at hand but desperate for a knife? Not a problem, your own feces fixes it, or does it? Researchers finally refuted a long standing myth about the knife made out of human feces. Also, what does a crocodile on helium sound like and why would the world benefit from such a study? These and a few more slightly different research stories this week on Boiling Point.
Sources
https://www.improbable.com/ig-about/winners/
A Chinese Alligator in Heliox: Formant Frequencies in a Crocodilian,
Experimental Replication Shows Knives Manufactured from Frozen Human Feces Do Not Work
When we talk superheroes we usually think big and powerful. A small and rather unremarkably looking creature attached to a rock usually doesn’t come to mind. Maybe it’s time to change that perspective. Anastasia and Cat chat to lichenologist Max Mallen-Cooper about the little and big tricks lichens come up with to survive and to make Earth a more colourful place.
Resources:
Guardian article about sexy pavement lichens. Max’ UNSW profile
Alex and Cat chat with new BP crew member Anastasia about difficult career choices. How do you decide what to study, how to find the research topic that really suits you and why the hell would you consider a PhD? Alex also presents a story on a newly developed molecule at a Swedish university that can store solar energy.
Have you ever asked yourself, what is electricity? Where does it come from? And what is the future of electricity generation in Australia?
In this week's episode of Boiling Point, Tim and Chantelle caught up with Chris Davies from the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) to talk all things energy.
Learn more from AEMO's learning resources and have a laugh with Tom Gleeson's take on renewables.
Listen in to the story:
bit.ly/BoilingPointScience | https://eastsidefm.org/series/boiling-point | or wherever you get your podcasts from...
There are thousands of very secretive rare species across Australia, who are very good at not being found.
Olivia and her specially trained team of Springer Spaniels, Taz and Missy, use the power of smell to fight for conservation!
Olivia tells us how she works with Missy and Taz to sniff out Koalas, Quolls and even Underground Orchids!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjMNWEGwGrk
Check out Olivia's Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/koaladetectiondogs
OWAD Environments website: http://www.owad.com.au/
Cane toads revisited - Evil and devastating for Australia’s ecosystems? Certainly. But useless? Certainly not! Alex and Cat chat to UNSW PhD student Kat Stuart about the lessons we can learn from cane toads and their evolution on steroids in the making. After all cane toads have been super successful in what they do. So, we better learn from them.
Learn more about Kat’s research:
https://www.bees.unsw.edu.au/our-people/katarina-stuart
These days, we talk a lot about polar ice and glaciers when it comes to climate change. But what about the tropics? Is the green belt of our planet ready for what's coming?
Chantelle and Cat chat with Alex Sentinella about his new paper about tropical plants and their reaction to increasing temperatures and a changing climate.
Alex' paper was featured in the the Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/jul/02/global-heating-will-make-it-much-harder-for-tropical-plants-to-germinate-study-finds?fbclid=IwAR017OKBXY-qQb0JYxYCUWcOvqhPZriMwAEWQcUNKE5NEoNdUsZ3evKNaTI
Check out the paper: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/geb.13117
Where do we come from, where do we go? Human evolution is full of secrets and mysteries and more than just one missing link is still heavily searched for. In this podcast, Ben and Cat chat to our special guest archaeologist Lian Ramage about the facts behind the mysteries.
Listen in to the story: bit.ly/BoilingPointScience | https://eastsidefm.org/boilingpoint/ | or wherever you get your podcasts from
Check out Lian's favourite archaeology blog: http://www.johnhawks.net/?fbclid=IwAR0TxS-tuAO2KAEuacrfqb2WctlaWDmaO4iELuz3yBYDe_swkFkdMYw99Xw
Lian's profile on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lian-ramage-8a313857/?fbclid=IwAR1vLYpBK4YG4CljlB94pk4oebcLs2AOgk7MP_7Gj92moZ43TJmS76bKNIQ
What do melanin, the International Space Station and Chernobyl have in common? Mould. Tim shares how radiation eating fungi at Chernobyl may be used to shield future astronauts on voyages to Mars and beyond. Proof of concept research showing a 2% reduction in radiation levels on surfaces where mould was growing (and self-replicating, that means no maintenance as long as there is plenty of radiation to consume!! Yum!).
Ben promised last week to tell us about the glorious smell of rain- or petrichor- what causes it and is it really an Aussie invention? The term first coined in 1964 by CSIRO scientists Isabel Bear and Richard Thomas, is comprised of the Greek words “petra” (stone) and “ichor” (which is the blood of the gods).
But what actually is it that we're smelling? And where does it come from??
https://youtu.be/Waqmq_GTyjA
Hospitals around the world have noticed a reduction in premature births. Why is COVID-19 reducing premmie babies in some places but not others? Danish and Irish Hospitals simultaneously noticed the effects and in a pre-print publication, Danish researchers report a 90% reduction in births at <28weeks gestation. The time of highest mortality. Although the causes aren't known researchers theorise reduced air pollution, reduced physical stress and greater home care- all due to COVID lockdowns, may be the drivers.
Water diviners or dowsers; can some people sense water in the each by turning into electromagnetic fields? A study conducted in 1980, with a $40,000 reward for success, wasn't able to prove any dowsers could locate water buried in a specially designed trial. But maybe there is more to it?
Is it really possible to blast away hail with a cannon? Used since the 1880's and researched in the early 1900's "hail cannons" or Stiger Cannons still appear over farms and in car yards around the world. But there is no evidence that these sonic or gun powder blasts actually work. Check out the clip below for a listen.
https://youtu.be/KgJMSlNMijM
Electricity, pheromones, magnets and colours What might actually work to deter sharks? Surprisingly there is some evidence that pardaxin (secreted by the Red Sea Moses Sole Fish) does work- if applied directly into the mouth! Fancy getting that close
Sources:
More about hail cannons cdn.knmi.nl/system/data_center_publications/files/000/045/687/original/hailcannons2_preprint.pdf?fbclid=IwAR3tYmhe2I2761_pwUfKgyPGpxAOtOT2rXji8OXlTbBTIcesJDMFEatKOGo
Shark deterrents: https://www.choice.com.au/health-and-body/diet-and-fitness/surfing-and-snowboarding/articles/shark-repellents-review?fbclid=IwAR3K8HrcwMQVJNqzjLBLfFGTsI03u116tGTNv0F8IfeYFkWDV_BEXN3wgOE
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-94-017-3245-1_9?fbclid=IwAR3xvYBsG9OWJves4ZW5UlXfd8oHzESHL-by2s7eBUUY05sAbZoPHFWcfag
Water divining
https://www.skeptics.com.au/resources/articles/australian-skeptics-divining-test/?fbclid=IwAR1WGdL_mLPO-lu4pipc6qIiflWjn_5a3RNTPEcf2EWKeDs133NHThvOd38
30% of all Australians are heavily overweight. Why do we keep eating when we are already full? What drives our cravings and what can we learn from the way animals feed themselves?
Ben and Cat chat with nutritional ecologist Prof David Raubenheimer of Sydney Uni who has studied animal and human nutrition for several decades. David found some intriguing answers to those mysterious questions.
Listen in to the story: bit.ly/BoilingPointScience | https://eastsidefm.org/boilingpoint/ | or whereever you get your podcasts from
Check out David’s new book, ‘Eat like the animals’:
https://www.dymocks.com.au/book/eat-like-the-animals-by-dr-david-raubenheimer-and-dr-stephen-j-simpson-9781460758694?gclid=CjwKCAjwr7X4BRA4EiwAUXjbt1e6VH2LzWrO29CJG-gez9EkF-zi454N_BxHN1ka49Ldsj0YGA2DABoCsvAQAvD_BwE
All things archeological and wombat-y tonight: Archeologist Lian Ramage talks about excavating animal remains of long forgotten times and about a surprise finding of a wombat witness of Australian megafauna at the Smithsonian museum (Lian was not associated with the excavation or identification of Mukupirna).
Check out Lian's favorite archeology blog: http://www.johnhawks.net/
Listen in to the story: | https://eastsidefm.org/boilingpoint/ | or where ever you get your podcasts from
Relevant science news!
How should you roll your toilet paper, under or over? The age old science question answered, to best protect your bum/hands from germs (apparently)
How likely is it your name predicts your career? Nominative determinism explains it all (apparently). Urologists more likely to have a name related to wee and poop (see: Weedon and Splatt 1977) and Dr's Limb, Limb, Limb and Limb (2015) explain career persistence related to surname.
Where did monotremes come from? The ancient strepodon, which lived amongst Dinosaurs, gave us our modern-day echidna and platypus.
Listen in to the story: bit.ly/BoilingPointScience | https://eastsidefm.org/boilingpoint/ | or where ever you get your podcasts from
What is a microbat anyway? Tim and Ben chat to an expert on all things dark and fluttery, Dr. Joanna Haddock!
Our night sky from our cities to deepest forests are full of an invisible world teeming with microbats. Joanna talks to us about what these mysterious critters are doing up there every night and how the light pollution from our cities and towns might be affecting our bat friends.
Listen in to the story: bit.ly/BoilingPointScience | https://eastsidefm.org/boilingpoint/ | or where ever you get your podcasts from
Sources:
Joanna's thesis is here if you want some light reading!
Spider silk is one of the toughest materials on earth - it's super light, durable and sustainable. Is it the raw material for clothes and protective gear of the future?
Cat chats to Dr Sean Blamires whose research explores ways to harness the spider silk's special features for human use.
Listen in to the story: bit.ly/BoilingPointScience | https://eastsidefm.org/boilingpoint/ | or whereever you get your podcasts from
Links:
A golden garment made out of the silk of over 1 million Madagascan spiders. It's possible. But you probably don't wanna try this at home:
https://www.yatzer.com/Golden-Spider-Silk
Brain special- sight, plasticity and total recall (2018 replay)
Blue, the lost colour: Blue was long unknown in human languages. Does this mean our ancestors couldn’t see it?
Total recall! What it is like to live with the perfect memory?
Brain plasticity! How it works and how it changes our brain every day.
Listen in to the story: bit.ly/BoilingPointScience | https://eastsidefm.org/boilingpoint/ | or where ever you get your podcasts from
Sources:
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/feb/08/total-recall-the-people-who-never-forget?fbclid=IwAR0tqjqDu7z8FKRdlgMzknpYe7E6GCsX8J061CbDWIkxJWkdBOxZMriL-IE#comment-92771125
http://news.mit.edu/2018/mit-scientists-discover-fundamental-rule-of-brain-plasticity-0622?fbclid=IwAR0ZkNlypB9hiKXBPCP9RZz3KRjRSMMB-5A-BaMyEpUqnJp_zTS6xud_6sQ
https://theconversation.com/the-way-you-see-colour-depends-on-what-language-you-speak-94833?fbclid=IwAR3suRsQ8IOMkN-6DMEHtZNFYTpa8LCTutdiWQP42xfIHOgAMIP4gzrKnvE
Latest lockdown podcast!
Dr Paul Gibson-Roy talks a utopian future where farms could grow chocolate lilies and wildflowers instead of crops, and seed collectors no longer need to take seed from wild, fragmented, populations.
Native plants are used in restoration, road and minesite reveg. But where does all the seed come from?
The ANPC Seed Survey tells the truth- and it is mostly from wild populations.
Listen in to the story: bit.ly/BoilingPointScience | https://eastsidefm.org/boilingpoint/ | or where ever you get your podcasts from
Sources:
www.anpc.asn.au/uncategorized/dr-paul-gibson-roy-talks-about-seed-supply-for-restoration-projects/
https://www.anpc.asn.au/product/the-australian-native-seed-survey-report-e-version/
New Lock-down podcast episode!
Chantelle and Cat chat to one of the pioneers of microplastics research, Dr Mark Browne from UNSW in Sydney. Our oceans and waterways are full of microplastics, especially of microfibers from our clothes. Mark talks about the current microplastics situation and his research trying to clean up microplastic pollution.
'Single use plastic': Jack Jackson improvised the first song in the podcast at the 5th International Marine Debris Conference in Hawaii in 2011. Listen in:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pd4mcYlWet4
Sources: https://www.bees.unsw.edu.au/our-people/mark-browne
Chantelle is chatting with Gail Broadband, electric car expert and PhD candidate at UNSW Sydney, about the presence and future of electric mobility.
Gail and Chantelle will enlighten you on questions like:
Are electric cars cheaper? Are they "greener?" Why does NZ have such high use? How can we make electric cars affordable?
Sources:
https://theconversation.com/australias-electric-car-revolution-wont-happen-automatically-90442?fbclid=IwAR3zRHlOV1NtCiLnMQPbGsFteGQjeJv_NVrPUdZT1PG3X2pbN6rCumuqhuw https://theconversation.com/negative-charge-why-is-australia-so-slow-at-adopting-electric-cars-86478?fbclid=IwAR3Xv7VN-fJogqg_0VOMCCIZzawGqG-PTdY8RYU3C4SslV_yywmFxMkw_LU https://newsroom.unsw.edu.au/keywords/gail-broadbent?fbclid=IwAR24_yvFJiqQDoulf3N6qoRCil0WqeELprcuruu2OzptxA-7Q-QZc4QfwzM
https://www.bees.unsw.edu.au/gail-broadbent
Tim and Cat interview mammal ecologist Jemma Cripps from the Arthur Rylah Institute in Melbourne and chat about some of the rarer critters that roam the Victorian forests and how they have been doing since the devastating fires in the summer of 2019/2020.
Check out this video about the current situation in the East Gippsland made by one of Jemma’s colleagues: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=215704522951576
First iso zoom session;ecologist Ben Ellis tells us about bat he forgot was in his shirt pocket.....
And about the fun and not so fun parts of a life half lived "in the field", working as an ecological consultant.
As an ecologist he spends about half his working life in the field. Searching for threatened plants and animals, sometimes bent over a microscope, sometimes working through the night on nocturnal surveys, sometimes navigating complicated legislation and always appreciating a good coffee.
Dark sky reserves and skin cream to combat mozzie virus
We revisit as favourite intterivew of 2020 as Tim chats with Takapō Dark Sky Reserve guide, Holly McClelland, about what happens in a dark sky reserve and how optical telescopes work University of Canterbury
And Chantelle reviews research University of Leeds into how skin cancer cream reduces risk of mosquito borne virus infection by triggering an immune response as soon as the mozzie bites
Tune in: https://tinyurl.com/s4mb553
Links: https://www.darkskyproject.co.nz/ https://stm.sciencemag.org/content/12/527/eaax2421 https://tinyurl.com/uere3vn
A 2019 cow special favorite interview with Cam Radford @icow in Botswana
How do you protect cattle from lions and mosquitos? Easy, you paint them! Put eyes on their bum and stripes on their body and they will be left in peace, most of the time at least.
Nick and Cat are joined by carnivore conservationist, Cam Radford who works on the icow project in Botswana.
Listen in to the stories about striped and 'eyed' cows: bit.ly/BoilingPointScience | http://eastsidefm.org/boilingpoint/
Sources: https://www.bees.unsw.edu.au/cameron-radford https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-37316573 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article…
Shout out the social times of festival going!! We replay a favourite from Aug 2019
Alex chant with Gamran Green and Evie Preston , the founders of the Waste Collective
In collaboration with researchers, Waste Collective is working on finding green solutions for the tonnes of rubbish left behind at music festivals in Australia every year.
Plug into the podcast here: iTunes: https://goo.gl/YtzS83
Check out the website of the Waste Collective: https://thewastecollective.wixsite.com/website…
During these time of social isolation, the BP crew are hiding out, prepping some fun science zoom interviews and chats. In the meantime, enjoy revisiting some of our best shows from 2018 and 2019
Aussie's tackle the cane toad onslaught with a sausage!
Chantelle and Alex interview ecologist Chris Jackson. The cane toad onslaught reached the WA Kimberley two years ago - but researchers were just ahead. Trialling a crazy scheme to train quolls that cane toads were NOT a tasty snack they dropped 10,000 nausea-inducing cane toad sausages...did it work?!
Ecologist Chris Jackson shares the results two years in.
Sources: https://www.australianwildlife.org/wildlife/northern-quoll/ https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/aec.12595 https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1365-2664.2010.01802.x%4010.1111/%28ISSN%291365-2664.BES_2010 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/aec.12551 http://www.publish.csiro.au/WR/WR13011 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-06-16/toad-sausages-dropped-from-helicopters/9857520
Cryptic jellies: New facts you didn't know about jellyfish. And is a Blue Bottle a jelly fish anyway?
Menopause in orcas: Why the top predators of the oceans stop reproducing with age and why this is special
War on waste: New ways to fight the daily loads of rubbish
COVID-2019 Update: Unfortunately, BP is not immune against the current Covid-19 situation. As a safety measure we won’t be able to use our usual recording studio at Eastside 89.7FM for a while. In the short term we will be bringing you the best stories from 2018 and 2019. We hope to be back on the airwaves soon with some new fascinating science stories soon. You can get in touch with us directly, requesting any stories, via Facebook , Twitter @BoilingPointFM or email boilingpoint.eastside@gmail.com
Sources:
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/01/study-suggests-surprising-reason-killer-whales-go-through-menopause http://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2018-01-24/meet-the-pioneers-in-the-war-on-waste/9329038 https://ocean.si.edu/ocean-life/invertebrates/jellyfish-and-comb-jellies https://www.smithsonianmag.com/videos/category/wildlife/jellyfish-are-stirring-up-the-ocean/
Bee colonies suffer from all kinds of pests. Pseudoscorpions might be the solution. UNSW PhD candidate Anastasia Shavrova studies arachnids, their potential use for the wellbeing of bees and sexual conflicts in the war between male and female arachnids. In the interview with Tim and Cat, Anastasia talks about all things spidery and how you can still be a great arachnid researcher even with a solid fear of spiders.
Plug into the podcast here: iTunes: bit.ly/BoilingPointScience | http://eastsidefm.org/boilingpoint/#
boilingpointFM #eastsideradio
Pic: https://educalingo.com/en/dic-en/book-scorpion
Plug into the podcast here: iTunes: bit.ly/BoilingPointScience | http://eastsidefm.org/boilingpoint/#
boilingpointFM #eastsideradio @Itsstasi
Missed one of our best? Our CRISPR interview special is back!
The pioneer of CRISPR: In conversation with Prof. Francisco mojica
Chantelle and Tim interviewed Prof Francisco Mojica, as he gave a talk at the University of New South Wales in July 2018. Francisco discovered the mechanism, the repeating sequence of DNA in bacteria, that was later used as the gene editing technique CRISPR. The scientific world is captivated by this revolutionary technology, since it is easier, cheaper and more efficient than previous strategies for modifying DNA.
If you missed out on the show, listen in to our podcast: https://goo.gl/fuPQBs | http://eastsidefm.org/boilingpoint/#
How does CRISPR work? Check out the link and video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnYppmstxIs https://theconversation.com/what-is-crispr-gene-editing-and…
Boiling Point will be back next Tuesday at 6pm on Eastside Radio 89.7FM!
CRISPR #FranciscoMojica #PlusAlliance #UNSW
Boiling Point is back with one of its most popular interviews from 2019: Leopard mania!
Boiling Point crew interviews leopard expert and UNSW researcher, Ben Walker, who talks about the cryptic nature of these fascinating, but pretty aggressive large cats and explains why it is so hard to study them.
Plug into the podcast here: iTunes: bit.ly/BoilingPointScience |
boilingpointFM #eastsideradio
https://www.bees.unsw.edu.au/ben-walker
This week's dose of Boiling Point Science is brought to you by Tim, Cat and Chantelle
The moon is ruling - How the moon impacts the length of our days on earth and why dinosaurs had shorter days
Oxygen, the double-edged sword - How Stevie Wonder's blindness and oxygen toxicity is intertwined
Singing reefs - Coral reefs are anything but quiet. The various sounds underwater fulfill a multitude of functions.
Plug into the podcast here: bit.ly/BoilingPointScience
The new Boiling Point podcast is out!
Australia's Great Barrier Reef. It is time for some good news.
We have heard some pretty dire predictions about the state of the Barrier Reef, driven by bleach events, ocean acidification, runoffs, microplastics. But fresh from the water we have returning guest Associate Prof. David Suggett (UTS) to tell us.....The reef is looking good!! (relatively, and despite a downgraded health report to very poor).
And the energy about conserving it is excellent, thanks to some really proactive tour operators.
Last time David told us about LarvalBot and the CoralIVF project. How are they progressing? And why is he now working on land with a drone restoration program Air Seed Tech.
Hear about what is happening on the reef and also a few tunes of David's choosing, on this week's episode.
Plug into the podcast here: bit.ly/BoilingPointScience
Links: https://www.uts.edu.au/staff/david.suggett http://www.gbrmpa.gov.au/our-work/outlook-report-2019 https://www.airseedtech.com/ https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-11-27/reef-ivf-unprecedented-new-approach-could-save-dying-coral-reefs/10557718
The new Boiling Point podcast is out!
Dark sky reserves and skin cream to combat mozzie virus
Tim chats with Tekapō Dark Sky project guide, Holly McClelland, about what happens in a dark sky reserve and how optical telescopes work
And Chantelle reviews research into how skin cancer cream reduces risk of mosquito-borne virus by triggering an immune response as soon as the mozzie bites
Listen in to the story: bit.ly/BoilingPointScience
Links:
https://mackenzienz.com/scenic-highlights/dark-sky-reserve/
https://stm.sciencemag.org/content/12/527/eaax2421
https://tinyurl.com/uere3vn
This week Boiling Point is brought to you by Nick, Cat, Chantelle and Alex, first aired in May 2018.
Find out how to clean up an oil spill with a sponge made from sulfur and cooking oil; how microplastics affect our health; and the wonders of the gut microbiome.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nP4tAcTmOPI
Subscribe to the podcast - bit.ly/BoilingPointScience
This week's dose of Boiling Point Science is brought to you by Nick and Tim.
We discuss current aerial fire fighting techniques and emerging technology as well as what we know so far about the novel coronavirus.
Listen in to the story:
bit.ly/BoilingPointScience
Sources https://newatlas.com/good-thinking/high-altitude-drop-system-night-aerial-firefighting/ https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019
The Bushfire Special
Chantelle and Cat chat with plant and bushfire ecologist Dr Mark Ooi about what's normal, what's needed and what kills plants at a time when climate appears out of control.
Listen in to the story:
bit.ly/BoilingPointScience
Find out more about plant response post fire in this great Conversation article by Dr Lucy Commander and Dr Heidi Zimmer
Links:
https://www.ecosystem.unsw.edu.au/people/dr-mark-ooi https://theconversation.com/yes-native-plants-can-flourish-after-bushfire-but-theres-only-so-much-hardship-they-can-take-129748
The new Boiling Point podcast is out!
Deep and dangerous - Why marine mammals usually don't suffer from decompression sickness, unless anthropogenic (human induced) noise interferes
Smoky and agile - How NASA is currently tracking the movement of Australia's bushfire smoke around the globe
Join Chantelle, Tim and Cat for 30 minute of fun science talk.
Listen in to the story: bit.ly/BoilingPointScience
References: https://www.health.harvard.edu/…/decompression-sickness-a-t… https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/…/the-bends-anatom…/ https://scitechdaily.com/world-path-of-smoke-and-aerosols-…/ https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/…/aussie-smoke-plumes-cro…
The first Boiling Point podcast of the year is out!!
Making 'magic mushrooms' in a Petri dish, is it magic?
No, it's synthetic biology!
Nick and Cat are chatting with Nathan Hawkins, a recent Sydney Uni science graduate, about iGEM, the international synthetic biology competition. Nathan and his team competed by coming up with a new low-cost method to produce psylocybin, the active ingredient in 'magic mushrooms' from bacteria in the lab. But fear not, psylocybin might be illegal as a drug, but new research has shown its efficacy for the treatment of various mental health conditions, including anxiety and depression
Listen in to Nathan's story: bit.ly/BoilingPointScience
Links: https://2019.igem.org/Team:Sydney_Australia https://2019.igem.org/Team:Macquarie_Australia https://2019.igem.org/Team:UNSW_Australia https://synbioaustralasia.org/
Boiling Point’s new Podcast is out!
Cat and Chantelle hang in the studio to get sciencey and find out;
Can we predict biological age from a simple blood test? Researchers from Stanford University might have a result and;
Can alcohol induced brain damage, caused in adolescence, be reversed with Alzheimer's medication? Possibly, but for how long is unknown. Researchers at Duke University investigate.
Listen in:
bit.ly/BoilingPointScience |
Sources:
https://www.sciencealert.com/our-bodies-age-in-three-separate-shifts-according-new-blood-tests
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-019-0673-2 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-47039-1#Sec2
Join Chantelle and Cat for this week's episode of Boiling Point.
Are they cheaper? Are they "greener?" Why does NZ have such high use? How can we make electric vehicles affordable?
EV expert UNSW Gail Broadbent answers all the questions
Listen in:bit.ly/BoilingPointScience
Sources:
https://theconversation.com/dont-trust-the-environmental-hype-about-electric-vehicles-the-economic-benefits-might-convince-you-115225 https://theconversation.com/australias-electric-car-revolution-wont-happen-automatically-90442
This week Tim Cat and Alex ask:
What is the likelihood of technologically advanced life on other planets? The Drake Equation has the answer...It is 52. Kidding. You need to listen to find out.
Why is most of the human population Rhesus positive? Maybe it reduces the likelihood of toxoplasmosis infection.
Want to live on Mars? ANU researchers begin trials into how cyanobacteria survive and how we could mimic some of their traits, plus examine how these traits might find life.
Listen in:
bit.ly/BoilingPointScience |
Sources:
Drake equation:https://seti.org/drake-equation-index
Rhesus factor: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3622667/
Live on Mars? : https://science.anu.edu.au/news-events/news/study-may-help-humans-colonise-mars-and-hunt-alien-life
Boiling Point’s new Podcast is out!
This week, Nick, Tim and Chantelle ask:
What is the safe level of alcohol consumption?
How can ceramic be used to reduce use of chemical spray to de-ice planes?
What has a latest study found about the Indigenous Australian's genome?
Listen in: bit.ly/BoilingPointScience | http://eastsidefm.org/boilingpoint/#
Links:
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(18)31571-X/fulltext https://www.sciencenews.org/article/new-material-harnesses-light-deice-surfaces http://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2016-09-22/world-first-study-reveals-rich-history-of-aboriginal-australians/7858376 https://www.nature.com/articles/nature18299.epdf?referrer_access_token=nbtV2jyYENiT77AX3CPoCNRgN0jAjWel9jnR3ZoTv0Oda7EdddTCAVlZrVInar-cyqAy_6iwv8rC0lcIO6UPUE1GG6ViLgdNY1oVmOVuO0b_r6c5f_zjKvrRLtL6WW9kJWaRACU3b9ChzVt42zNC6G9YcnNQ_iBe8CREs4LrtS4ZP8XRHNNFPV_mJcH0jNgf75W2M6uwblHItsftB8c-f9gSUkt7CzKafpCis8PNLQe-y1_NnPr2nhN-8Dae3hJk2-TJZ_N76UbFKoXK3X5b8A3DVqgUKJAV9AKU7PIaHpbS1FzsD5qL_93unxfmEPwW&tracking_referrer=www.abc.net.au
This week's dose of Boiling Point Science is brought to you by Tim and Jake.
Humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae ) population has bounced back to 93 percent of the population’s prehunt levels;
And Jake interviews the delightful marine biologist-mermaid-science communicator-tv presenter, Danni Washington
Listen in to the stories:
bit.ly/BoilingPointScience | http://eastsidefm.org/boilingpoint/#
The new Boiling Point Podcast is out; with Tim and Chantelle.
Know what you don't know? The Dunning-Kruger effect explains why we think we know more than we do! And why those that know the least often think they know the most!
How was Antarctica mapped in 1513, before it was even "discovered" in 1820? Piri Reis was the cartographer who created this not so perfect map, based on 20+ other maps from cartographers around the world. One of which was Christopher Colombus' first map of the "new world" that was subsequently lost.
11,258 scientists the Alliance of World Scientists have signed a scientist endorsed Climate Emergency. And it isn't all about temperature. Factors causing the most impact are deforestation, greenhouse gases, population and living a lifestyle-driven impossible to maintain economic growth.
"As the Alliance of World Scientists, we stand ready to assist decision-makers in a just transition to a sustainable and equitable future. The good news is that such transformative change, with social and economic justice for all, promises far greater human well-being than does business as usual. We believe that the prospects will be greatest if decision-makers and all of humanity promptly respond to this warning and declaration of a climate emergency and act to sustain life on planet Earth, our only home."
Listen in to the stories:
bit.ly/BoilingPointScience | http://eastsidefm.org/boilingpoint/#
Sources:
https://www.britannica.com/science/Dunning-Kruger-effect https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/brunch/not-so-blissful-ignorance-the-dunning-kruger-effect-at-work?fbclid=IwAR3UAlNM0OnWMNgzoxOtZqZ8_3RhPv12njuDcxsewcWOQEobPs1FnijCmEw https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piri_Reis_map https://theconversation.com/11-000-scientists-warn-climate-change-isnt-just-about-temperature-126261 https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/advance-article/doi/10.1093/biosci/biz088/5610806
The new Boiling Point Podcast is out!
Tim, Alex and Chantelle discuss WW1 inventions in popular use today
Stainless steel; helped stop corrosion of tanks and now used in almost every kitchen and appliance, jewellery and manufacturing
Sanitary pads; originally as a wound dressing that crafty nurses found a second use for - as a sanitary pad that later became Kimberly-Clark's namesake item Kotex and Kleenex
Wrist watches; to synchronise barrages and keep pilots hands free (instead of dropping their fob watch)
Daylight savings time; to save valuable candles, oil and fuel and still retained in various forms throughout Europe and former British colonies
Listen in to the stories: bit.ly/BoilingPointScience | http://eastsidefm.org/boilingpoint/#
Sources: https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-26935867 https://www.smithsonianmag.com/…/surprising-origins-kotex-…/
The new Boiling Point Podcast is out!
Cat, Nick and Chantelle hang out to chat about a completely random suite of science news; Auto-brewery syndrome - Giant soap bubbles - the fate of Australian racehorses
Always drunk without drinking - A rare medical condition makes it possible,
As big as a classroom - Researchers at Cornell University have found the formula to create the biggest soap bubbles ever,
Beaten and slaughtered - The Australian racing industry is producing lots of losers, not only on the turf.
Listen in to the stories:
bit.ly/BoilingPointScience | http://eastsidefm.org/boilingpoint/# Or ask us to investigate your science question https://www.facebook.com/boilingpoint/
Sources:
https://bmjopengastro.bmj.com/content/6/1/e000325
https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/largest-free-floating-soap-bubble?fb_comment_id=800982093295177_848383561888363
https://theconversation.com/horse-racing-must-change-or-the-court-of-public-opinion-will-bury-it-125637
https://theconversation.com/whos-responsible-for-the-slaughtered-ex-racehorses-and-what-can-be-done-125551
https://theconversation.com/why-horse-racing-in-australia-needs-a-social-licence-to-operate-79492
Here's the full Boiling Point interview on location in Launceston with Dr Suzi Claflin on Multiple Sclerosis (MS) and the University of Tasmania's Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) on MS.
Find out about the March 2020 enrolment for the next MS MOOC here.
Subscribe to Boiling Point Science's podcast at bit.ly/BoilingPointScience
This week's episode of Boiling Point features Tim's interview on location in Launceston with Dr Suzi Claflin on Multiple Sclerosis (MS) and the University of Tasmania's Massive Open Online Course (MOOC ) on MS.
The full interview is available here.
Find out about the March 2020 enrolment for the next MS MOOC here.
Subscribe to Boiling Point Science's podcast at bit.ly/BoilingPointScience
The new Boiling Point Podcast is out - cow special! Nick and Cat are joined by carnivore conservationist, Cam Radford who works on the i-cow project in Botswana.
Segment 1 (Nick) - How do you reduce the amount of flies landing on a cow? Paint stripes on them!
Segment 2 (Cam Radford) - How do you protect cattle from predation in Africa? Paint eyes on their bum and they will be left in peace, most of the time at least.
Listen in to the stories about striped and 'eyed' cows:
bit.ly/BoilingPointScience | http://eastsidefm.org/boilingpoint/#
Sources:
https://www.bees.unsw.edu.au/cameron-radford
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-37316573
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0223447
Boiling Point’s new Podcast is out! This week, Nick and Alex ask
Should your hobbies mix with your work?
How common is impostor syndrome?
What really wiped out the woolly mammoths?
Listen in: bit.ly/BoilingPointScience
Links: https://digest.bps.org.uk/…/spending-more-time-on-your-hobb… https://edition.cnn.com/…/woolly-mammoths-death-…/index.html
https://phys.org/news/2019-09-impostor-syndrome-common-thinkstudy-cope.html
This week Boiling Point Science brings you a 2018 favourite featuring Chantelle, Tim and Alex.
Why is ice slippery? How can nanoparticles used to fight cancer help rescue malnourished crops? And the human genome adaptation that gives 'Sea Nomads' their undersea diving advantage.
What is it like to be a science artist in residence? Boiling Point chat with Dr Sarah Jane Moore to find out.
Dr Sarah Jane is the Australian Network for Art and Technology On Country Artist in Residence and is hosted in the School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences (BEES) UNSW. Her residency focuses on the humble oyster and maps the stories of the Baludarri, the Sydney Rock Oyster and their importance to Sea Country, Oceanic Health and Indigenous well-being.
Sarah Jane graduated from the University of Sydney with a PhD in Reconciliation through Music and Art in 2016 and since then has worked as an independent creative artist, writer, researcher and artist in residence. She has developed oceanic research dialogues with communities in Samoa, Noumea, Guam and Fiji and from May 2019 she has been working in a studio/lab at UNSW.
Through an art meets science approach residency Sarah Jane has been discovering the lost stories of the Baludarri, or the Sydney Rock Oyster. Through the residency she has collected over 3000 shells and has created collages, sculptures, stories, songs and poetry. Her research partner on the World Is her Baludarri residency project is the Wiradjuri Scientia Fellow Dr Laura Parker and together they have been developing an art meets science approach and friendship. The organisational affiliation with UNSW has provided me with the opportunity to record music in a studio, visit Port Stephens (Worimi Country) and experience oyster research in the field (At Fisheries and on the water
In November, the project will culminate in an exhibition entitled I Know where Oysters Lie at the Accelerator Gallery.
At Culture at Work at the Accelerator Gallery, through Culture at Work 6-8 Scott Street, Pyrmont. The show launches on Saturday 9 November, 5pm with an Acknowledgment of Country by Blak Douglas and a talk by Associate Professor Dr Sandy Sullivan Deputy Head, School of Creative Industries, University of Sunshine Coast. The exhibition runs from Saturday 9 November, 11am – 3 pm, Sunday 10 November, 11am – 3pm and Wednesday 13 – Saturday 16 November, 11am – 3 pm with an artist's talk on Saturday 16 at 2 pm.
For more information please contact the artist sarahjane.moore@unsw.edu.au or 0422146011
Sarah Jane Moore is a Tasmanian born creative artist who developed her artistic practise through undergraduate and post graduate study at The University of Wollongong’s School of Creative Arts where she met her long-time friend and artistic collaborator Richard Starr.
Richard Starr
Richard Starr (b.1968) is an Australian composer from rural New South Wales currently residing in Katherine in the Northern Territory of Australia. His music is reminiscent of the broad horizons and unique life forms found in the Australian environment and landscape. While in the Northern Territory he has worked with Story tellers from the Roper and Daly River regions in Ngukurr, Beswick and Nauiyu communities to create films, music recordings and live performances.
“Spending time listening to the country/nature has always been a part of my life experience. As I encounter people who are of these lands, the listening becomes less about dialogue and more about the together stillness of Dadirri.”
My recent works include collaborating with Dr Sarah Jane Moore as a composer and performer, creating the film sound-track for Lil Bois and working on the Red Air sculpture sound track for Glow Festival Melbourne.
Sarah Jane will share two tracks; one composed in 2019 with Richard Starr entitled I know where Oysters lie and the other entitled ‘Over Yandro’ composed in 2013 with collaborator Dizar Lee.
Dizar Lee
Dizar Lee is a DJ/Turntablist/Writer-Producer. He spins Hip-hop, Soul, Funk, R&B, Reggae, Dub, Dancehall & bits and pieces of sub-genres that it is related to. Whilst living in London, Dizar Lee represented the UK alongside Invincible Armour Crew in the World DMC DJ Team Championships 2011. He then furthered his education in Music Production & Audio Engineering in London. He is currently working on different projects and genres with various artists and songwriters. Dizar Lee has performed locally and internationally including London, all around the UK, Auckland, NZ and Los Angeles and the USA.
Darren’s website is www.dizarlee.com
This week's dose of Boiling Point is brought to you by Cat, Chantelle and Tim.
Moving corpses, cubic stool and the micro full moon
Moving corpses and mummification - what research on a body farm looks like,
Faeces come in cubes - at least when you are a wombat, and how the industry can benefit from this 'invention',
Friday the 13th and the full moon - why it was such a special one.
This and many other questions will be answered in our new podcast. Listen in: bit.ly/BoilingPointScience
Sources:
News from Sydney's body farm: https://www.abc.net.au/…/dead-bodies-move-while-de…/11492330
The science behind the cube-shaped poo: https://mobile.abc.net.au/…/wombat-faeces-cube-sh…/11510952… https://meetings.aps.org/Meeting/DFD18/Session/E19.1
Rare full moon will light up Friday the 13th for the first time in years: https://www.cnet.com/…/full-moon-will-light-up-friday-13t…/…
Fear of Friday The 13th Phobia – Paraskevidekatriaphobia or Friggatriskaidekaphobia: https://www.fearof.net/fear-of-friday-the-13th-phobia-para…/
Is Friday the 13th bad for your health? https://www.bmj.com/content/307/6919/1584
Answering the myth: use of emergency services on Friday the 13th https://www.ajemjournal.com/…/S0735-6757(11)00283-X/fulltext
Popular Belief Meets Surgical Reality: Impact of Lunar Phases, Friday the 13th and Zodiac Signs on Emergency Operations and Intraoperative Blood Loss https://link.springer.com/artic…/10.1007%2Fs00268-011-1166-8
Welcome to the world of aphantasia! What is it like when your mind can't visualize your last holiday at the beach or last night's delicious dinner? Cat talks to special guest UNSW Prof Joel Pearson about the world happening in our mind and those people whose mind's eye is blind. What does it feels like to live with aphantasia?
This and many other questions will be answered in our podcast. Listen in: https://goo.gl/fuPQBs
Source: http://www.pearsonlab.org/home.html
Cat, Chantelle and Tim bring you this week's installment of Boiling Point.
White, yellow, green - ever wondered why your snot turns green when you have a really nasty cold?
More weight, similar diet - according to a new study, we weigh more than in the 1980s, although we eat about the same amount of calories.
Listen to the answers on the podcast:
https://goo.gl/fuPQBs | http://eastsidefm.org/boilingpoint/#
Source:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1871403X15001210
https://www.webmd.com/allergies/features/the-truth-about-mucus?fbclid=IwAR0axeQnE2D2Se4Y2fsr0e7S1LZWCOzpYnxGaR0wbIw8QRPjUSdWK1eX438#1
Tim, Alex and Nick revisit a 2018 Boiling Point classic...
Ethanol-Based cancer treatments ; Are they a cost-effective option ? 'Total recall' in snails. 'Memory transplant' achieved in these marine molluscs
On tonight's episode of Boiling Point, Chantelle is back and joined by Tim.
Does University education really mean a higher income? Perhaps if you are male and want work in a engineering, construction or electrical related field
Is Ebola cured? Nope. But two trialled drugs are increasing survival rates
Plug into our podcast here : https://goo.gl/YtzS83
Dr Will Crowe joins Tim and Nick on Boiling Point (August 13) to talk all things space including his "Top 5 Tips for Remaining Radiation Free".
Will is an expert on asteroids, asteroid mining, spacecraft swarms, space mining and potentially hazardous asteroids.
Will's recent thesis focuses on using swarming spacecraft to characterize asteroids. This episode is a thrilling dip into the ether!
Dr Will Crowe's UNSW profile is available here.
Plug into our podcast here.
This week on Boiling Point Science, Nick and Tim speak with special guest Zoe Ford, who's podcast Scientists are people too launched on Monday 5 August.
And Nick delves into the dire environmental consequences of cigarette litter.
It's Science Week in Sydney and National Science Week across Australia, with events and activities galore - Sydney Science Week, which runs 6 - 18 August 2019 and National Science Week, which runs 10-18 August 2019.
Plug into our podcast here
In this week's episode of Boiling Point, Alex is joined by Gamran Green and Evie Preston , the founders of the Waste Collective.
In collaboration with researchers, Waste Collective is working on finding green solutions for the tonnes of rubbish left behind at music festivals in Australia every year.
Plug into the podcast here: iTunes: https://goo.gl/YtzS83
Check out the website of the Waste Collective: https://thewastecollective.wixsite.com/website…
Join Boiling Point's Chantelle, Nick and Cat on journey through three trending science stories.
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The universal blood donation - Researchers identified an enzyme extracted from gut bacteria that strip off the sugar molecules of red blood cells. The results are red blood cells with the blood type O. And anyone can safely receive this blood type.
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Coeliac Disease and hyperactivity disorder: Researchers found that people with a hyperactive disorder are more likely to also suffer from coeliac disease than the average person. For the study, the celiac patients went on a gluten-free diet and their hyperactivity improved. The researchers don't understand the underlying causes just yet.
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Flowers can hear bees? New research challenges our understanding of hearing. Researchers found that a flower can receive the vibration caused by an approaching bee and sends according signals to produce more pollen and nectar.
Plug into the podcast here: iTunes: https://goo.gl/YtzS83 |
Sources:
https://www.sciencealert.com/we-finally-have-a-way-to-conve… https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3184556/… https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/…/flowers-can-hear…/
On Boiling Point this week, Alex and Cat are joined by special guest Ben Walker.
July is interview month on Boiling Point! Leopard expert and UNSW researcher, Ben Walker, talks about the cryptic nature of these fascinating, but pretty aggressive large cats and he explains why it is so hard to study them.
Special Guests Dr Peyman Mostaghemi and Naif Alqatani
From UNSW, our two special guests get supercritical with a chat about petroleum engineering (yup coal, oil and gas)
But we want to know more-
How does extraction actually work? What are the new technologies (AI is one of them)!? How are researchers making it cleaner and less invasive? Where is the future of resource extraction and how can it be used in medical science and for carbon capture technology?
and finally....what the heck is a supercritical gas anyway?
Tune into the podcast to find out or check out the UNSW Mutris, porous system liquid research page to have your brain blown.
One of Boiling Point's Goldies is back; The stimulant special!
What does the stimulant drug #Ritalin do to those who don't have #ADHD? 30 % of college students in the US take it to be more efficient with their studying. What are the side effects?
Zap your brain and you will become smarter and more focused? Well, it's proven that electro-stimulation of the brain can improve states of depression.
Only humans react to stimulants? Wrong! Doping horses and dogs for racing has been around for a long time. Ritalin, Viagra, Cocaine, you name it.
Boiling Point 18 June 2019 Radiothon Episode.
This week for our 2019 Radiothon Episodes we took to Facebook and our live phone lines to get questions from our listeners: * Why is there a Star Trek Chevron symbol on Mars? * Why don't we see vaccines for Malaria and HIV? * Are there any concerns for CRISPR gene modification and Plant GMO's?
All this and tunes with a tenuous connection, every week, on Boiling Point.
This week on Boiling Point, Cat and Jake are joined by UNSW PhD candidate Tahneal Hawke to talk about her research on Platypus.
Once considered a hoax, platypus are truly unique. Their nocturnal and aquatic lifestyle make research difficult. Until recently it was unclear how stable platypus populations currently are. Tahneal found evidence for a decline, especially in river beds and creeks that were altered by humans.
Tahneal's research is focused on assessing long-term changes in platypus populations and the current impacts of river regulation on platypus population dynamics. She has particular interest in the use of historical records for monitoring long-term population changes and to highlight shifting baselines of abundance. The main objective of Tahneal's research project is to quantify the short and long-term effects of river regulation, the construction of dams, and the alteration of flow regimes on platypus populations. Tahneal investigates population dynamics, including age structure, sex ratio, survival and dispersal in regulated and unregulated rivers across NSW and VIC.
Credit of picture: NSW Office of Environment and Heritage
Science history mysteries!
Fuzzy little helpers - How penicillin came into being. A cheer for the milkmaid - how the beauty of milkmaids helped to develop the very first vaccination in human history: the smallpox vaccine HeLa, the immortal cells from cervical cancer victim, Henrietta Slack- a cell line that just doesn't want to die, now used in thousands of lab experiments all over the world
This week's dose of Boiling Point science brought to you by Nick, Jake and Chantelle.
Gold-Digging Mushrooms found in Western Australia introduce a potential new method to identify hidden gold deposits
The "Light Triad,"the three characteristics of good natured people VS the "Dark Triad" traits of people who exhibit destructive social behaviour
Gender Conformity found to influence boys more than girls in the formative years
Take a listen and feel free to do some good and share with a friend---it's helps your health!
Tim, Alex and Cat discuss the options of alien life in space, microbial helpers and the issue with the rhesus factor
Grumpy monkey? - the downside of having rhesus factor negative
Alone in space? - the Drake equation knows the odds
Friends on Mars? - tiny bacteria may help us colonize Mars
Rhesus factor - being rhesus negative is usually not a big deal. Most of the time it's just one of 33 blood group systems without any relevance. It can become an issue when a rhesus negative woman is pregnant with a rhesus positive baby. If the mother-to-be doesn't receive treatment, the embryo can die.
Drake equation - a complicated equation with a simply statement, the chances are almost 50:50, however it's a little more likely that we are not alone in space after all.
Cyanobacteria on Mars - thanks to cyanobacteria we have oxygen to breath on earth. Millions of years ago, the tiny bacteria helped creating the oxygen-rich atmosphere we have today. Researchers are currently working on cultivating cyanobacteria called Chroococcidiopsis that may help us breath on Mars one day.
Sources: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20608477
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-06-15/hardy-bacteria-could-help-humans-breathe-on-mars/9871614?fbclid=IwAR123fv638z9p9dxNc-TBFCSfKsVxJaa8JmE5OM5lCJxP53mtahHskeN8J8
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/360/6394/1210.full
Picture: https://voiceofpeopletoday.com/india-looking-monkey-kidnapped-baby/
Nick, Jake and Cat are joined by special guest Kat Ross this week
Massive mushroom clouds, Star Trek Spaceship Voyageur and women in STEM - astronomist Kathryn Ross is fascinated by space and its mysteries. She is a PhD student at Curtin University in Perth looking at radio galaxies and their black holes. Her namesake and Spaceship Voyageur's Captain Katherine Janeway inspired her once that girls can explore space as well; advocating for women in STEM is another one of Kat's passions. She thinks that girls need strong role models to dare dreaming of their vast options.
Box jellyfish antidote and the jawbone of ancient human species , the Denisovans
Excruciating pain and a quick death - A marvellous science journey led a University of Sydney research team to discover first antidote for box jellyfish venom and develop a handy topical ointment.
Widely traveled with a sense for mountaineering - jawbone of ancient human species, the Denisovans, gives hints about their mysterious ability to live in hypoxic environments (>3000 metres!!) and helps explain unique adaptation in Tibetans.
Tonight's dose of Boiling Point Science brought to you by Cat, Alex and our intern Francesca.
Brushing teeth, a thing of the past? - micro-robots wiping out dental plaque may save your dental bill.
Having a twin is fun? - Not if you are female with a male twin. Researchers found female twins highly disadvantaged.
Chantelle, Tim and Nick had a chat about activity after “death” in pigs’ brains, the UK’s ban on plastic bags and questioned; is love the same as cocaine?
Saving swine
Tim started off with some ground-breaking research about apparently dead pigs’ brains showing signs of cellular life after being bathed in artificial fluid. 32 of the 300 pigs’ brains, collected from the slaughterhouse four hours after their demise, were put in the BrainEx system. The brains amazingly showed metabolic activity and some nerve cells used for complex thinking still appeared healthy. The brains not in the BrainEx system deteriorated.
This research could be the start of approaches that restore function to human brains. However, it comes with some very interesting ethical questions… If the brain tissue is still showing activity should it be considered dead or alive?
From brains to bags; Nick talks about how the UK has made a start at tackling the plastic problem and how Australia is following suit…
Poor poor plastic
In October 2015 the UK introduced a charge for single use plastic bags. The response from the public was incredible. Results from a survey showed that average frequency of plastic bag use fell from “sometimes” to “very rarely”. This marked a decrease from 48% to 17% of shoppers using plastic bags in less than a year!
In Australia Coles and Woolies have followed UK lead, introducing a small fee for plastic bags. All states have implemented a successful ban on plastic bags bar our very own NSW!
Cocaine, Coffee and Cuddles
Slightly changing the tone, Chantelle gives us a whirlwind explanation into how love for someone could have the same addictive effects as substances such as caffeine and cocaine. A study used magnetic resonance imaging of volunteers who have recently been rejected by a partner but are still intensely in love with them. There was shown to be activation of areas involved in cocaine addiction which might help explain someone’s apparently crazy and erratic behaviour after a break up.
So, if anyone ever tells you you’re being a psycho after a breakup tell them science made you do it. Not your fault!
Tonight, on Boiling Point, Nick, Jake and Tim stopped by the studio to talk about the educational impacts of poverty and the super exciting first imagine of a supermassive black hole.
The correlation between poverty and a lack of education
Despite Australia being one of the wealthiest countries in the world, the ACOSS Poverty in Australia report (2016) found that one out of every six children under the age of 15 in Australia was living in poverty. Nick, graduate microbiologist and "teacher to be”, discusses his research into how this statistic relates to a lack of education.
32 years ago, Bob Hawke announced an end to poverty and a reduction of the number of children in poverty in Australia to zero in three years. When he made this speech there were 500,000 children in poverty. Today there are 750,000. So, what are the detrimental impacts of this rising poverty in terms of a child’s education? The lack of healthy food, clothes and other resources can prevent children from going to school. This can be because they are ashamed, ill, hungry or feel excluded and marginalized.
What can be done? Nick explains how there must be a governmental push towards helping poorer children into education. In terms of an individual effort there is not much that can be done except donating to charities.
Studies have shown that poverty in even the first year of academic education has a negative impact. This is an issue that needs to be addressed more by the government if we want to give all Australian children an equal chance of education.
Next, Jake and Tim discuss just how accurate Interstellar was...
On the 10th April an incredible announcement was made. The first real photo of a black hole was released by Event Horizon Telescope team. And guess what, it’s supermassive! Achieving this photo is so incredible because the gravitational pull of a black hole is so strong that nothing, not even light, can escape it. The hole is 26,000 light years from the earth and 4 million times the mass of our sun. The images were so big that the internet wasn’t big enough to hold them.
This incredible discovery brought up a lot of thought-provoking discussions from our panel. Not only about the physical science behind a black hole but also how does this shape our reality? How does reality change inside a black hole? For basic information on the science of black holes Tim suggests going to Kurzgesagt- in a Nutshell. For an idea as to what to expect if you ever happen to find yourself inside one, watch Interstellar.
Story: Boiling Point guest intern; Francesca Johnson
Tim, Chantelle and Jake are joined by David Suggett in this week's dose of Boiling Point.
How resilient is the Great Barrier Reef? Radical drop in coral spawning concerns scientists, with special guest and coral expert David Suggett
We just had daylights savings end but did you know we're in a new GPS epoch too?
How do plants deal with extremes in a changing climate?
Our special guest, Manon Sabot, climate scientist from the University of New South Wales discusses her research,
the challenges modelling climate/vegetation relationships and why plants may not be responding the way initially predicted.....
Chantelle, Alex and Danny are back with another dose of Boiling Point Science.
Perfect greenery - What makes rice paddies so efficient? Endangered, but little known - unique and strange animals on the EDGE list Wobbly and unfixable? - Think again. Mathematicians teach us how to fix a wobbly chair.
Whales and their lice - they might be nasty and crawly, but they tell researchers the story of the whales' social network
Genes breaking down contraceptive hormones? A new hypothesis explores why the pill and other contraceptives might fail for a select few women
Wolves versus dogs - can wolves collaborate with people like a domestic dog? If so, why have we domesticated dogs for thousands of years?
Another Boiling Point podcast is out!
Brain stew - How many brain cells do we actually have?
You can listen to a podcast on the topic here Super recognizer - Some people just have it in their genes
A man's world - how the world is built for men and how that puts women in danger in their every day life
This week on Boiling Point Chantelle, Jake and Nick are back for an amazing bug filled week.
The six centimetre Megachile Pluto bee is back, having been spotted for first time in 37 years; the devastating consequences of the Bogong moth's decline; and can bees really do maths?
Sources: -https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2019-02-27/bogong-moth-decline-in-australian-alps/10850036 -https://theconversation.com/can-bees-do-maths-yes-new-research-shows-they-can-add-and-subtract-108074 -https://edition.cnn.com/2019/02/21/world/giant-bee-megachile-pluto-found-trnd/index.html