Ockham's Razor - Program Podcast

What do your undies have to do with the health of Australian soils? Dr Oliver Knox is a researcher in cotton farming and soil health -- and he wants you to give you a challenge. First broadcast 18 April 2021.

Are you a fan of pop music? What about rap? Or maybe you like edgy, experimental, electronic stuff? Well – that’s what you think. But if we covered your head with sensors and played you some music, we might discover differently. First broadcast 28 August 2021.

We know that giving students choice and ownership over their own learning is best, but has it been lost from the education system?

Think about the stem cells in an embryo – they’re a bit like a teenager on the brink of adulthood, with the potential to be almost anything they want to be.

There are those places in nature that we come back to, again and again. The reason we come is because they’re so beautiful, or peaceful… but it’s the act of returning regularly that helps us notice when things are different. The landscape is telling us in those subtle changes what’s happening to it.

What do boiled bandicoot, smuggled salami and an invisibility cloak have in common? Dr Deb Bower can tell you. She's a conservation biologist working on reptiles and amphibians ... with no shortage of fieldwork adventures to share. And the key to understanding the relationship between those seemingly very different items lies among the rough forest tracks of Papua New Guinea. Originally broadcast 7 March 2021.

520 million years ago, the oceans teemed with some of the most bizarre animals ever to have lived.

Every day we make hundreds of choices, big and small, that build to become the story of our lives – the friends we make, the careers we choose, our partners and our purpose.

What if our entire universe, including you and I, could be boiled down to one object: a vibrating string?

They breathe air but live underwater, and like their land-dwelling counterparts their bites are venomous.

Nathan Brooks-English usually studies the geological processes that make mountains but on one particular field trip, the thing he learned most about was human connection.

You’ve got one, I’ve got one, and even cows have them. I’m talking, of course, about a microbiome – that collection of trillions of microorganisms that live on and in us and that we literally couldn’t live without. You know who else has a microbiome that’s a matter of life and death? One of our favourite insects: the honeybee.  This week, we’re hearing from Mengyong Lim, who’s been getting up close and personal with bees’ digestive tracts to make sure we humans aren’t wreaking too much havoc on them…

The year is 1911, and a young man by the name of Thomas Midgely Jr. is graduating university with a degree in engineering. Thomas doesn’t know it yet, but he will have a greater impact on the Earth’s atmosphere than any other single organism. He will help create two world-changing chemical inventions that will improve the lives of many, and negatively change two parts of our ecosystem in the process with decades-long consequences.

If there’s one thing Australians know how to be smug about, it’s that our country is home to some of the most incredible ecosystems in the world. But today, we’re visiting one that is massive in size, massively economically important … and massively underappreciated, to the point that that you may never have even heard of it.

Mention the term “startup” and your mind probably goes to Silicon Valley and high-tech computer science. But startups exist in regional Australia as well – and what’s more, they’re crucial to our future. This week, we’re hearing from Elena Kelareva on startups in Gippsland, in regional Victoria – and how getting away from preconceptions is one of the first steps to startup success.

Where does cancer come from? Well there are a few answers to that question – genetic changes, maybe it’s triggered by a virus. But for two species of cute, fuzzy animals, they can be transmitted directly. This week, we’re hearing from Ruth Pye about this surprising thing that two species in very different parts of the world have in common.

Are you a fan of pop music? What about rap? Or maybe you like edgy, experimental, electronic stuff? Well – that’s what you think. But if we covered your head with sensors and played you some music, we might discover differently.

Our own health and the health of our planet as two things that are intertwined. Today, we hear from obstetrician Kristine Barnden about the gap between good health in theory, and the challenges to having it in practice. It’s something Kristine sees not just in human health… but in the health of our climate as well.

Did you know that across the Tasman, in New Zealand, some kitchens have roller cupboard doors instead of, you know, normal cupboard doors? It’s because of the earthquakes. Sometimes they’re so bad that your crockery can shake out of your cupboards and smash, and the roller ones prevent this. Lucky for us, earthquakes don’t really happen in Australia, so it’s not something we need to worry about. Right? Well… it’s time you met seismologist Dr Trevor Allen.

If you had to pit endangered species next to each other in a contest of who was most good-looking, tigers would have to be pretty close to the top of the list. They’re gorgeous – and getting people on board with the idea of protecting them isn’t too hard. But what about the people who live on the edges of their habitat? This week, we discover that conservation is a noble goal… but it’s got to be done in partnership with local communities. Our narrator: Professor Wendy Wright from Federation University. And the story starts early one morning in rural Nepal.