Science On Top
The Australian Podcast putting Science on Top of the agenda

Hosts: Ed Brown, Penny Dumsday, Mick Vagg

00:02:13 How serious is the opioid crisis in Australia? What's being done about it, and what new painkillers are on the horizon? Pain Specialist Professor Mick Vagg gives us the run down.

00:22:15 20 million years ago, dolphins had really long snouts - the question is why? What evolutionary pressures led to their evolution, and what caused them to become extinct?

00:28:11 Are chimpanzees selfish? Do they readily cooperate? A study on chimpanzees in the Republic of Congo found they often make decisions that benefit others faster than ones that help themselves.

 

Associate Professor Mick Vagg is Clinical Senior Lecturer at Deakin University School of Medicine, and Pain Specialist at Barwon Health.

 

This episode contains traces of John Oliver talking shady business practices which have contributed to the US Opioids Crisis.

 

Direct download: SoT_0316.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 6:11pm AEDT

Hosts: Ed Brown, Penny Dumsday, Lucas Randall

00:01:10 When a newborn baby smiles, there's always some spoilsport ready to tell you it's not a genuine smile, it's just a reflex. But new research finds that infant smiles are a lot more complex than that.

00:07:34 For the first time, astronomers have observed the clumps of gas orbiting the supermassive black hole in the center of our galaxy using four large telescopes linked together. The observations are in extremely high detail and reveal super hot flares or "magnetic thunderstorms" orbiting the black hole at nearly a third of the speed of light.

00:16:31 Scientific debate has erupted over a set of cone-like formations in Greenland. One popular school of thought is that they're the oldest fossils ever found, and the other is that they're just rocks.

 

To help us make the show, please consider donating on Patreon.

 

This episode contains traces of CBC News Now host Heather Hiscox talking with Dominic Valitis about a big science auction.

Direct download: SoT_0315.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 10:03am AEDT

Hosts: Ed Brown, Penny Dumsday, Lucas Randall

00:01:11 It's an old computer trick, but a gyroscope on the Hubble Space Telescope has been fixed - with a shake and a reboot.

00:08:22 The tiny worms in dung beetle brood sacks - which are sexually transmitted - are beneficial for the beetle larvae.

00:14:33 Polychlorinated biphenyls - better known as PCBs - are industrial chemicals that have been banned in most countries for decades. But their legacy remains and has dramatic consequences for orcas and other marine mammals.

00:23:38 Humpback whales go quiet, and sometimes even silent, when large boats are around.

00:24:37 Why do male gorillas seem to enjoy babysitting so much? One possibility is that females choose good carers to mate with.

 

To help us make the show, please consider donating on Patreon.

 

This episode contains traces of Michael J. Fox talking to Alan Alda on the Clear and Vivid podcast.

Direct download: SoT_0314.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 6:18pm AEDT

Hosts: Ed Brown, Penny Dumsday, Lucas Randall, Dr. Pamela Gay

00:00:58 What happens when octopuses are given ecstasy? They get... cuddly.

00:07:23 Gene Roddenberry got it right, there IS a planet orbiting the star 40 Eridani. That's where the Star Trek creator said the planet Vulcan would be, homeworld of the pointy-eared logicians.

00:10:23 The Japanese space agency, JAXA, has had a spacecraft orbiting the asteroid Ryugu since the end of June this year. It has now deployed three of its four rovers onto the 1km wide near Earth object.

00:17:00 The failure of a gyroscope onboard the Hubble Space Telescope was a concern for NASA engineers, who scrambled to resurrect a backup gyro. It also raised questions about the future of the telescope, and the its ever-postponed successor the James Webb Space Telescope.

00:33:09 Questions from the audience.

 

This episode was recorded in front of a live audience at the Kathleen Syme Library and Community Centre in Carlton, Melbourne.

Dr. Pamela Gay is astronomer, podcaster, and artist. She is the co-host of the AstronomyCast podcast and the Director of Technology and Citizen Science at the Astronomical Society of the Pacific. She is also the principal investigator of CosmoQuest.org.

This episode contains traces of NASA's video detailing all the things that could go wrong with the upcoming InSight Mars landing.

Direct download: SoT_0313.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 2:59pm AEDT

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