Big Ideas

Will personal freedom always give way to social control in China? Families have lived through a wave of revolutions in communist China and the legacy flows down the generations. Three authors talk about the cycle of openness and repression from the Cultural revolution to Tiananmen Square as individual freedoms are tolerated and then repressed to meet the goals of China's communist rulers.

It’s 250 years since the arrival of Captain James Cook. In maritime circles he’s celebrated as a great navigator and map-maker. But for First Nations people, Cook is the symbol of the European invasion which decimated their communities. So how should Cook be remembered today? Author Peter Fitzsimons and historian Professor John Maynard discuss the man and the myth.

Trust is in short supply. Surveys have long indicated declining trust in institutions, and in political leaders. We are also suspicious of expertise, and of the experts who provide it. Faced with the threat of a pandemic, who can we trust?

Fungi are the unsung heroes of recycling. They play a vital role in breaking down organic matter for plants to use. Now we've discovered fungi can clean up oil and plastic. And their root systems are being used to create alternatives to plastic, wood and bricks. Who knew the humble mushroom could be so versatile?

This year is crunch time for determining whether it is still possible to save our planet. In 2020, all major conventions dealing with climate change and biodiversity will meet and decide on the emission levels ambitions that every nation must adopt.

While leaving no doubt about the urgency of action on climate change, conservationist Aila Keta is optimistic. She sees very encouraging new initiatives coming out of the finance and the banking sector.

Paul Robeson was an African American singer, film star, scholar, athlete, civil rights champion and radical political activist. What is his legacy today?

Most every society has fermented alcoholic beverages - Mexican pulque, Peruvian chicha, Japanese sake, Indian palm toddy, African sorghum beer.

But the German lager beer has largely displaced these local brewing traditions over the last 200 years to become a global consumer icon.

That has many reasons—trade, migration, colonialism—but the success of lager lies also in the fact that it's so bland.

Small is beautiful as the saying goes. But there’s small and then there’s nano small. Engineers who work in the nano world are working with single atoms. Nanotechnology helps to power your mobile phone and nano machines might one day be working in your body to deliver medical treatment.

A hundred years from now, will you be taking a pill or using your own cells to cure disease? This is just one of the predictions from four futurists who imagine how some of our biggest challenges will play out. Can we save species from the effects of climate change or protect our privacy from the prying eyes of governments and corporations? Perhaps surveillance technology might prove to be our friend by keeping us accountable for our actions.

Courts of law exist for good reason, but the judicial process can also retraumatize, rather than heal, victims and witnesses who are exposed to it. Therapeutic jurisprudence offers a different approach