It was on Antarctica's most remote stations that prompted scientist Meganne Christian to consider a life in space.

On Concordia, also dubbed 'White Mars', Meganne did some accidental training. She experienced windchills at –104 degrees, 100 days without sun, and profound isolation — conditions the European Space Agency uses to test future astronauts. 

In 2022, Meganne became one of 17 new reserve astronauts for the ESA, out of a pool of 22,500 applicants. 

In this keynote for National Science Week 2023, Meganne shares her insights and explains why a ride on the 'vomit comet' is a pre-requisite for any budding astronaut.

The consumption of media is perhaps the most fragmented it's ever been. It's a world swimming in unopened tabs, in-video links, and scrolls that never end: a world of near-infinite choice.

In this roundtable from the 2023 Melbourne International Film Festival, an author, a critic, a film buff, and cook join forces to discuss what culture they're consuming, how they're doing it, and why.

Nicole Kitman, Errol Flynn, Peter Finch and David Gulpilil… they all are Australian actors who made their fortune in Hollywood. Australian talent is in fact very popular in the glitzy and cut-throat cinema business. Why is that? The book 'Cast Mates' looks behind the Hollywood curtain, from the Golden Age in the 1930s to the streaming wars of today. It follows the lives these four Australian actors and their cast mates and tells a story of how Australian cinema was founded, then faltered, before finding itself again.

For fire scientist Philip Zylstra, there are a lot of myths contained in the modern approach to containing bushfires in Australia. Namely, that management practices after colonisation continued pre-colonial Indigenous approaches in the form of prescribed burns.

In his view, that's not correct. Instead, he argues the science underpinning prescribed burns isn't sound, resulting in a one-size-fits-all approach whose roots lie in classical England.

A 31,000-year-old skeleton with a successfully amputated foot has rewritten the medical history books. The extraordinary find in Borneo challenges modern medicine's amputation record, which stretches back a mere 100 years. An expert panel traces the discovery story and describes a pre-historic caring and medically skilled society.

For some advocates of the no case for this year's referendum, the proposed Voice to parliament simply doesn't go far enough.

Instead, advocates — often referred to as progressive 'no' voters — argue that Indigenous Australians should be given more institutional power to effect change, like dedicated First Nations seats in parliament.

So what does this look like? And what alternatives to the Voice does the progressive no camp propose if their vote carries?

Find more of the ABC's reporting on the Voice referendum on the ABC News website, or listen to the Voice Referendum Explained podcast with Carly Williams and Fran Kelly. 

Interior designer Mary Featherston is famous for many things. Her trailblazing creations with her late husband Grant Featherston. Their extraordinary Melbourne house designed by the iconic modernist architect Robin Boyd, which has housed four generations of their family. But what Mary's most driven by is her 50-year mission to change the face, feel, and function of Australian classrooms. Classrooms, not just teachers, can be educators too! She joins Big Ideas' host Natasha Mitchell.

Depending who you ask, the baby boomers got it good, and everyone that followed got a raw deal.

Here's the common assumption: Millennials are saddled with student debt, unaffordable housing, and increasingly insecure work, while their forebears didn't (and some experienced profound asset gains afterwards). But is this generational binary that simple?

Ok Boomer was first recorded at the Sydney Writers Festival in May 2023.

Checking out the Goldilocks Zone. With a team of astronomers and astrophysicists, Big Ideas is exploring the skies — more precisely, exoplanets that orbit around stars beyond our solar system in what is known as the Goldilocks Zone. It's the zone with conditions that might be just right for creating life. What is this zone, what is being discovered and what can we learn about our own terrestrial world?

It's been 24 years since Australia's last referendum, meaning there's an entire generation who will be participating in a referendum for the first time.

As the nation gears up for the referendum on an Indigenous Voice to parliament, a Monash University panel of legal scholars and constitutional nerds give you a refresher on the mechanics of referenda, the constitution, and why Australian law permits disinformation in political advertising.

Find more of the ABC's reporting on the Voice referendum on the ABC News website, or listen to the Voice Referendum Explained podcast with Carly Williams and Fran Kelly.