Big Ideas

The impacts of climate change on our health are growing, as surely as global temperatures and sea levels are rising. So how can we strive to live as healthy people on an increasingly sick planet? What are the major ways global warming is threatening human health?

Is happiness the natural order of things and,  if so,  should you be worried if you’re not happy? And how our emotional experiences have changed over time and in different cultures.

Some 116,000 people experience homelessness every night in Australia, and that number is expected to grow. What is it like to be homeless? What do those who've been in that awful circumstance think is the answer?

Artificial Intelligence (AI) will revolutionise medicine, and help to combat climate change.

But it also threatens to usher in a new age of automated drone warfare.

With smart machines poised to take more decisions out of our hands, how can we ensure these decisions are ethical, moral, and in our interest?

Paul Barclay talks to Toby Walsh about his book, Machines Behaving Badly

Recorded at the Bendigo Writers Festival on May 15, 2022.

Speaker:

Toby Walsh — author and world leading researcher in Artificial Intelligence; professor of AI, University of NSW; leads research group at Data61, Australia's Centre of Excellence for ICT Research.

Are you a bird lover? Were you one of the many people to discover the delights of birdwatching during the pandemic lockdowns? Birds play a crucial role in our ecosystem, but their very existence is under threat. What can we do to protect the future for birdlife? In this discussion, we meet a panel of bird lovers who each share their different perspectives on the enduring allure of birds.

Is sex really a good thing? It’s one of the most broadly accepted assumptions of society. But a group of people begs to differ. They call themselves Asexuals and insist that no-sex is a distinct sexual identity. What do these contrasting ways of thinking about abstinence tell us about modern sexual anxieties

Without serious action by 2025 the planet is set to warm beyond one and a half degrees. That’s the unequivocal assessment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. To reach the target,  the IPCC says that governments should not approve more fossil fuel projects yet in Australia we continue to do so. A social scientist says our environmental protection laws need to be redesigned to give greater weight to the protection of future generations who’ll face the full impact of climate change.

By electrifying virtually everything, we can solve the climate change crisis. Electric vehicles, electric heating, electric cooking, a decarbonised grid – all powered by renewables and batteries. This is the future Australia should be pursuing, argues inventor and entrepreneur, Saul Griffith, in his book, 'The Big Switch'..

A good night's sleep is anything but quiet: a myriad of processes occupy our brains, crucial for every aspect of our waking lives. Our increased understanding of the neuroscience of sleep sheds light on why so many of us struggle to simply drift off.

Women are warned that as they get older their fertility declines. The popular view is that men can father children at any age. But age is also a factor for fertility problems in men. There’s also a pronounced global decline in sperm counts. So what can men do to boost their chances of becoming a father?