Conversations: Our Evolving World

Biologist Merlin Sheldrake's extreme experiments, many of which involve his physical body and varying forms of fungi, have led to equally remarkable discoveries

English biologist Merlin Sheldrake, son of Rupert Sheldrake, became fascinated by fungi when he was a boy.

He grew mushrooms in his cupboard and brewed bog myrtle beer under his bed.

He went on to study fungi at Cambridge University, and his research explores the interconnection between fungi and plants in what’s known as ‘the Wood Wide Web’.

Merlin's extreme experiments, many of which involve his physical body and varying forms of fungi, have led to equally remarkable discoveries.

Further information

Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds and Shape Our Futures is published by Random House

To binge even more great episodes of the ‘Conversations podcast’ with Richard Fidler and Sarah Kanowski go the ABC listen app (Australia) or wherever you get your podcasts. There you’ll find hundreds of the best thought-provoking interviews with authors, writers, artists, politicians, singers, psychologists, musicians, and celebrities.

Gisela Kaplan fell under the spell of birds when hand-rearing a magpie nestling. After it learned to speak, she was so intrigued she switched careers and began her research into avian behaviour. Her many books on Australian native birds have been ground-breaking.

Many assumptions about the nature of birds and their behaviour are completely wrong when applied to Australian birds.

Gisela Kaplan was a professor of sociology when a magpie nestling she was hand raising bonded closely with her, followed her about, and learned to speak.

Her curiosity about birds became so strong she switched careers to become a field biologist and animal behaviourist.

Based in Armidale NSW, Gisela has conducted extensive research into avian behaviour. Her second PhD was a study of the songs of Australian magpies.

Gisela's many books on Australian native birds have changed the way these creatures are understood.

Along with her teaching, writing and research in ornithology, Gisela has been a wildlife carer for 25 years, raising countless birds of all ages.

Further information

Bird Bonds: sex, mate-choice and cognition in Australian native birds is published by Macmillan

Gisela's earlier books include Bird Minds, Tawny Frogmouth, and Australian Magpie

Gisela is Emeritus Professor of animal behaviour at the University of New England 

To binge even more great episodes of the ‘Conversations podcast’ with Richard Fidler and Sarah Kanowski go the ABC listen app (Australia) or wherever you get your podcasts. There you’ll find hundreds of the best thought-provoking interviews with authors, writers, artists, politicians, singers, psychologists, musicians, and celebrities.

Sound designer and naturalist Douglas Quin makes field recordings from everywhere on Earth and uses them to create soundscapes for film and tv, galleries and museums

Zenith Virago married at 17, and had two children. Then she left her young family to create a life of her own on the other side of the world

Saving the orphaned kangaroo joeys of Central Australia

Dominic Rowe is asking how common degenerative brain diseases begin

Jenny Briscoe-Hough is helping Port Kembla locals take back control at the end of life

Botanist and D'harawal elder Fran Bodkin uses western science to explain up to 80,000 years of Indigenous plant knowledge

Understanding and managing the psychopaths in our midst at work and at home

David Gillespie is a former corporate lawyer and investor and the author of the best-selling book, Sweet Poison.

Some years ago, David found himself working alongside a toxic human being, whom he now considers to have been a psychopath.

Psychopaths are typically people incapable of human empathy.

They tend to be charming in the initial phases of a relationship, then become parasitic and domineering.

In the workplace, their presence is often disruptive, and dangerous to the health of the people around them.

David has immersed himself into contemporary research into psychopathic behaviour, and developed some advice on dealing with a psychopath who worms their way into your life.

Further information  

Taming Toxic People is published by Macmillan

To binge even more great episodes of the ‘Conversations podcast’ with Richard Fidler and Sarah Kanowski go the ABC listen app (Australia) or wherever you get your podcasts. There you’ll find hundreds of the best thought-provoking interviews with authors, writers, artists, politicians, psychologists, musicians, and celebrities.

Bill Hayes moved to New York at 48. He took up photography, and fell in love with his neighbour, Dr Oliver Sacks

Doctor Oliver Sacks was a neurologist, a naturalist and a university professor. He became famous for writing case histories of his patients in books including, The Man Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat, and An Anthropologist on Mars.

But Oliver had never been in a relationship. Then, at the age of 75, he fell deeply in love with a man decades younger than him.

He and Bill Hayes lived in the same building, in New York, three flights apart.

Their time together ended when Dr Sacks was in his early eighties.

Further information

Insomniac City published by Bloomsbury

This conversation was broadcast from the Sydney Writers’ Festival

To binge even more great episodes of the ‘Conversations podcast’ with Richard Fidler and Sarah Kanowski go the ABC listen app (Australia) or wherever you get your podcasts. There you’ll find hundreds of the best thought-provoking interviews with authors, writers, artists, politicians, singers, psychologists, musicians, and celebrities.