Eavesdrop on Experts

You might not know it, but Melbourne has little earthquakes, even in the city centre and quite frequently.

So says Michael Webster, engineering geologist at consulting, design and construction company, Golder Associates, and guest lecturer for the Master of Engineering at the University of Melbourne.

“A lot of people know about the earthquakes down in Gippsland or the Otways, but actually in Melbourne itself, there have been earthquakes. You’d have to be a seismic instrument to actually feel these ones but they are there at all depths – some of them quite deep, some of them shallow,” he says.

From the geology beneath Melbourne, Michael has created an intricate, three dimensional picture.

“There are two lava flows under Melbourne, so you effectively get these beautiful layers cutting across each other, building up over about three to four million years to the present day,” he says.

“So, in collaboration with the Arts Centre Melbourne and Development Victoria, we 3D printed a ground model and put on an exhibition at the Testing Grounds in Southbank.

“It ran for a few weeks and it was lovely to see people’s interest and connection with the ground.

“I’ve always found that geology is one of the more approachable sciences. If people talk about gravity waves it’s absolutely fascinating, but with geology it’s there – it is rivers, volcanos, lava.”

Episode recorded: September 17, 2019.

Interviewer: Dr Andi Horvath.

Producer, editor and audio engineer: Chris Hatzis.

Co-production: Silvi Vann-Wall and Dr Andi Horvath.

Banner image: Golder Associates.

A lot of Aboriginal people don’t necessarily feel comfortable accessing health services, explains Gwenda Freeman, Associate Lecturer in Aboriginal Health at the University of Melbourne.

“Whereas you might have been brought up to go to the doctor when you are unwell, for Aboriginal people (going to a doctor) might be a much bigger issue,” she says.

“There might be issues of racism, there might be history of difficulties, there might be hesitancy about western medicine and all sorts of cost and other anxieties that often prevent people from being able to access what we would consider basic health services.”

As a lecturer in the Specialist Certificate qualification in ‘Empowering Health in Aboriginal Communities’, Gwenda says the course provides a pathway for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to undertake the Master of Public Health degree, opening possibilities for Indigenous people to be at the table in organising health services for their own community.

“There’s been a lovely coming together recently of traditional healers – traditional Aboriginal healers – and what you might call western medicine.”

For example some Indigenous healers – the Ngangkari – have been recruited by the South Australian Health Department to work in hospitals and health services in Adelaide alongside mainstream medicine.

“They’re very happy to because Aboriginal people can see that western medicine offers some things that traditional medicine doesn’t. But also, that traditional medicine covers things that western medicine neglects. So, it’s a good coming together.”

Episode recorded: October 7, 2019.

Interviewer: Dr Andi Horvath.

Producer, editor and audio engineer: Chris Hatzis.

Co-production: Silvi Vann-Wall and Dr Andi Horvath.

Image: Getty Images.

The 13th century physician and astronomer Zakariya ibn Muhammad al-Qazwinin was an influential member of the literary circles in Iraq and advisor to the Mongol Governor of the area.

One of his major works is the Wonders of Creation, a kind of compilation of the knowledge of the universe, says Dr Stefano Carboni, lecturer in Islamic Art at the University of Western Australia and 2019 Macgeorge Fellow at the University of Melbourne.

“Starting from the outer spheres where the throne of God is found and then coming down to the sphere of the angels, the fixed stars, the planets, the sub-lunar sphere and then everything that happens on earth. That includes the sphere of air, so all the phenomena – the atmospherical phenomena that happen in our skies.”

Professor Carboni explains that the majority of books in the 13th century would be illustrated scientific manuscripts, or even works of Arabic literature that looked very much in the tradition of late Byzantine art. And when the Mongols arrived they brought the Chinese edition.

“It’s an incredibly important period in the formation of the - of art history, basically, in Iran.”

Episode recorded: September 5, 2019.

Interviewer: Dr Andi Horvath.

Producer, editor and audio engineer: Chris Hatzis.

Co-production: Silvi Vann-Wall and Dr Andi Horvath.

Image: A map of the inhabited world, from Ajaib al-makhluqat wa-gharaib al-mawjudat (Marvels of Things Created and Miraculous Aspects of Things Existing) by al-Qazwini (d. 1283/682). The copy was made in 1537/944, probably in western India. Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images.

Music has this unique ability to connect with emotion, and with memory, so they’re very intricately linked, says Professor Felicity Baker, Head of Music Therapy and Director of the International Research Partnerships for the Creative Arts and Music Therapy Research Unit at the University of Melbourne.

“When you hear a piece of music and then the memories become evoked as a result of that, the neural network is activated, and it also then leads to the activation of more positive moods.”

Professor Baker studies how music, especially singing and songwriting, can be used to treat people with a range of conditions – from young people with traumatic brain injuries to adults with substance abuse issues and, especially, people with dementia.

“We’re actually showing the family carers how to use music in really strategic ways to support the care of the person that they’re looking after. But we’re also interested in preserving the relationship between the carer and the person that they’re caring for,” Professor Baker says.

“So, using music in a way that helps to bring that person to the present.”

Special thanks to the Dandenong Ranges Music Council, Caladenia Dementia Care, Melbourne, the Musical Memories Choir from the Continuing Care Clinical Service Unit, Austin Hospital, Melbourne, Judy and John Kearney, Sue Mountain and Betty Hamilton.

For more information about Felicity Baker’s work and the Music Heals Minds And Hearts appeal, click here or email [email protected].

Episode recorded: August 29, 2019.

Interviewer: Dr Andi Horvath.

Producer, editor and audio engineer: Chris Hatzis.

Co-production: Silvi Vann-Wall and Dr Andi Horvath.

Image: Getty Images.

In her new book Future Histories, author and lawyer Lizzie O’Shea asks what historical social experiments like the Paris Commune can tell us about modern online democracy.

“I sort of see Mark Zuckerberg’s call for regulation of his platform somewhat cynically,” she says.

“I think he’s trying to do that in anticipation of it coming inevitably. So, he’s going to try and manage that process.”

According to the author, this is the moment for us to organise and think about how we can install more democracy into how decisions are made over these platforms.

This includes asking questions like what kind of technology should get prioritised and developed? And how do we allocate those resources rather than just leaving it to private companies to do themselves?

“I guess this is a conceptual framework that I’ve sourced from indigenous ways of knowing and governing. I looked to places like Aboriginal Australia, New Zealand prior to colonisation, and also in North America, in Canada,” says Ms O’Shea.

“So looking to those societies as peoples who have collectively managed resources for a long time, often in hostile environments, and that we might have something to learn from them in terms of managing the environment that we live in online in ways that prioritise respect and common humanity rather than money-making and exploitation.”

Episode recorded: August 23, 2019.

Interviewer: Silvi Vann-Wall.

Producer, audio engineer and editor: Chris Hatzis.

Co-production: Silvi Vann-Wall and Dr Andi Horvath.

Image: Shutterstock.

Impaired memory is a symptom of schizophrenia and University of Melbourne PhD student Cassandra Wannan has identified areas of the brain that give us new clues as to what’s going on.

Up to 1 in 100 people worldwide will experience schizophrenia. It can stem from a number of factors, including genetics, trauma, and substance abuse. For centuries there’s been limited understanding of how schizophrenia operates, leading to misdiagnosis or insufficient treatment.

In order to better our understanding of schizophrenia, Cassandra Wannan recently authored a paper on schizophrenia and memory impairment. Confirming the role of memory loss in schizophrenia may be a major step towards fully understanding the illness.

Interview recorded: July 23, 2019.

Interviewer: Dr Andi Horvath.

Producer, editor & audio engineer: Chris Hatzis.

Co-producers: Silvi Vann-Wall & Dr Andi Horvath.

Image: Getty Images.

Physics is sometimes described in terms of two frontiers, says Professor Jamieson, a physicist at the University of Melbourne and Chief Investigator of the Victorian node of the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Quantum Computer Technology.

“One frontier is cosmological. You look out into the abyss of space, an enormous scale of space and time.”

“So that’s a journey into the wide frontier as we explore the cosmos with evermore powerful telescopes and use the laws of physics as the guide to understand what we see.”

He says that the other frontier is the inward bound, the frontier into the subatomic - that is, the atomic and subatomic building blocks of matter.

This research is providing new insights into the way the world works and so has unlocked the potential of quantum technologies, like quantum computing, with its enormous potential.

“We have the standard model for particle physics that seems to explain, very successfully, the way matter works and interacts, but there are some nagging loose ends that need to be tidied up,” Professor Jamieson says.

“We have the precedent that 110 years ago, Einstein tugged at the loose ends dangling out of classical physics and he caused it all to unravel… and that has set us on a new journey into relativity and quantum mechanics that we’re still travelling on today.”

Episode recorded: July 16, 2018.

Interviewer: Dr Andi Horvath.

Producer, audio engineer & editor: Chris Hatzis.

Co-production: Silvi Vann-Wall & Dr Andi Horvath.

Image: Shutterstock.

Associate Professor Duane Hamacher has spent 11 years immersing himself into the world of Indigenous knowledge and Indigenous science.

Working closely with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Elders and communities to learn about their astronomical knowledge and teachings, Associate Professor Hamacher also mentors and supports Indigenous students pursuing studies in astronomy, physics, and space science.

“I was very fortunate to be able to learn directly from many Elders,” says Associate Professor Hamacher.

“The sky serves as a textbook, a logbook, a mnemonic a way of remembering everything on the earth you can see in the sky so that was quite fascinating."

“So reading the stars means you can observe changes in their positions and properties and know how to interpret that to be able to tell things like changing weather or animal behaviour or navigation."

He says what we have now is a whole generation of Aboriginal students who are studying astrophysics, who are studying Indigenous astronomy.

“They are paving the way in this space to do something that I can’t do and people like me cannot do.”

Interview recorded: July 9, 2019.

Interviewer: Dr Andi Horvath.

Producer, audio engineer, editor: Chris Hatzis.

Co-producers: Silvi Vann-Wall and Dr Andi Horvath.

Image: Galactic Emu - Aboriginal astronomers mapped the sky by creating shapes from the dark clouds of dust in front of the centre of the Milky Way. Shutterstock.

Following his uncle’s brain injury, Dr David Gonsalvez studied neuroscience and now researches the connections between brain cells and how they change in diseases like Multiple Sclerosis.

“The cells that I study make the insulating material myelin, that covers all of the wires in the brain,” says Dr Gonsalvez.

Our ‘wiring’ is formed by axons, the long stalks that grow out of the brain’s neurons and carry electrical signals to other neurons. Myelin is wrapped around axons to insulate the signals, just like wires in a house.

By studying the impact of the environment on myelin and how it forms, Dr Gonsalvez and his team hope to also understand what happens when it degrades and the electrical signal is disrupted, as happens in Multiple Sclerosis (MS).

“I’m starting to get really interested in whether or not those features of growth are impacted by your environment and conditions,” Dr Gonsalvez says.

“Any situation that you’re put in, any interaction you’re having with the environment, and any interaction you have with other people and anybody, will have an impact on your brain.”

Episode recorded: June 19, 2019.

Interviewer: Dr Andi Horvath.

Producer, audio engineer and editor: Chris Hatzis.

Co-production: Silvi Vann-Wall and Dr Andi Horvath.

Image: Getty Images.

Following his uncle's brain injury, Dr David Gonsalvez studied neuroscience and now researches the connections between brain cells and how they change in diseases like Multiple Sclerosis.

"The cells that I study make the insulating material myelin, that covers all of the wires in the brain," says Dr Gonsalvez.

Our 'wiring' is formed by axons, the long stalks that grow out of the brain's neurons and carry electrical signals to other neurons. Myelin is wrapped around axons to insulate the signals, just like wires in a house.

By studying the impact of the environment on myelin and how it forms, Dr Gonsalvez and his team hope to also understand what happens when it degrades and the electrical signal is disrupted, as happens in Multiple Sclerosis (MS).

"I'm starting to get really interested in whether or not those features of growth are impacted by your environment and conditions," Dr Gonsalvez says.

"Any situation that you're put in, any interaction you're having with the environment, and any interaction you have with other people and anybody, will have an impact on your brain."

Episode recorded: June 19, 2019.

Interviewer: Dr Andi Horvath.

Producer, audio engineer and editor: Chris Hatzis.

Co-production: Silvi Vann-Wall and Dr Andi Horvath.

Image: Getty Images.