Chinese scientist Dr Jiankui He flouted the law and bioethics basics to create the world's first CRISPR gene edited babies. Now out of jail, he's back on Twitter recruiting patients and raising funds for more trials, this time in adults not embryos. A dangerous distraction or a cautionary lesson for the world's scientists?  Dr Joy Zhang has an extraordinary insider view after a recent encounter. Dr Katie Hasson is part of a global Coalition to Stop Designer Babies. They join Natasha Mitchell on Science Friction.

Science is political. So let's go straight to the heart of political power in Australia. 10 months into role, the Federal Minister for Industry and Science Ed Husic joins Natasha this week. From the muzzling of scientists to stemming the brain drain, from the corporatisation of CSIRO to connecting science to more people — will the state of play for Australian science change?

Self-proclaimed TikTok mystics, healers, wellness influencers are increasingly turning to quantum physics to give their claims credibility, with potentially dangerous consequences. How do you disentangle the woo from the wow in quantum physics? And can it be deadly?

Chemist Kim Kwan didn’t realise how much they needed to find their queer crew in science until they did.  Rami Mandow threw in a successful career in finance and business to find true love — astronomy.  They share frank, fearless stories about coming out as third culture kids and why bringing their whole selves to science - their queer self and their nerd self - has been transformative.

Australia is hosting the 2023 World Pride festival and queer botanists are celebrating by bringing their full selves to their science.Ryan O'Donnell is an accomplished opera singer and musical theatre performer turned botanist studying orchids and fungi.Botanist Hervé Sauquet is piecing together the evolutionary history of flowering plants – most of which are bisexual.  They're here, they're queer, they're fabulous and join Natasha to discuss why connecting the personal and the professional matters to science. 

From the nomadic world of the Sahara Desert to a fantasy wonderland inside a Melbourne industrial warehouse ... meteorites are a growing business and a controversial one. Are the secrets inside space rocks at risk of being lost to wealthy collectors in the West? And, the battle of the Arab world’s first — and first female — meteorite scientist to save her geological heritage.

A rock celebrity with a wild biography.  Saharan nomads, a weight-loss doctor feeding an unusual addiction, scientists seeking the origins of Everything. 'Black Beauty' has it all. The meteorite with a mighty story, with love from Mars.

Scientists Jonathan Napier and Cathie Martin remember when they needed armed guards and high fences to protect their genetic experiments. But the rules around genetically modified crops are rapidly changing. What could this mean for your dinner plate? (REPEAT)

A pair of twin girls is born in the late 1980s and their mother, Chris, is told a series of ‘facts’ about them.Each born with their own placenta, Chris is told it’s extremely unlikely that her twins are identical, but, if they were, they’d be a perfect DNA match. She’s also told that her daughters have a much higher likelihood as adults of conceiving twins themselves.These were the foundations of how Chris and her daughters understood their ‘twin-ness’ as they grew. But in recent years, new research has proven that none of these assertions is true.So what has science learned about twins in recent years and what are the mysteries that researchers are still trying to solve? And even if you’re not a twin, maybe you were at some point in your development? There could be a way to find out very soon.For RN Summer we're playing some our favourite programs from the past year. This program was first broadcast in February 2022.GuestsProfessor Jeff Craig@DrChromoProfessor in Epigenetics and Cell Biology at Deakin University School of MedicineDeputy Director, Twins Research AustraliaChris KulasElizabeth Kulas’s motherJennifer KulasElizabeth Kulas’s twin sisterHostElizabeth KulasScript editing by Joel Werner

Science journalist, biologist, podcaster, teacher and activist Dr Ilya Kolmanovsky is a superstar science communicator.He hosts one of the biggest Russian language podcasts. Bigger than podcasts on sex or politics.But he's no stranger to the brutality of Russia's political leadership.Now, with Putin's violent invasion of Ukraine and as a new Iron Curtain descends, Ilya and thousands of others inside Russia have just made the most wrenching decision of their lives.

For RN Summer we're playing some our favourite programs from the past year. This program was first broadcast in March 2022.Guest:Dr Ilya KolmanovskyScience journalist, biologist, podcaster, presenterFurther information:Goliy Zemlekop (Naked Mole-Rat) podcast

https://zemlekop.libsyn.com/websiteSound engineer: Matthew Sigley