Science Queeries

We’re over the Moon about science, cultural stories, and celebration!

Perhaps you caught the recent total lunar eclipse, or you’re looking forward to the next Full Moon, which is when we celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival.

Quoc Viet Tran, a volunteer for the Vietnamese Museum Australia, reminisces with Dr Cat about cultural stories of the Moon and the Vietnamese version of the festival: Tết Trung Thu.

They discuss the science of the Moon and share the light of Tết Trung Thu. From folklore to Full Moons, from lanterns to lunar lore, explore how science and culture can orbit together in harmony without eclipsing the other.

Originally aired 23rd September, 2025.

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The early Earth was quite different to the world we know of today. What creatures lurked in the oceans 500 million years ago?

Dr Cat describes the evolution of life on Earth from the very beginning. Then, palaeontologist Alyssa Fjeld comes onto the arthropod-cast to chat about ancient bugs that were around during the “Cambrian explosion”, when life got wilder and whackier. Dig deep into Earth’s ancient past with us.

Originally aired 16th September, 2025

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Want to be dam well-informed about floods and dams? How do we protect our homes and communities from disastrous floods? Why do insurance companies seem to know more about whether your house is at risk than you do?

Water engineer Erin Hughes helps us wade through the world of floods and dams. Erin is a Senior Surface Water Engineer at Hydrology and Risk Consulting. She has led many projects around Australia and the world to help predict floods and assess dam safety. Growing up in the Torres Strait, Erin was surrounded by water and saw first-hand the impact engineering could have on local communities when trying to manage water challenges. Her chat with Dr Cat will give you plenty to soak up!

Originally aired 9th September, 2025.

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Is all that talk of “quantum” in the movies legit?

Dr Cat asks Professor Nick Menicucci about what quantum is, how close we are to getting quantum tech in our pockets, and whether its representation in movies is accurate. They collapse this complex topic of conversation into one very enlightening state. From quantum myths to cosmic time-travel dreams, they measure up some big ideas without any uncertainty.

Prof Menicucci is a senior member of the QuRMIT group at RMIT University, and a Chief Investigator in the ARC Centre of Excellence for Quantum Computation and Communication Technology. He will entangle you with his wisdom.

This episode originally aired on 2nd September, 2025.

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No detail is spored in this episode with a really fun-gal. When we think of infectious diseases, we often think of bacterial infections like pneumonia and tuberculosis, or viral ones like flu and COVID. Fungi often don’t come to mind – yet collectively, fungal infections surpass any other infectious disease on the global death toll.

There’s still mush-room for discovery to develop new treatments to tackle ever-adapting fungi that never stop moulding to suit their changing environment. Dr Cat chats to Dr Jane Usher at the University of Exeter, who investigates fungi that can infect us to ensure that they can’t.

This episode originally aired 26th August, 2025.

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Bugs are more than just “creepy-crawlies” – they can be quite beetleful. Dr Cat chats to bugging entomologist Charlie Disher.

What niche pockets of beetle species exist in the sky islands of the Australian Alpine mountains? How did empty beer stubbies once pose a threat to the golden Jewel beetles (spoiler: they were super sexy stimuli)? What can we learn from insects to better understand the natural world? Dr Cat and Charlie dig through leaf litter, scale the Aussie Alps, and discover just how speci-tacular beetles can be!

Originally aired 19th August, 2025.

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Happy National Science Week! We’re celebrating the wild, weird, and wonderful side of Australian wildlife this Science Week with a national vote for Australia’s Most Underrated Native Animal.

Dr Cat chats to her friend and colleague, A/Prof Jen Martin. An ecologist-turned-science communicator at The University of Melbourne, Jen is the perfect person to introduce you to ten Aussie animal underdogs.

From the eel-lectrifying short-finned eel to the ink-redible giant cuttlefish, the dugong that’s truly sea-riously charming, and the mole-vellous marsupial mole – this week’s episode will give you a lot of animals to skink your teeth into. These quirky critters aren’t just hiding in the shadows – they’re bat-tling for your love.

This episode originally aired 12th August, 2025.

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This Science Queeries episode goes deep – over a kilometre down below an old gold mine in an underground physics laboratory. Dr Cat chats to Dr Theresa Fruth, an astroparticle physicist at The University of Sydney who is helping to make elusive, undetectable dark matter detectable. We can’t observe dark matter at all – yet it makes up most of the universe. It takes international collaborations and sterile laboratories way deep, deep down to give us hope of ever being able to directly detect it.

Originally aired 5th August, 2025.

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Celebrating World Hepatitis Day, we have an un-bile-liver-ably great episode of Science Queeries in store for you. The 2025 theme was “Hepatitis: Let’s Break It Down” – and that’s what Jon Kok and Dr Cat are going to do.

According to the World Health Organization, around 354 million people worldwide live with hepatitis B or C, and most of them have no access to services for testing and treatment. Even in Australia.

Jon Kok is a Workforce Development and Research Officer at LiverWELL and a host of JOY’s Hide and Seek. They break down the different kinds of hepatitis, who is most at risk, and treatment options. They and Dr Cat also chat about breaking down stigma and ongoing research towards a hepatitis B cure.

Originally aired 29th July, 2025.

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Pterosaurs once ruled the skies with flap-tastic flair. Palaeontologist Adele Pentland takes us into raptors (read: raptures), digging up the world of Australian pterosaurs. She and Dr Cat also discuss dino-diets, based on a recent news story on what an Australian sauropod (a diamantinasaurus) ate as its last meal.

Adele is a final-year PhD candidate in the Western Australian Organic and Isotope Geochemistry Centre at Curtin University, has named two pterosaur species, and is an absolute Superstar of STEM. From demon pelicans to iron dragons, we soar through time and discover that the skies of ancient Australia were anything but empty.

This episode originally aired 22nd July, 2025.

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