Science Queeries

Dr Cat is joined by two incredibly cool ecologists who she had the pleasure of travelling around Argentina and Antarctica with: Georgia Watson and Jess Leck. Georgia is the Project Coordinator at iAccelerate, where she empowers women with backgrounds in STEM to become entrepreneurs. Jess is a marine ecologist who works with the OceanEarth Foundation, working with communities to increase their capacity to build and contribute to sustainable ecosystems and communities. The three reunite after returning to Australia and have a pretty chill conversation about their un-brr-lievable Antarctic adventure, featuring orca, the two flowering plants of Antarctica, and icebergs.

This episode originally aired 25th February, 2025.

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Sometimes we just wing things. Dr Cat is buzzing with excitement to talk to Zofia Witkowski-Blake about the lives of different bugs. If you’re looking for a swarm of new knowledge, look no further. From the metamorphosis of butterflies to the industrious nature of bees, there’s a whole hive of activity in the insect world.

Originally aired 18th February, 2025.

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It’s coming up to Valentine’s Day, and Dr Cat falls head over heels with the science of love. She tests out the “36 questions that lead to love” with science educator Mia Sharman, and tried to understand what goes on in the brain when we get warm and fuzzy feelings for people – especially with the help of our fuzzy, furry friends, prarie voles.

This episode originally aired 11th February, 2025.

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Need some science to sink your teeth into? Dr Cat drills dentist Dr Jenny Liu with questions about our oral health. From tackling cavities to the microbes that happily live in your mouth, they really get to the root of dentistry.

This episode originally aired February 4th, 2025.

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It’s a culture-packed episode of Science Queeries – bacterial cultures that is. Dr Cat chats to microbiologist Maddie Wemyss about the sneaky ways salmonella and E.coli bacteria germ-inate illness and evade our immune systems. These microbes are no small matter, but Dr Cat and Maddie’s enthusiasm for them is certainly infectious.

This episode originally aired 28th January, 2025.

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Science and tennis? A perfect match. To celebrate the Australian Open, Science Queeries crosses-over with Hit Me Up. Demetra Giannakopoulos serves up the maths behind working out players’ rankings and who will play who in a tournament, and chats about whether AI will take over humans when it comes to judging and coaching tennis. Dr Cat also investigates the physics of nailing an ace spin.

This episode originally aired on 21st January, 2025.

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Dr Cat has a ribbiting conversation with Clarisse Sawyer about a pandemic that is decimating the amphibian world: chytrid fungus. Synthetic biology could be the solution – and she is researching ways to use alpacas to al-pack-a punch in the fight against this fungal infection. They also discuss how gene drives (a way of spreading manipulated versions of genes through an animal population) can tackle public health and other conservation challenges…and who should have a say in the use and control of this technology.

This episode originally aired 7th January, 2025.

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As Dr Cat counts down to midnight on New Year’s Eve, she breaks down the science behind fireworks, sparklers, and glow sticks. It is science that may SPARK joy or GLOW your mind. She’s also thinking about making New Year’s resolutions, and if you’re the kind of person to make them too, she talks about why they can be a good thing psychologically and how to make the most of it. Happy New Year from Science Queeries!

This episode originally aired 31st December, 2024.

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It’s Christmas Eve, 2024. Dr Cat explains how Father Christmas makes his way to all 396,000,000 households he visits around the world in just 30 hours. We also learn about his somewhat old-fashioned, yet extremely reliable motive power; Reindeer!

This episode originally aired on 24th December, 2024.

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Dr Jarrod “man-splains” menstruation to Dr Cat. Reproductive biologist, turned zookeeper, turned science communicator, Dr Jarrod knows a lot about animals. Together, they discuss reproduction and menstruation in the animal kingdom, the first ever witnessed whale sex (which was gay sex!), and other egg-cellent strategies nature ovary-achieves to ensures the next generation survives.

This episode originally aired 17th December, 2024.

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