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Humans have had to deal with infectious diseases for centuries. Ancient Greeks and Egyptians suffered from smallpox, leprosy and tuberculosis. And when an outbreak occurs, it can be devastating.

Pandemics like the Black Plague, Spanish Flu and HIV have killed millions of people around the world.

While improved sanitation and a better understanding of how infections spread has helped halt some pandemics, we are never truly safe. Recent outbreaks of Ebola in Western Africa and the Zika virus in the Americas show how vulnerable we are.

William Isdale speaks with Melbourne University Professor and Nobel prize winner Peter Doherty about how infectious diseases start and spread, and what can be done by governments, health organisations and individuals to minimise the threat of a pandemic.

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William Isdale does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Tony Kevin first went to the Soviet Union in 1969. He was 25 years old and working in the Australian Embassy in Moscow at the peak of the Cold War. Embassy staff were told to be aware that every discussion was probably being recorded, and that they should avoid any interactions with locals.

Forty-eight years later he returned to Russia and found a very different country from the one he left. In his new book, Return to Moscow, Kevin describes the changes in Russian society since the fall of the Soviet Union and the rise of Vladimir Putin. The political and societal differences are stark.

William Isdale spoke to Kevin about his new book, his memories of living in Russia and why he thinks so much distrust and fear of the nation still exists in the West.

Tony Kevin’s Return to Moscow is out now from UWA Publishing.

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William Isdale does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

This is the first episode of a special Speaking With podcast series titled No Problem Too Big, where a panel of artists and researchers speculate on the end of the world as though it has already happened.

It’s not the world we grew up in. Not since artificial intelligence. The machines have taken control.

Three fearless researchers gather in the post-apocalyptic twilight: a computer scientist, a mechanical engineer and a sci-fi author.

Together, they consider the implications of military robots and autonomous everything, and discover that the most horrifying post-apocalyptic scenario might look something like unrequited robot love.

Joanne Anderton is an award-winning author of speculative fiction stories for anyone who likes their worlds a little different. More information about Joanne and her novels can be found here.

No Problem Too Big is created and hosted by Adam Hulbert, who lectures in media and sonic arts at the University of New South Wales. It is produced with the support of The Conversation and University of New South Wales.

Sound design by Adam Hulbert.

Theme music by Phonkubot.

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Beast/Decay/Mist by Haunted Me (via Free Music Archive)

Humming Ghost by Haunted Me (via Free Music Archive)

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Stephen Hawking interview, BBC News

Adam Hulbert is affiliated with The University of New South Wales

3D printing is fundamentally changing the way we make many objects – from construction materials to toys and even food.

And being able to 3D-scan the environment, even our own bodies, means that tools and prosthetics that were once mass-produced can now be custom-made for the people they’re designed to help, at a low cost.

What if one of the most essential items in the hospital of the future is a 3D printer?

William Isdale speaks with Queensland University of Technology’s Mia Woodruff about the work she and her team are doing to explore the use of 3D-printed bio-gels and scaffolds in healing cartilage and bone injuries, and looking to a future where biological functions for those currently on organ donor lists might be fulfilled by bio-compatible machines created in a lab.

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William Isdale does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Since the start of 2015, more than 230 people have died in France as the result of terror attacks.

The three major attacks – the shootings at the offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, the co-ordinated assaults on the night of November 13, 2015, (including the storming of the Bataclan Theatre), and the piloting of a truck down the Promenade des Anglais in Nice on Bastille Day 2016 – have left the French rattled and led to an increase in security across the country.

Colleen Murrell, senior journalism lecturer and researcher at Monash University, speaks with The Daily Beast’s Paris-based world news editor, Christopher Dickey, about what it’s like to live in and report on Paris in the wake of these attacks.

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Colleen Murrell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Every year tens of millions of Christmas Island red crabs migrate from the island’s dense forest to the cliffs to spawn. It’s a phenomenon that literally stops traffic and draws tourists from around the world to the tiny Australian territory.

But while there are still tens of millions of red crabs on the island, in recent years their numbers have dipped by around a third as they compete for space with (and struggle to fend off) a recently introduced pest: the yellow crazy ant.

The ants are having a significant impact on the island’s biodiversity, which relies on the red crab to maintain the forest understorey and keep the forest floor clean.

So what can be done to save Christmas Island’s biodiversity from yellow crazy ant supercolonies?

For the past few years a team of scientists have been hatching a plan to introduce a parasitical wasp to the island to cut the ant’s food supply. And in December they got the ball rolling on the delicate process of tipping the scales back in the crabs’ favour.

La Trobe University’s Matt Smith speaks with Peter Green, Head of the Department of Ecology, Environment and Evolution at La Trobe, about the impact of the yellow crazy ant and how his team’s plan to save the Christmas Island red crab is working in the first few months of its implementation.

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Peter Green receives funding from the Department of Environment and Energy.

Sydney’s iconic Sirius building was scheduled for demolition by the New South Wales government in 2015. The building – a prominent Australian example of brutalist architecture – contains 79 apartments for public housing tenants, and residents are furious that they are being moved on to make way for 250 luxury apartments at the gateway of the city.

But this isn’t the first time a NSW government has targeted the Millers Point and Rocks areas for redevelopment. When the Askin government proposed development of the area in the late 1960s, residents’ groups formed an alliance with the Builders Labourers Federation (BLF). Through a series of co-ordinated strikes (or “green bans”), they worked to guarantee affordable housing and community spaces for generations of working-class and union families.

Following in the BLF’s footsteps, the CFMEU and Unions NSW put a green ban on the Sirius site from September 2016.

Dallas Rogers speaks with Nicole Cook, lecturer at the University of Wollongong, about what we can learn from the alliance between residents and unions in the 1970s and the lasting impact the green bans had on planning policy.

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Dallas Rogers receives funding from the Community Broadcasting Foundation to produce short academic interviews for SoundMinds Radio (http://www.soundminds.com.au/author/dallas/). Segments of this interview were played on community radio in January 2017.

By now almost everyone has heard – or heard of – This American Life’s blockbuster podcast series Serial. The first series, originally published in 2014, covered the incarceration and possible wrongful conviction of Adnan Syed for the murder of schoolgirl Hae Min Lee in Baltimore. In June this year Syed was granted a new trial for the murder, based at least partially on the renewed scrutiny of the case by the Serial team.

So what does it take to make a podcast that has had over 243 million downloads over two series? What decisions have to be made about pacing, music, how to represent the real-life characters involved and the impact it will have on its subjects’ lives? And in a Trump-led post-truth world, what role can podcasting play to inform public conversations?

The University of Wollongong’s Dr Siobhan McHugh (who was recently a consulting producer on Fairfax’s successful Phoebe’s Fall podcast) talks to Julie Snyder, Serial’s Executive Producer and co-creator, about the process of making a serialised audio documentary and its impact on its listeners, creators and subjects.

Siobhan McHugh was consulting producer for the podcast Phoebe's Fall, from The Age newsroom, Melbourne, mentioned in the interview. She is the recipient of an Australian Research Council grant to make a radio documentary series about the relationships behind the production of Aboriginal art. She is the founding editor of RadioDoc Review, an online journal that critiques audio documentaries and podcasts (http://ro.uow.edu.au/rdr).