In 1943, Australian Attorney-General Doc Evatt sent UK Prime Minister Winston Churchill... a platypus. 

Why? For diplomacy, of course!

When it inevitably perished two days before arriving in Liverpool, our guest, in the Journal of Environment and History, wrote “Winston’s death cannot have come as a terrible surprise: he was travelling in the middle of the war, constantly under threat by German U-boats.5 He was also a platypus.”.

GUEST: Dr Harrison Croft, recently awarded a PHD from Monash University.

Dr Kate Marvel was named by Time Magazine one of 15 Women Leading the Fight Against Climate Change in 2019. She was described as someone who “cuts through misinformation about climate change with storytelling”.

She is a former cosmologist with a Ph.D. in theoretical physics from Cambridge University. Her professional focus now is modelling climate change.

Brisbane is about getting ready for the dance battle of the year, when Brisbane Festival hosts the 7th year of the sequin-infested, hairspray-recommended, tongue-in-cheek dance competition -The Common People Dance Eisteddfod. Creator of the event, Neridah Waters, shares how the Eisteddfod started and why she welcomes Rock Eisteddfod Rejects from all over Brisbane into the Common People community. 

Guest: Neridah Waters, co-founder of the Common People Dance Project and director of the Common People Dance Eisteddfod.

This week's mystery caller is found dry woodland across the south of Australia – the Yellow-plumed Honeyeater.

Experts say we’ve seen a mainstreaming of once-fringe conspiracy beliefs, fuelled in part by the pandemic and amplified by social media.

So what do they tell us about Australian society?

A hoard of treasure found in the lowlands of Scotland has re-written what historians know about the Viking-age in Britain. Containing silver and gold as well more usual items, from as far away as the West Asia, the highlights of the Galloway Hoard, and the story of their uncovering, are on display at the Museum of Melbourne.

Guest: Adrian Maldonaldo, Researcher of the Galloway Hoard at the National Museum of Scotland.

Flash drives for Freedom is a long-running initiative by the Human Rights Foundation which has smuggled 140,000 donated USB drives, SD cards and micro SD cards into North Korea, filled with information, entertainment and educational content to counter regime propaganda.

The 'Right to Hunt' is at the centre of a controversial new bill being debated in NSW parliament at the moment. Introduced by the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party, the bill seeks to, among other things, enshrine the rights of hunters into NSW legislation. Stephen Bendle joins us to discuss what the potential implications are of the amendment and what his organisations objections are to the bill. 

Guest: Stephen Bendle, Convenor of the Australian Gun Safety Alliance and a senior advisor for the Alannah and Madeline Foundation. 

The most common map of the world is one that was created in the 16th century known as the Mercator projection. Now the African Union has joined a campaign to update this map with a new one which much more accurately represents the size of Africa in the world. Does the size of the African continent represent a 400 year disinformation campaign?

Guest: Lerato Mogoathle, Head of Communications, Africa No Filter

Link to the Correct the Map Campaign