Sunday Extra - Separate stories podcast

The e-Safety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant on growing up in a single parent household, her connection to Ted Bundy, rejecting an offer from the CIA and implementing the world’s first social media band for children.

In August 2024, astrophysicists from Swinburne University sent vials full of the mycelium of edible mushrooms to the International Space Station. 

They made it there on board a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, and lived in space - where no mushroom has lived before - for a month, before returning to Earth, and finally to a frying pan in Melbourne, where they were cooked in a cheesy sauce.

Guest: Doctor Sara Webb, program lead and astrophysicist at Swinburne University.

A fascinating new study observing the effects of the psychedelic drug DMT - or dimethyltryptamine - on people who have already tried two other forms of treatment for depression has recorded “significant and lasting reductions” in depressive symptoms after a single dose.

This study, led by David Erritzoe from the Imperial College in London, shows the potential DMT could bring to the burgeoning psychedelic assisted therapy space. In 2023, The Therapeutic Goods Administration approved authorised psychiatrists to prescribe psilocybin for depression, and MDMA for PTSD. 

Guest: David Erritzoe, psychiatrist and neuroscientist at the Imperial College London, and the lead investigator of this study.

The legendary publisher and one half of McPhee Gribble has re-published her memoir Other People's Words with a new afterword.

The testing that identified the poison that killed Russian dissident Alexei Navalny was carried out at Porton Down, a British government chemical defence laboratory with a long and secretive history.

Geopolitical analyst and president of the Eurasia group, Ian Bremmer has a new avenue for explaining the big news in international politics: Muppets-style satirical YouTube videos.

A political debate has erupted in New Zealand over whether or not to retain special Maori electorates in the New Zealand parliament. 

Steven Scherer has written about his unexpected journey from career high to just trying to make ends meet and provide for his family in a touching essay in which he reflects on the nature of fragility and desperation. 

This week's tweeter has a soft, high-pitched call, and can be found around dense undergrowth in forest, scrub, heath and along creeklines. It's the Red-browed Finch, known to some as the Red-browed Firetail.

Dr Marianne Jauncey works with people many in society dismiss as “lost causes” — drug users in Kings Cross, in inner-city Sydney. But far from acting the martyr, she approaches her work and her clients with optimism, passion and genuine respect. She is the first to admit how much she has learned from the people who come through the doors of the Medically Supervised Injecting Centre each day.

Guest: Dr Marianne Jauncey, Medical Director at Uniting's Medically Supervised Injecting Centre (MSIC)