Sunday Extra - Separate stories podcast

The winner of the Prime Minister's Prize for Science this year was Distinguished Professor Lidia Morawska from  the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at QUT. Lidia has done pioneering research into the air we breathe to safeguard public health and our environment, inlcuding during the COVID 19 pandemic. Now she wants to mandate air quality indoors.

Guest: Distinguished Professor Lidia Morawska, QUT and Director of the International Laboratory of Air Quality and Health

“A giant of the Labor Party and a remarkable Australian” - that’s how Prime Minister Anthony Albanese remembered former ALP powerbroker and federal Cabinet Minister Graham Richardson, who died at the age of 76.

On 9 November 1975, Australia’s Governor General, Sir John Kerr, rang the Chief Justice of the High Court, Sir Garfield Barwick, and asked him for a meeting to discuss his intention to dismiss Prime Minister Gough Whitlam.

This month it's the Shoemaker Frog. 

It’s one of the many frog species that gets its common name from the sound of its call - with the call reminiscent of a shoe-maker tapping nails into the sole of a shoe!

Thanks to the team at the Australian Museum's Frog Id project run by Dr Jodi Rowley

Kari Byron's time as a co-host on Mythbusters formed the core of her passion for science, but in the years since then she has turned that passion into a calling. She is now an advocate for fostering a love of STEM to younger generations, through her media company, EXPLR and the National STEM Festival which she founded and is expanding from the US to the rest of the world. 

Guest: Kari Byron, former co-host of Mythbusters, co-founder of EXPLR Media and director and founder of the US-based National STEM Festival.

A new mockumentary from Netflix, 1670, looks back on the absurdities of an obscure era of history - the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth, which lasted from 1569 to 1795. Central European history expert, Darius Von Guttner Sporzynski shares the nuances of the historical comedy, and the universal truths it satirises. 

Guest: Professor Darius von Güttner Sporzyński, Professor of History at Australian Catholic University 

It's being marketed as Sunlight On-Demand. American startup Reflect Orbital is proposing a 2026 launch date for it's test satellite, which will a carry giant mirror into orbit capable of reflecting the sun's rays back to earth. But astronomers aren't convinced that the plan can work, and they have many concerns as to the side effects of these giant satellites if they did. 

Guest: Michael Brown, Associate Professor of Astronomy at Monash University. 

The Five Eyes alliance involving Australia, the UK, US, Canada and New Zealand is an enduring and sophisticated intelligence-sharing agreement that has been critical to the security of its member nations since its birth following world war two. A proposal from the Lowy Institute would create a similar alliance in the Pacific involving Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and Fiji.

Parliamentary elections were held in Tanzania this week, but with the leaders of the two major opposition parties in jail or disqualified from running, the re-election of current President Samia Suluhu Hassan was inevitable. The Electoral Commission has announced the President won almost 98% of the vote. Protesters have taken to the streets demanding a new election. There are unconfirmed reports that hundreds of protesters have been killed in the violence.

Guest Nosmot Gbadamosi, Nosmot Gbadamosi is a multimedia journalist and writes the Africa Brief for the journal Foreign Policy. 

This week's mystery caller is a colourful summer migrant to Far North Queensland – the Buff-breasted Paradise-Kingfisher.