After a disaster, before reconstruction can begin, survivors invariably face a huge and often toxic problem: debris and in particular rubble. Mobile Crisis Construction is an Australian charity that has developed technology that uses rubble to quickly produce new building materials to repair damaged buildings.

In an age of distraction we are losing a surprisingly important skill - daydreaming. 

According to Professor Hannes Leroy, productive daydreaming is not only essential for innovation, but for problem-solving everyday issues and when we don't make space for it, we are losing the ability to find resolutions and solutions in our lives. 

Guest: Hannes Leroy, Director of the Erasmus Centre for Leadership, at the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University.

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.