The Cosmos Podcast

In a few days the Aussie Backyard Bird Count begins. It’s an annual activity for all ages and involves observing and counting the birds that live near you – whether that’s in a garden, the local park, or even a town centre. By capturing the participants observations within a 20-minute period, BirdLife Australia develops an understanding of local birds, and you get to know the local wildlife better!

To answer all the questions, Royal Institution Of Australia Editor-in-Chief Ian Connellan talks Sean Dooley, the National Public Affairs Manager for Birdlife Australia, and a noted author. His first book was 2005's The Big Twitch, the story of his attempt to break the Australian record for the number of birds seen in Australia in a single year.

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In 2022, the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) Telescope in the Western Australian outback will embark on a massive project to map the southern skies in radio waves. This survey, the Evolutionary Map of the Universe (EMU), will help us understand how the first stars and galaxies formed, and how they evolved into what we see today. The project involves over 400 researchers from around the world, and it’s being led by Australian astronomers. Cosmos journalist Lauren Fuge spoke to Dr Michael Cowley, an astrophysicist from the Queensland University of Technology, who leads the Red Shift working group, to get the lowdown on this exciting project. 

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Special 10% discount on Cosmos magazine print subscriptions (1 or 2 year), or 1 year Cosmos Weekly subscriptions for Cosmos Briefing podcast listeners!  Use coupon code COSMOSPOD in our shop.

Today we present the Nature of Politics session from the Nature Festival held in Adelaide between the 25th of September and the 4th of October this year. These days, everything feels like a partisan issue, be it immigration, national security, renewable energy or even lockdowns. More and more decision making seems to feel like a political football, even if it doesn't make sense. Despite its history, a basic concern for the environment seems to have been caught in this trend and in recent years, just labelling yourself an “environmentalist” has been seen as a polarizing thing to do.

We hear from James Bradley OAM, celebrated Australian writer and author of Clade; Michelle Grady, Australian Director of The Pew Charitable Trusts; Craig Wilkins, CEO of South Australia's peak environment organisation Conservation SA

And Natasha Davis, Chair of the South Australian Nature Alliance and CEO of Trees For Life (SA). This event is hosted by journalist Tory Shepherd.

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Where you live affects your health. Every day we walk through cities without considering how they’re designed and how they assist – or delay – our ability to live well. As the climate warms, cities are heating up too – and without interventions, this could make them more deadly. But we can now collect data on this at unprecedented levels, which can help us to change cities for the better.

To help us address these issues, we are joined by Jason Byrne, Professor of Human Geography and Planning at The University of Tasmania, and a researcher of urban political ecologies of green-space, climate change adaptation, and environmental justice; and Professor Billie Giles-Corti, Director of the Healthy Liveable Cities Lab at RMIT University. She has researched the impact of the built environment on health and wellbeing for over two decades. Today’s interview is hosted by Cosmos journalist Lauren Fuge.

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Global semiconductor industry sales top $400 billion; China has called chip independence a top national priority in its latest five-year plan; and U.S. President Joe Biden has vowed to build a secure American supply chain by reviving domestic manufacturing. Even the European Union is mulling measures to make its own chips.

Given our increasing dependence on semi-conductors in everything from cars and ATMS to phones and household appliances, what can Australia do to guarantee supply? Today we talk to Mike Nicholls, an entrepreneur, inventor and technologist, and a fund expert at helping start-ups generate their early customer leads, and opportunities; and Monash University’s Professor Michael Fuhrer, the director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Future Low-Energy Electronics Technologies (FLEET), and a researcher in novel two-dimensional materials, semiconductors, metals, and superconductors about Australia’s opportunities – and threats – within the industry. Today’s interviews are hosted by Cosmos journalist Ellen Phiddian.

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South Australian-based company Micro-X has recently won $8 million in funding to further develop their small, portable CT scanner, which they aim to fit on an ambulance or in a plane. It’s a device that can mean the difference between life and death in patients having a stroke. The technology they use to enable a CT scanner to be produced that weighs just 30kg, instead of the normal three-quarters of a tonne, can be applied across many forms of x-ray from medical to airport security to military bomb squads, as managing director Peter Rowland explains in today’s interview hosted by Ellen Phiddian.

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Today we have an incredibly special podcast for you. We speak to two amazing women about the effect Taliban rule will have on education, especially for women and girls, in Afghanistan. 

Farkhondeh Akbari, originally from Daikundi province in central Afghanistan.  Akbari was born in 1991 in Afghanistan and migrated with her family to Australia when she was 12 years old. She has visited friends and relatives in Afghanistan throughout her life, most recently in 2019. She joins us today from Canberra, where she’s completing a PhD in diplomacy and peace settlements at the ANU. 

Pashtana Durrani is a teacher, and founder and executive director of LEARN, an Afghani not-for-profit whose main focus is providing quality education to all children, especially girls, in Afghanistan. Pashtana has remained in Afghanistan since the Taliban’s return to power.

Ian Connellan, The Royal Institution of Australia’s Editor-in-Chief, conducts the interviews, and Cosmos journalist Lauren Fuge narrates this amazing story.

If you’d like to know more about the challenges to education in Afghanistan please follow LEARN on social media:
Twitter: twitter.com/LEARNAfg
Facebook: facebook.com/LEARNAfg
Instagram: Instagram.com/learn.afg

Connect with Farkhondeh Akbari on Twitter
Go to Organisation for Developing Solutions (ADS) to learn about the education-focussed peacebuilding and development NGO that Farkhondeh co-founded.

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Today we are joined by Elizabeth Finkel, a multi award-winning science journalist, author, biochemist, and the co-founder of Cosmos magazine. She's recently written a letter and a series of articles on cosmosmagazine.com that delve deep into the science behind the COVID-19 vaccines, speaking specifically to people who are hesitant about getting a job. It is a true COVID toolkit, and it’s fascinating to hear her talk through the challenges she faced in explaining the science. Today’s interview is hosted by Cosmos journalist Lauren Fuge.

The COVID Toolkit stories can be read by clicking on the links below:
A letter to my vaccine-hesitant friends
What we know about Ivermectin: correlation is not causation
Adverse reactions: Guillain Barre, TTS and the fine mesh net
The rollout: The danger of vaccines vs the danger of COVID
Are COVID-19 vaccines experimental?

Find the science of everything at the Cosmos Magazine website 

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Australia may seem like an isolated country, but it is part of a wider ecosystem in the Asia-Pacific – especially when it comes to food. As food scarcity threatens, is food security a problem we need to tackle as a collective? What is Australia’s role in achieving food security in the Asia-Pacific region? We talk to Professor Andrew Campbell, CEO of the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research, and

Mr. Sridhar Dharmapuri, Senior Food Safety and Nutrition Officer for the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in the Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific in Bangkok, to get some answers. Today’s interview is hosted by Cosmos journalist Dr Deborah Devis.

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Frogs have been vanishing in large numbers along the east coast of Australia since June, and we're not entirely sure why. They've been turning up sick and dying, with some populations disappearing within a week or two. We spoke with Dr. Jody Rowley, the amphibian and reptile curator at the Australian Museum to find out what's happening. Today’s interview is hosted by Cosmos journalist Lauren Fuge.

Find the science of everything at the Cosmos Magazine website 

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