The Science Show

Step into the supermarket and there's plastic around just about everything, even mangoes — and not all that packaging will be properly disposed of.

So with around 20 million tonnes of plastic polluting the environment each year, not to mention the potential health effects of microplastics, is there a better, more environmentally friendly alternative?

You can binge more episodes of the Lab Notes podcast with science journalist and presenter Belinda Smith on the ABC Listen app (Australia). You'll find episodes on animal behaviour, human health, space exploration and so much more.

Get in touch with us: [email protected]

Featuring:

• Edward Attenborough, chemical engineer and chemist at Monash University

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This episode of Lab Notes was produced on the lands of the Wurundjeri and Taungurung people.

The International Astronautical Congress held in Sydney showed how space science is vital to our modern world.

Astrophotographers have had another great month, with the aurora australis lighting up night skies as far north as southern Queensland.

And while you might've heard that the best of this bunch of auroras is behind us, don't put your camera away just yet. There's good reason to think the southern lights will illuminate the sky well into 2026.

It all depends on what the Sun shoots in our direction … and we might find ourselves in the firing line more often over the next few months.

You can binge more episodes of the Lab Notes podcast with science journalist and presenter Belinda Smith on the ABC Listen app (Australia). You'll find episodes on animal behaviour, human health, space exploration and so much more.

Get in touch with us: [email protected]

Featuring:

Brett Carter, space weather researcher at RMIT University

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This episode of Lab Notes was produced on the lands of the Wurundjeri and Taungurung people.

University departments of geology and geophysics are getting smaller or closing. So how will we find new mineral deposits?

It looks like most of Australia is in for a warmer-than-usual summer this year.

That's according to the Bureau of Meteorology's long-range forecast, which was released in October.

So — without a crystal ball — how do meteorologists make weather predictions so far out, how accurate are they, and how is climate change affecting them?

You can binge more episodes of the Lab Notes podcast with science journalist and presenter Belinda Smith on the ABC Listen app (Australia). You'll find episodes on animal behaviour, human health, space exploration and so much more.

Get in touch with us: [email protected]

Featuring:

Karl Braganza, National Manager of Climate Services at the Bureau of Meteorology

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This episode of Lab Notes was produced on the lands of the Wurundjeri and Taungurung people.

In just 75 years the Earth’s average temperature is predicted to be close to 3 degrees above pre-industrial levels. We are in the fast lane to a different world, one that will not be friendly to the current range of plants and animals, including humans. The race is on to cool our overheating planet.

Thanks in part to 18th-century nuns, we now know that having children and breastfeeding reduces a mum's risk of developing breast cancer for years, even until her kid is well into primary school.

Now Australian scientists have discovered how breastfeeding specifically enlists the immune system to protect against an aggressive and hard-to-treat type of breast cancer.

You can binge more episodes of the Lab Notes podcast with science journalist and presenter Belinda Smith on the ABC Listen app (Australia). You'll find episodes on animal behaviour, human health, space exploration and so much more.

Get in touch with us: [email protected]

Featuring:

• Sherene Loi, medical oncologist at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre 

Extra information:

Parity and lactation induce T cell mediated breast cancer protection

Having children and breastfeeding reduces breast cancer risk by triggering immune system, study finds

This episode of Lab Notes was produced on the lands of the Wurundjeri and Menang Noongar people.

Robyn Williams reports from the 2025 Prime Minister's Prizes for Science ceremony in Parliament House Canberra.

It's mid-afternoon and time for a treat! Do you choose a healthy piece of fruit, or do you head straight for the chocolate? 

It turns out that well before we consciously decide what we're going to eat, our brain has already weighed up our choices — and in a fraction of a second. 

Now a new study shows which food attributes are processed by our brain faster than others, and how this might influence our dietary decisions. 

You can binge more episodes of the Lab Notes podcast with science journalist and presenter Belinda Smith on the ABC Listen app (Australia). You'll find episodes on animal behaviour, human health, space exploration and so much more.

Get in touch with us: [email protected]

Featuring:

• Violet Chae, PhD student at the University of Melbourne 

More information:

Characterising the neural time-courses of food attribute representations

This episode of Lab Notes was produced on the lands of the Wurundjeri and Menang Noongar people.

We’ve built a picture of the evolution of biodiversity based on a few accessible fossils. But the real story may be very different.