It has been more than 30 years since astronomers found the first exoplanet — a planet outside the Solar System — and now researchers from Chile think they may have detected the first exomoon.

The Square Kilometre Array is so large it requires two countries: Australia and South Africa. The venture has a new boss, Australian Jessica Dempsey. The Australian part is in Western Australia and will eventually have 131,000 antennae pointing skyward yielding so much cosmic data its computers will be the most powerful ever.

These little spiders that live in the dark corner of your garage have a pretty crazy sex life. Researchers have known for a while that male redback spiders get eaten during sex — but not only that, they somersault themselves right onto the fangs of the female.

Considering the ultimate aim of this process is to create more spiders , this seems pretty counterintuitive. So it begs the question: why do they do it?

Jonathan Webb and Ellen Phiddian get caught up in the science of this act, discussing what researchers have uncovered in the genes of the redback spider and its relatives.

You can binge more episodes of the Lab Notes podcast with science editor and presenter Jonathan Webb 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:

• Ellen Phiddian, science reporter

Further information:

This episode of Lab Notes was produced on the lands of the Gadigal, Ngunnawal and Ngambri people.

Who was the man who stole hundreds of rare butterfly specimens from Australian museums 70 years ago? And why on earth did he do it? Peter Bernhardt reviews a book that teases out the strange tale.

Back at the time of Charles Darwin in the 1800s, a pair of artists in Sydney were producing incredibly detailed and lifelike illustrations of insects and plants, some of which are still used by scientists today. These talented artists were the Scott sisters, Harriet and Helena, who managed to break into the male-dominated world of botany all those years ago.

It was thought Homo habilis, the ancient tool-using "handy man", gave rise to Homo erectus, which gave us Neanderthals in Europe and Homo sapiens in Africa. But that lineage has been called into question, and recent fossil discoveries have shown that our current way of naming ancient humans may no longer be fit for use. So which of our ancestors should be included in the genus Homo?

Rapidly rushing rivers scour the land, washing huge amounts of soil and other material out to sea. Adam Rose at Central Queensland University is looking for ways to slow these massive torrents.

A monsoon over summer provided some reprieve for the heat-stressed Great Barrier Reef but this effect was short-lived. Jennifer Matthews at UTS is looking for ways to fortify the reef in the long-term, and she and her team are seeking to understand coral health and nutrition to enhance their survival, growth and reproduction.

Right now, a high-stakes mission is underway to save NASA's Swift telescope before it falls back to Earth.

There's just one problem… the rescue satellite has run into some issues. So who rescues the rescuer?

Jonathan Webb and Dr Sara Webb launch into this issue to see what scientists are doing to get this satellite back on track, and whether it can save Swift in time.

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

Editor's note: the day after this episode was published, Australian time, NASA announced that its plan to boost the Swift Observatory was being abandoned because of ongoing issues controlling the pointing of the LINK spacecraft. It will still test out "rendesvous and proximity operations" which might provide useful results for similar missions in the future, but will not attempt to grab and lift the telescope as planned.

Get in touch with us: [email protected]

Featuring:

• Dr Sara Webb, Swinburne University of Technology

This episode of Lab Notes was produced on the lands of the Gadigal, Ngunnawal and Ngambri people.

CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, is the world's biggest particle physics laboratory. Located near Geneva on the border of France and Switzerland, it uses massive particle accelerators such as the Large Hadron Collider to smash particles together near the speed of light revealing the composition of the universe. And now, the famous accelerator is being renewed to smash at even higher rates.

Shelby Traynor visits CERN and meets several Australian scientists there doing frontline work on atomic particles.