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. 

Peter Raven’s industry was staggering. He did a massive survey of plants in China; he advised several US presidents and the Dalai Lama; he rescued the Missouri Botanical Garden from neglect, bringing it world renown. His former student, Peter Bernhardt, sings his praises — in the interests of encouraging young people to study the vital discipline of botany.

Australia is home to around 20,000 flowering plants. But when did the first flowers emerge? Vera Korasidis at the University of Melbourne is a palynologist — a palaeontologist specialising in pollen and spores. She analyses ancient pollen and says the oldest-known pollen has been dated to 125 million years. Pollen grains are coated with an extremely hardy compound allowing them to be preserved in rocks for millions of years.

Some of the most beautiful Australian native plants have spring-loaded traps that move faster than the blink of an eye. Jo Birch, curator of the University of Melbourne Herbarium, shows Belinda Smith examples of plants with extremely quick-moving parts that target insects, some snarling them with sticky goo and others with vacuum-powered traps.

Nematodes are microscopic worms. They are everywhere. Up to 40,000 species have been described. There may be as many as one million discrete species. Some live independently, others are parasitic. Some impact humans, penetrating broken skin and finding their way to the stomach. Infection can be asymptomatic. But it may bring gastrointestinal pain, malnourishment, cognitive impairment, or death for people who are immunosuppressed. Elissa Hallem is investigating infection pathways including their attraction to smelly feet!

The last days of winter are here and already you may be seeing flowers blooming around you. Why is that? How do flowers know when to bloom, and is it always around springtime?

Jonathan Webb digs into these questions with Dr Greg Moore to try and uncover the mechanisms behind flowering plants.

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.

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Featuring:

• Dr Greg Moore, The University of Melbourne

Further information:

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

The famous British comedian, naturalist, and TV host Bill Oddie known for his lifelong passion for birds died in July 2026. After rising to fame in the 1970s comedy trio The Goodies, Bill Oddie became Britain's best-loved birder, presenting popular wildlife shows such as Birding with Bill Oddie and Springwatch to educate millions about ornithology and conservation. We hear a short extract from Bill Oddie’s appearance on The Science Show in 1992.

How can a university spinout become a world leader in battery technology? Tom Maschmeyer is trying to get his quick-charging Gelion batteries manufactured, but pandemic and war have slowed investment and technology rollout.

In an MRI machine at Swinburne University in Melbourne's inner east, a unique dark matter detector has started looking for signs of the mysterious material that makes up 85% of matter in the Universe. So far, all physicists know about dark matter is it has mass, and it doesn't interact with light (hence being dark). So how do they look for something they know almost nothing about?

Famed mathematician Pythagoras — he of the right-angled triangle theorem — discovered mathematical principles which J. S. Bach used in his compositions. Violinist and artistic director of Bach Akademie Australia Madeleine Easton, and composer and conductor Christopher Bowen describe how mathematical principles form the basis of western musical harmony and how J. S. Bach used mathematics in his compositions.