The Yarn

When we encounter unexpected information, our brains enter what psychologists call “the surprise sequence”. 

Whether positive or negative, the sequence begins with a state of heightened emotions and extreme curiosity. After this, our points of view shift to make sense of a new reality. Sometimes fundamentally. 

This week, we’re bringing you three stories about being humbled by new information and fresh perspectives. 

It’s the third episode of Dark Matters. A series about the fundamental essence of life and how so much of it remains a mystery to us.  

These stories were produced in collaboration with All the Best mentors for the Science Gallery’s new show — Dark Matters. The exhibition is open now and includes a listening station where you can hear work from our students.

This episode features stories by Timothy Evetts, Chung-Yun Hsu, and Filment Ho.

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Back in January, China’s education ministry made a snap decision. Effective immediately, online study at foreign universities was banned.  

Tens of thousands of students scrambled to secure visas and book flights to Australia in time for semester one. To make matters worse — their new home was in the midst of a rental crisis. 

This week, we’re bringing you two interviews about The Citizen’s coverage of Melbourne’s housing shortage. And how international students are especially vulnerable to rental exploitation. 

Featuring interviews with Gwen Liu and Hannah Vandenbogaerde.

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Blind spots are easy to see in others. It’s much harder to see our own. 

This discrepancy is called the blind spot bias, and psychologists believe almost all of us suffer from it. 

This week, we’re bringing you three stories about blind spots and misunderstandings. Stories about biases clouding our judgment and making us blind to nuance.  

It’s the second episode of Dark Matters. A series about the fundamental essence of life and how so much of it remains a mystery to us. 

These stories were produced in collaboration with All the Best mentors for the Science Gallery’s new show — Dark Matters. The exhibition is open now and includes a listening station where you can hear work from our students.   

This episode includes stories by Nuoxin Li, Laura Bishop, and Guangao Li.

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When we imagine great mysteries we think of distant galaxies or unexplorable ocean depths. But one of the greatest mysteries is a lot closer to home. It’s in our heads.

The human brain is the most complex data processor in the known universe. But we still have very little idea how our own consciousness actually works.

This week, we’re bringing you three stories that shed light on the intricacies of our minds.

It’s the first episode of Dark Matters. Our new series about the fundamental essence of life and how so much of it remains a mystery to us. 

These stories were produced in collaboration with All the Best mentors for the Science Gallery’s new show — Dark Matters. The exhibition is open now and includes a listening station where you can hear work from our students. 

Featuring stories by Valentina Boulter, Amelia Costigan, and Angelina Maroulis.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Today, we’re bringing you three student-produced stories about a topic close to home — The University of Melbourne itself. 

Stories about how global issues like the rise of AI are playing out on campus, as well as stories more specific to the university. 

It’s the third and final episode of Hyperlocal. A series about the big issues impacting small communities in Melbourne.  

Featuring stories by Yongxin Yu, Nuoxin Li. and Runren Zeng,

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Today, we’re bringing you three stories about the shortcomings of Melbourne’s roadways and how to fix them. Stories about the life-changing — and even life-saving — potentials of transport engineering.  

It’s the second episode of Hyperlocal, a series about the big issues impacting small communities in Melbourne.  

Featuring stories by Timothy Evetts, Bridget Collier, and Xiyan Wang.

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This week, we’re bringing you three stories about neighbours banding together — either to help each other out or unite against a mutual adversary. 

It’s the first episode of Hyperlocal, our new series about the big issues impacting small communities in Melbourne.  

Featuring stories by Filment Ho, Jerome Des Preaux, and Amelia Costigan.

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For the last seven years, producers from the podcast All the Best have mentored Melbourne University's audio journalism students.  

It’s part of an initiative that teaches emerging storytellers the ins and outs of audio production, culminating in a series of student-produced documentaries.

Today, we’re bringing you a collection of All the Best’s all-time favourite audio stories from these mentorships. They were recently included in an All the Best episode commemorating our seven-year relationship. 

Many thanks to producers Julia Bergin, Dilpreet Kaur, Wing Kuang, Chang He, and Inderpreet Kaur.

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Today, we're bringing you another episode of News Bites — a series of live interviews showcasing the work of local journalists.  

This week’s guest is Erik Jensen, the editor-in-chief of Schwartz Media. 

Erik’s career has been multipronged.  He began working as a music critic when he was only fifteen. After high school, he went on to join the Sydney Morning Herald and won a Walkley Award. 

Later, he became the founding editor of the Saturday Paper. Since 2018, he's also overseen the Monthly and Schwartz media’s podcasts like 7am — the most popular news podcast in Australia.  

On top of this, he’s released a poetry collection and written an award-winning biography of the artist Adam Cullen. The latter was adapted into the film Acute Misfortune, which is on Netflix. 

For News Bites, he spoke to Senior Lecturer Louisa Lim about podcasting, editorial decisions, and crucial skills for storytellers. 

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The Pacific island of Kiribati could be completely submerged by rising sea levels in just seventy years, but the nation is among the world’s lowest emitters of C02.  

Australia, on the other hand, is among the highest. In 2019, we emitted twenty-one times more C02 per capita than Kiribati.  

Today, we’re bringing you three stories about climate injustice — stories about the world’s richest countries accelerating climate change, and the developing countries paying the price.  

Reporting by Timothy Evetts, Nuoxin Li, and Jerome Des Preaux. 

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