Brains Matter

In this episode, I talk to Dr Paul Francis from the Australian National University in Canberra on the topic of comets. – What are comets? – Where do they come from? – How big are comets in general? – What are they made of? – How big can comets be? – What would happen to […]

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I talk to Dr Rosemary Mardling, an astrophysicist from Monash University on the topic of extra-solar planets. Topics we cover include: – What is an extra solar planet? – How do we find extra solar planets? – How do we estimate the size and form of these extra solar planets? – How do we explain […]

We’ve all wondered about the creation of the universe – from the big bang onwards. What next? Is the galaxy going to slow down from the big bang? Will there be multiple big bangs and big crunches? The reality of the matter is astounding. In 1994, Dr Brian Schmidt, along with some colleagues from around […]

I talk to Dr Amanda Barnard, an expert in nanoscience, from the CSIRO on nanotechnology. We discuss: – What are nanoparticles? – What are nanorods? – What properties of a substance make it a useful nanoparticle? – What makes nanoparticles useful? – What do you need to know to understand nanotechnology? – What are some […]

I talk to Dr Daniel Price, Monash Fellow from the School of Mathematics at Monash University in Melbourne Australia, about how stars form. We discuss: – Star formation – What constitutes a star? – The first stars in the universe – Current star formation – For a given gas cloud, how many stars typically form? […]

Chemistry, biology, physics, climate change – the list of science topics are too numerous for me to mention them all here. And each subject has someone singing about it in some fashion. That’s right – the episode that a lot of you have been waiting for – the show on science songs. Marc West, from […]

In this episode, which is the final of a 2 part interview, I talk once again with Professor Roger Short, from the University of Melbourne on further topics regarding Asian elephants, and on saving them. – elephant accents – what happens when you play Asian elephant vocalisations to captive African elephants? Some surprising results! – […]

In astronomical news recently – it was announced that the Milky Way has two less arms than originally thought. How? Why? And what’s a galaxy to start with? To answer these questions, I talk to Dr Pamela Gay, an astronomer from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, who tells us all why this is so. Also featured […]

In this episode I talk to Dr Todd Lane about something all air travellers are interested in – turbulence. What causes it, and what is our current understanding of the phenomena. Download MP3 of Ep52 Please vote for this podcast this month at You can donate by clicking on the button above, and subscribe by […]