The Science Show - Separate stories podcast

Tools such as adzes have been found in the thousands in Samoa, each crafted from volcanic basalt. But without harder materials to shape these cutting tools, the question remains: how were they made?

Pages made of goat skin, bright blue inks of powdered precious stones, the occasional bubonic plague flea — we hear about some of the marvels found in books made centuries ago.

In the three years since the James Webb Space Telescope sent back its first images, it's pulled back the veil on a whole bunch of mind-blowing cosmic phenomena. So how has this $13 billion bit of kit shaped what we know about the Universe — and what is yet to come?

The humble crisp has come a long way since its invention more than 200 years ago.You can get them in flavours such as bolognese, cheeseburger and beef rendang … which taste uncannily like bolognese, cheeseburger, and beef rendang.So how are these complex flavours made, and how do food chemists get them tasting so close to the real deal?

Nearly two decades ago, a small group of scientists in Australia came surprisingly close to resurrecting the extinct gastric brooding frog. Hear from the scientists involved about the highs and lows of de-extinction efforts, and the challenges facing researchers today.

Since President Donald Trump retook office, the state of research in the States has been precarious for many, with billions of dollars of proposed cuts from science and health research.But there is a silver lining: other countries such as Australia are implementing programs to recruit US researchers looking to relocate.

We often hear about places where the air quality is bad, even dangerous, but what about where the air is the cleanest on Earth?That air can be found blowing onto the north-west tip of Tasmania at Kennaook/Cape Grim, where an air pollution station has quietly been keeping track of how humans have changed the makeup of our atmosphere for 50 years.So what does the world's cleanest air tell us?

A weekly injection that stops that hankering for hot chips and donuts?Many people on Ozempic and similar medications report this phenomenon, saying they no longer have incessant thoughts about sweets and fried food.So how do these drugs, known as GLP-1 agonists, work in the brain to dial down "food noise" and help people lose weight?

It's the size of a sesame seed, but it could cause unfathomable destruction to Australia's forests and urban canopy.A beetle called the polyphagous shot-hole borer (Euwallacea fornicatus) is silently spreading through Perth and its surrounds, forcing councils to chop and chip hundreds of trees — even century-old Moreton Bay figs.So how does the tiny pest cause such massive problems?

First they learnt how to flip open wheelie bin lids. Now they're using water fountains.Masters of the urban landscape, sulphur-crested cockatoos (Cacatua galerita) are more than capable of some quirky (and sometimes messy) antics.So what do these entertaining exploits tell us about cockie innovation — or even cockie culture?

Pauline Newman meets biosecurity officer Brent Madden who explains how a dog’s obsession with tennis balls is used to elicit a desired behaviour.

Challenging ideas such as whether plants communicate and planting according to cycles of the moon - a healthy scepticism presented with hope and vision.

Professor Marilyn Renfree describes the genius and spirit of her late husband reproductive biologist Roger Short.

Get ready for gravitons, dark photons and altered transition states. Kathryn Zurek takes us on a tour of a bewildering world, our world, with us knowing so much, while at the same time, knowing so little.

A couple of months ago, a killer started mobilising off the South Australian shore — one that would wipe out marine life, make surfers feel sick, and smother picturesque beaches in thick foam.The culprit? A bloom of tiny organisms called microalgae. We can't see them with the naked eye, but in big enough numbers, they can devastate ecosystems.So what made the South Australian algal bloom so lethal, and can anything be done about blooms like it?

Len Fisher tackles accusations that some scientific papers and some science books contain misinformation. How well are they checked? Are academics too busy or too few to monitor the work of others?

In her book Beyond Green, Geographer Lesley Head argues that Indigenous presence in wilderness in Australia has existed in a balanced way. And Robyn is taken on a walking tour of the highlands around the Shoalhaven River in NSW by two Indigenous guides.

If you were impressed by generative AI such as ChatGPT, then artificial general intelligence or AGI promises to really knock your socks off.Over the past couple of decades, tech companies have been racing to build AGI systems that can match or surpass human capabilities across a whole bunch of tasks.So will AGI save the world — or will it spell the beginning of the end for humanity?

The next time you pick up a bag of spuds from the supermarket or fill up the car with petrol, you can thank the Treaty of the Metre for the metric system that underpins daily life.The treaty was signed exactly 150 years ago, when delegates from 17 countries gathered on a Parisian spring day to establish a new and standardised way of measuring the world around us.But the metre's inception predates the treaty that bears its name by nearly 100 years. So how did it come about, and how has its definition changed over the centuries?

It can come, not only from the indulgent use of drugs, but also from the exchange of genes within our own guts.

Claire Saxby shows how the restless Earth can have fissures in its crust leading to huge explosions from deep in the sea, forming islands such as Hawaii whilst allowing thousands of living things to flourish under water.

Long-term stress may have consequences. These are being studies in marmots and humans.

The diapause, the suspension and then triggering of foetal development, has allowed Australian marsupials to battle the extreme environment with remarkable success.

A group of amateur fossil hunters in Victoria has uncovered fossilised tracks left in a slab of mud, which have been dated as 35-40 million years older than the previously oldest known evidence of an early reptile.

Southern right whales (Eubalaena australis) were named by whalers because their high oil content made them the "right" ones to kill.In the decades since whaling was banned, southern right numbers increased — but a new study shows that population growth stalled, and might've dropped a bit, despite current numbers still far below what they were in pre-whaling times.So what's going on with the southern rights?

David Walker of UCLA has studied aging for 30 years and thinks he now knows how it happens and, at least in fruit flies, how to reverse it.

Jonathan Davis, Zofia Witkovsky-Blake and Jessie French discuss their lives as tertiary students combining their interests spanning science and the arts.

Australia’s eminent immunologist Gus Nossal is 94 and ailing but as enthusiastic as ever for the prospects for research.

Cobras, taipans, black mambas — Tim Friede's been intentionally bitten more than 200 times by some of the most venomous snakes on Earth.And he survived, mostly because years of self-injecting venom let him develop immunity to them.(Please do not try this yourself!)Now his blood's been used to make a broad-spectrum antivenom that researchers say may protect against nearly 20 deadly snakes.But this is not how antivenom is usually made. So how are snake antivenoms produced, and where are we with a "universal" version?

David Attenborough describes one of his favourite birds, Birds-of-paradise with their golden crests.

Dung beetles were introduced to Australia to clean up after cattle. Rhiân Williams describes the lives and work of dung beetles in her book for younger readers, One Little Dung Beetle.

Cockatoo Island in Sydney Harbour has a rich Indigenous history, the one-time industrial site is now a nature reserve and function centre.

Mansi Kasliwal studies the moments when stars merge and produce heavy elements. The light from the massive explosions reveals which elements are produced.

Hate getting needles? You're in good company — one in five people in Australia have needle fear.

Len Fisher has created a computer program to analyse strange beliefs in order to test them and find out where they come from.

Robyn meets resident Mark Bruce who describes the impact of the 2019 bushfires, and Rob Brookman who hopes to establish an art museum on the island.

AI can be tailored to an individual and the individual’s progress. It provides one on one assistance.

Palaeontologist John Long takes us on a journey covering the unparalleled reign of sharks, describing their evolution at the top of the food chain in environments that changed little, and only slowly… until now.

Somewhere out past Mars in the early hours of Easter Monday, a space probe called Lucy whizzed by an asteroid named Donaldjohanson.Lucy then sent back images showing Donaldjohanson is about five kilometres wide and shaped like a peanut.It's one of a handful of asteroids on Lucy's 12-year itinerary.So what does the billion-dollar mission hope to achieve?

Professor Pietro Perona describes his work on machine recognition of plants, animals and birdsong.

Mike Archer explains how palaeontology helps us form a picture of the past, of what happened when, and so helps us see more clearly the path we are on and what is likely to happen.

While the outlook for coral is poor, feeding them vital nutrients might buy time on a warming planet.

Euan Ritchie says science is barely visible in campaigning for Australia’s federal election.

Gout Gout is fast becoming the face of Australian athletics, regularly clocking blisteringly quick times over 100- and 200-metre sprints.And he's only 17. Many think the best is yet to come.So what is it about Gout that makes him such an impressive sprinter at such a young age?

Jared Diamond responds to critics and tells of a CEO’s response to his children’s environmental concerns.

Satellite imagery may be suggesting a new large underground fossil deposit in Queensland.

Tom Levenson shows how a nation’s dosh differs from coin that appears from other sources, and why you should care.

Cynthia Turnbull has tracked the ways in which immunity to disease can vary between people, even within a family and has revealed some of the basis for this variation.

We've been hearing a lot about a certain proposal to get nuclear power up and running in Australia, but little's been said about what happens when plants reach the end of their life.Decommissioning a single nuclear power plant can cost hundreds of millions of dollars and take decades.So what's involved, and why is the process so long and expensive?

The Microbe by Hilaire Belloc is read by Sophie Newby.