Eavesdrop on Experts
123 episodes - English - Latest episode: almost 3 years ago -Overhear researchers talk about what they do and why they do it. Hear them obsess, confess and profess - changing the world one experiment, one paper and one interview at a time. Listen in as seasoned eavesdropper Chris Hatzis follows reporters Dr Andi Horvath and Steve Grimwade on their meetings with magnificent minds. Made possible by the University of Melbourne.
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Episodes
Getting involved
July 19, 2021 02:00 - 26 minutesThe COVID-19 pandemic has caused uncertainty and stress for so many university students. So how can universities support and reach out to students? And how do students build up their resilience? Professor Sarah Wilson is the Pro Vice-Chancellor Student Life at the University of Melbourne and an internationally recognised expert in cognitive neuroscience and clinical neuropsychology. She says a sense of belonging and connection is crucial for mental health and wellbeing. “We know that soci...
AI and humans: Collaboration rather than domination
July 07, 2021 02:00 - 27 minutesAs consumers and citizens we have very little say about how AI technologies are used, what control we have over their use and what is said about us, says Jeannie Paterson, Professor of Law and Co-director of the Centre for AI and Digital Ethics at the Melbourne Law School, University of Melbourne. “Technology has a lot of potential for improving people’s lives, in terms of including marginalised people or providing access and equity to people who are otherwise disadvantaged. In fact, I’m a te...
Eavesdrop on Ideas: Finding friendship in art and algorithms
June 30, 2021 02:00 - 31 minutesThe COVID era has reinforced the vital nature of friendship, community and connection - not just to other humans but also nature, algorithms, animals and art. As you'll hear in this episode, friendship also influences our health and humanity. Featuring: Rosie Braidotti - contemporary philosopher and feminist theoretician at Utrecht University Professor Nikos Papastergiadis - from the University of Melbourne Arts Faculty, author of ‘On Art and Friendship’ Dr Katie Greenaway - from University o...
How can we prevent Insect Armageddon?
June 23, 2021 02:00 - 20 minutesIt’s estimated that there are 5.5 million insect species on Earth, says Phil Batterham, Professor Emeritus at the School of BioSciences and the Bio21 Institute, University of Melbourne. “Those that are pests may number in hundreds, so it’s a minority of insects that cause damage in agriculture. “In fact, many insects are beneficial and really vital to us and to ecosystems.” Professor Batterham’s research looks at the interaction of chemical insecticides with pest insects and beneficial ones...
Eavesdrop on Ideas: Tipping points - is viral marketing a key to our planet's health?
June 16, 2021 02:00 - 25 minutes - 23 MBThe speed of climate decline is reaching an alarming tipping point. Now, we are calling on all social media influencers and creative artists: it's time to hold the big companies to account, and go viral... for Earth’s sake. In this episode, we explore how the art of viral marketing can influence science for good. This podcast was made possible by the University of Melbourne and the Centre of Visual Art. Thanks to our guests: Margaret Wertheim, Brent Coker, and Will Steffen. Your hosts we...
Eavesdrop on Ideas: Tipping points - is viral marketing a key to our planet’s health?
June 16, 2021 02:00 - 25 minutesThe speed of climate decline is reaching an alarming tipping point. Now, we are calling on all social media influencers and creative artists: it's time to hold the big companies to account, and go viral... for Earth’s sake. In this episode, we explore how the art of viral marketing can influence science for good. This podcast was made possible by the University of Melbourne and the Centre of Visual Art. Thanks to our guests: Margaret Wertheim, Brent Coker, and Will Steffen. Your hosts were Dr...
Is opera dead or can it redefine itself?
June 09, 2021 02:00 - 31 minutes“People have been worried about opera’s demise for about four centuries now,” says Dr Caitlin Vincent, Lecturer in Creative Industries at the School of Culture and Communication, University of Melbourne. “It’s a very old art form. We first saw western opera emerge in the 1600s in Italy and in the 21st century we’re coming across the issue that opera is really defined by its museum work - the greatest hits of the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries - that are still the mainstay of opera companies w...
Eavesdrop on Ideas: The Event Horizon - from imagined science to art museum
June 02, 2021 02:00 - 21 minutesEinstein theorised a point in the universe where time, space and gravity bend. Almost 100 years later, we took a photo... a photo of something we weren’t even sure was there. Now it hangs in an art gallery. Is it really art? Come with us to edges of the universe - and back again to New York. In astrophysics, an event horizon is a boundary beyond which events cannot affect an observer. This podcast was made possible by the University of Melbourne and the Centre of Visual Art. Thanks to our gue...
How to create Oscar-nominated visual effects
May 26, 2021 02:00 - 18 minutes“I don’t think many people watching films understand how much work and how many people actually go into creating [special] effects,” says Genevieve Camilleri, a visual effects artist, nominated in the 2021 Academy Awards for her work on the film Love and Monsters. “Basically there’s multiple departments, starting from somebody who ingests the film footage that they shot on set, and then the next artist creates a CG (computer-generated) camera to replicate the one on set. That’s passed to the ...
The other side of happiness
May 12, 2021 02:00 - 23 minutes“Happiness itself isn’t overrated. I think happiness is great and I like being happy as much as possible, but sometimes what we don’t realise is the psychology behind it,” says Brock Bastian, Professor in the School of Psychological Sciences at the University of Melbourne. “We know from psychology that the human mind often works in fairly ironic ways, so when you’ve focused on something too much, or try not to experience something, it actually produces the opposite. A good example is pink ele...
Mindfulness is everywhere, but what actually is it?
April 28, 2021 02:00 - 32 minutes“One of the biggest problems we face is people thinking ‘we’ll just throw mindfulness at them and it’ll fix the problem’ or at least it feels like it’s fixing the problem,” says Dr Nicholas Van Dam, Senior Lecturer at the School of Psychological Sciences at the University of Melbourne. “We’re increasingly seeing that [mindfulness] isn’t a silver bullet, it’s not a panacea. It won’t fix every problem for every person and it probably shouldn’t be for every child in every school. That kind of t...
Prevention and justice for sexual violence
April 14, 2021 02:00 - 33 minutes“There’s nothing inevitable about any form of sexual violence,” says University of Melbourne criminologist Professor Bianca Fileborn. Professor Fileborn researches the range of factors surrounding how sexual violence occurs – from gender, sexual orientation and identity, to societal attitudes, and the locations where it happens. But Professor Fileborn has a particular focus on the sexual violence occurring on the street and at music festivals. For her, a critical question is what can be done ...
The power of queer performance
March 31, 2021 01:00 - 27 minutesQueer performance is one space that queer identifying people will go to to be with their tribe, says Alyson Campbell, Associate Professor in Theatre (Directing and Dramaturgy) at the Faculty of Fine Arts and Music, University of Melbourne. “Theatre is a way of collectively thinking through the world. We’re actually in a space together and something is in front of us and we’re kind of working our way through it together. “It’s actually trying to work in different ways from normative theatre....
What does our constitution say about freedom of speech?
March 17, 2021 01:00 - 27 minutes“All democratic constitutions, including ours, contain some protection of freedom of speech. It’s a really central democratic value and so that’s not surprising,” says Adrienne Stone, Redmond Barry Distinguished Professor and Director of the Centre for Comparative Constitutional Studies at Melbourne Law School, University of Melbourne. “Understandings of freedom of speech have for a very long time been dominated by the law and theory of the first amendment to the constitution of the United S...
If our animals could speak
March 07, 2021 13:00 - 24 minutes“When I get an idea, it comes to me as a still image,” says Dr Laura Jean McKay, winner of the 2021 Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for her debut novel ‘The Animals In That Country.’ Dr McKay is now a lecturer in creative writing at Massey University in New Zealand, after completing her PhD at the University of Melbourne focusing on literary animal studies. “This novel took seven years to write, but that image is very, very clear and stays very, very true the whole way and it really keeps ...
The music of politics and protest
February 17, 2021 01:00 - 28 minutes“Everything surprises me about my research. Every time I dive into a new archive or pick up a set of newspapers, talk to a person who I’ve just met, I’m constantly being surprised." So says Dr Nick Tochka, Senior Lecturer in Music and Head of Musicology and Ethnomusicology at the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music at the University of Melbourne. Dr Tochka researches popular, traditional and art musics in Europe and the Americas, with a particular emphasis on the politics of music-making sinc...
The stuff of death and the death of stuff
February 03, 2021 01:00 - 27 minutes“One of the things I’m continually surprised about is just how creative and resilient people can be around death, dying and memorialisation,” says Dr Hannah Gould, ARC Research Fellow at the DeathTech Research Team, based at The University of Melbourne. “I think there’s a kind of belief that death is very taboo... but actually, we continually encounter a great degree of creativity in how people want to memorialise the dead, how people want to be remembered themselves and how they feel about t...
The politics of hacking
January 20, 2021 01:00 - 24 minutes“I tend to focus on communities of people and how they mobilise around and interpret technologies,” says Associate Professor Dunbar-Hester, from the School of Communication at the University of Southern California. Her writing and research centres on the politics of technology in culture, especially media and technology activism. “If we take a fairly conventional view that hacking has to do with computers, programming and hardware, the longer trajectory in North America and Europe was that ac...
What COVID has taught us about the wildlife trade
January 06, 2021 01:00 - 21 minutesMore epidemics like COVID-19 are inevitable unless we reassess our relationship with the natural world. That’s according to Gerry Ryan, a PhD student in the School of Biosciences, a conservation scientist working on Southeast Asian and Australian biodiversity and a board member for the Society for Conservation Biology Asia. He employs statistical, mathematical modelling to look at how we can improve making decisions for wildlife conservation, particularly as competition for space between peop...
Thank you for listening in 2020 - see you on January 6, 2021
December 23, 2020 01:00 - 3 minutes - 2.8 MBEavesdrop on Experts is on a short break over the holiday period, but we will be back with brand new episodes starting on Wednesday January 6, 2021. Thanks for all your support throughout 2020. We had great fun talking to all kinds of experts and researchers who liked to obsess, profess and confess… Thank you for listening in 2020 and we’ll catch up again on Wednesday January 6, 2021 for all new episodes of Eavesdrop on Experts.
Everything is Country
December 09, 2020 01:00 - 33 minutes"I see Country as the world around us, what we live in, but also ourselves," says Associate Professor Michael-Shawn Fletcher, descendant of the Wiradjuri, Director of Research Capability at the Indigenous Knowledge Institute and Assistant Dean (Indigenous) in the Faculty of Science at the University of Melbourne. “Country recognises the role and the obligations that people have in the world around them. It doesn’t abstract the world from ourselves, it actually embeds us within the world aroun...
The science of coughing
November 25, 2020 01:00 - 16 minutesDuring COVID-19, many of us have reacted a little more sensitively to seeing someone cough - but coughing is a very important human defensive reflex. A cough can help clear our respiratory system and keep our breathing unobstructed, and it actually accompanies more than 100 different conditions of the respiratory tract. But about 10 per cent of the population globally experience chronic coughing – a cough that lasts longer than eight weeks in the absence of a respiratory tract infection. For ...
What makes super-viral content so shareable?
November 11, 2020 01:00 - 26 minutesDr Brent Coker collects memes. A lecturer in the Department of Management and Marketing, Faculty of Business and Economics at the University of Melbourne, he says “I spend most of my time researching and reading and, of course, watching memes is one of my hobbies.” Dr Coker has always been fascinated by why certain things get shared more than others. “There is a lot of psychology that goes on in marketing nowadays. Quite often we rely on intrigue. But what is intrigue?” he asks. “In psycholog...
The algorithms of art
October 28, 2020 01:00 - 19 minutes"I’m a mathematician by training but lately, I’ve started to become very interested in how mathematics can help us trust algorithms," says Kate Smith-Miles, professor of Applied Mathematics and Chief Investigator with the ARC Centre of Mathematical and Statistical Frontiers. “Algorithms are everywhere, and how we can trust them is becoming a really pressing issue. The good news is that mathematics and statistics offer some really valuable tools for us to be able to develop this trust.” Profes...
The tiny world of peptides
October 14, 2020 01:00 - 22 minutes"As humans we tend to think in pictures, so using that approach you could think of peptides as segments of protein," says Dr Troy Attard, from the Melbourne Protein Characterisation platform at the Bio21 Institute at the University of Melbourne. “You can think of protein like a ball of twine, a long linear string that is all scrunched up into a ball or various shapes. If you took a pair of scissors and snipped little bits of a segment of that string, that would be your peptide,” Dr Attard say...
The brain benefits of music
September 30, 2020 02:00 - 28 minutes"The experience of music is really a whole-brain activity," says Professor Sarah Wilson, Head of the Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences at the University of Melbourne. “When we’re listening to music, what we see when we put people in the scanner is that large areas of their brain light up – both hemispheres. That’s because music involves many different networks or systems in the brain,” Professor Wilson says. "There’s all sorts of debate in the research literature as to why we are eve...
New targets for epilepsy treatment
September 16, 2020 02:00 - 16 minutesAssociate Professor Chris Reid was working as a hospital pharmacist when he saw a series of patients in a neurological ward who were not treatable. “I thought well I can only do so much as a pharmacist. I would like to actually do something at a more fundamental level,” says Associate Professor Reid, Principal Research Fellow, member of Faculty and Head of the Neurophysiology of Excitable Networks Laboratory at the Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health. “I’ve been very fortunate ...
The state of democracy, before and during COVID-19
September 02, 2020 02:00 - 29 minutes“We’re facing what has been called this global democratic recession,” says Associate Professor Tom Daly, Deputy Director of the Melbourne School of Government at the University of Melbourne and Associate Director of the Edinburgh Centre for Constitutional Law at the University of Edinburgh. “What we had for decades was – especially from the mid-1970s, was an overwhelming trend – it wasn’t the universal trend, but an overwhelming trend towards democracy becoming more widespread, globally,” he ...
Catching sight of dark matter
August 19, 2020 02:00 - 25 minutes"I would say we have millions of dark matter particles passing through our bodies every day, continuously," says Elisabetta Barberio, Professor of Physics at the University of Melbourne and the Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Dark Matter Particle Physics. “The dark matter particle gets its name because it doesn’t emit light. So, if you have a telescope, you cannot see it. But it does not only not emit light in the visible spectrum, it doesn’t emit any electromagnetic radiation, ...
Why are there so few drugs to treat viruses?
August 05, 2020 02:00 - 25 minutes“There just aren’t that many different ways we can think of to attack viruses.” This is according to Associate Professor Stuart Ralph, Acting Head of the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology in the School of Biomedical Sciences at the University of Melbourne. “We’ve got lots and lots of drugs for parasites and bacteria, which have lots of potentially susceptible targets, but in the case of viruses – there aren’t that many things that they actually do. “So we’re limited to a han...
Launching the SpIRIT satellite
July 22, 2020 02:00 - 28 minutes“If you think about the history of humanity, exploring new frontiers has always been a key driver of our pursuit for knowledge and I think it reflects intrinsic curiosity of us as a species,” says Associate Professor Michele Trenti from the University of Melbourne’s School of Physics. “Space today is the ultimate frontier for exploration... looking up at the night sky seeing stars, planets and wondering what is our place in the cosmos. “That’s the part that took me towards being today at th...
How better data on death can improve lives
July 08, 2020 02:00 - 21 minutes“You don’t know what health problems a population has unless you can measure them, and that’s what I try to do,” says Alan Lopez, Laureate Professor of Global Health at the Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, University of Melbourne. “If you’re going to improve a population’s health, then you need to know which are the leading causes of death, and particularly which ones are increasing so that you can match interventions to those health problems,” he says. Professor Lopez spec...
Towards faster treatment for major depressive disorder
June 24, 2020 02:00 - 21 minutesMajor depressive disorder is common and costly – one in seven Australians will experience depression in their lifetime. So understanding what’s going on in the brain and using that knowledge to identify new, faster-acting therapeutic strategies for treatment makes sense. “Our job is to record the electrical activity of nerve cells, the excitable cells in the brain, by way of eavesdropping on their function,” says Professor Scott Thompson, Professor and Chair of the Department of Physiology a...
What's behind COVID-19 conspiracy theories?
June 10, 2020 02:00 - 29 minutes“The work on conspiracy theories surprises me every day because I’m troubled by the general lack of trust in so many institutions – political and health institutions – that have been trusted for a long time,” says Dr Robin Canniford, Senior Lecturer in Management and Marketing in the Faculty of Business and Economics at the University of Melbourne. “As to why this is happening now, I would draw on the climate of fear that people are experiencing,” Dr Canniford says. “In addition to the fight...
Innovation during crisis
May 27, 2020 02:00 - 24 minutes“A lot of people think of an earthquake as a one-off example, but [the after shocks from the 2010-2012 Canterbury earthquake] went on for a year and a half,” says Mark Quigley, Associate Professor of Active Tectonics and Geomorphology in the School of Earth Sciences at the University of Melbourne. “At any time we could be sitting in our University or at home and just have this strong shaking come and just completely disrupt our world. Through all that, you had to try to keep your teaching cu...
Lessons for a future pandemic
May 20, 2020 02:00 - 34 minutes“I think it’s very likely we’ll get to good drugs even quicker than we’ll get to a good vaccine,” says Peter Doherty, Nobel Prize winner, University of Melbourne Laureate Professor, patron and namesake of the Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity. “What’s worked for HIV is what we call designer drugs,” Professor Doherty says. “Structural biologists design a chemical which will fit in to the really important part of that [virus] structure for binding to the cell, for instance. That wou...
The isolation of domestic violence
May 13, 2020 02:00 - 25 minutes“Isolation is bad for a lot of people,” says Cathy Humphreys, Professor of Social Work at the University of Melbourne. “It’s bad for people’s mental and physical health, it’s bad for domestic violence and child abuse,” she says. “But, of course, when you’ve got this extraordinarily virulent virus you don’t have too many choices [but to stay home to prevent its spread].” “In Western Australia for example, the most worrying aspect of the data we are seeing is a 30 per cent decline in the call...
The mental marathon of COVID-19
May 06, 2020 02:00 - 27 minutes“I think a unique thing about this COVID pandemic is it’s been a real triple whammy for a lot of people,” says Dr Grant Blashki who is a GP, Associate Professor at the Nossal Institute for Global Health, University of Melbourne and lead clinical advisor at Beyond Blue. “People are obviously worried about their health, not getting the infection. Secondly, many have lost jobs or are under a lot of financial pressure at the moment. “Thirdly, their home life has been drastically transformed. Fo...
The dynamics of disease
April 29, 2020 02:00 - 28 minutes“Our profession began with infectious diseases,” says Professor Tony Blakely. “So, if I break it down and say epidemic and -ology, which equals study, we are the study of epidemics – epidemiology,” he says. “My day job is to model the effect of interventions on the population’s health. “Sometimes I look in the rear vision mirror of the car and sometimes I look out the front window and I actually forecast the future, under business as usual. Then I layer an intervention over that, like a ta...
How have plagues and pandemics influenced the arts?
April 15, 2020 02:00 - 40 minutesOne of the things about literature is that it always responds immediately to what’s happening in the environment, says Associate Professor Justin Clemens from the School of Culture and Communication at the University of Melbourne. “People started writing responses to the plague immediately, but the most famous book is probably Boccaccio’s The Decameron, which was written after the plague in Florence of 1348,” says Professor Clemens. The Decameron is a group of stories united by the overarch...
Our flesh after fifty
April 01, 2020 01:00 - 28 minutesWARNING: EXPLICIT LANGUAGE. The inspiration for the exhibition Flesh after Fifty came about as a result of Professor Martha Hickey’s work in the menopause service. “Women facing menopause at an early age would often say ‘I’m going to be an old woman’,” explains the professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the University of Melbourne and Royal Women’s Hospital. “Those two words together were the worst thing in the world. Reflecting on myself and the women that I knew and the contribution of ...
Shaping the brain: Before, during and after birth
March 18, 2020 01:00 - 32 minutes“I challenge you, nothing is more fascinating, nothing is more puzzling than our brain,” says Professor Tracy Bale from the University of Maryland, Baltimore, USA and the Director of the Centre for Epigenetic Research in Child Health and Brain Development. Professor Bale studies epigenetics – biochemical marks on our DNA. “It doesn’t change the DNA sequence, we still inherit that from mum and dad. It is the environment’s way of allowing specific genes to be expressed or not expressed during g...
My Brilliant Career 2020
March 16, 2020 05:00 - 1 hourWelcome to a special episode of Eavesdrop on Experts where we encourage experts to obsess, confess and profess. On the 11th March 2020, producers Silvi Vann-Wall and Arch Cuthbertson attended the International Womens Day event called “My Brilliant Career”. It was held by the MDHS at the University of Melbourne. It features 6 female leaders in the field of child health, who speak about their career journeys, lessons learnt and advice to younger people. We can actively choose to challenge ste...
On the hunt for ancient reefs
March 04, 2020 01:00 - 19 minutesDr Ashleigh Hood’s career in geology started as a child. “When I was just a kid, my grandpa used to take me on walks. I’d find rocks and put them in people’s letterboxes, so that was the start of my love affair with geology,” says Dr Hood. She now searches the globe for ancient reefs, looking for ancient life forms and information about animal evolution. No longer in the oceans, these 500 million-year-old reefs are preserved high in mountains across Canada, Namibia and Australia. “Earth’s his...
Renewing democracy in a time of environmental crisis
February 19, 2020 01:00 - 25 minutes“I’ve always followed the issues that the Australian community are concerned about,” says social researcher Dr Rebecca Huntley. “There are high levels of concern in the community about climate change, regardless of how you measure them, but people have very low levels of expectation that our leaders not only can, but will, do anything about it,” she says. Dr Huntley says studies have revealed a common misconception in which people believe there are greater numbers of climate change deniers ...
The life you can save
February 05, 2020 01:00 - 38 minutesIn 2009, Professor Peter Singer wrote his book The Life You Can Save in order to highlight that our response to world poverty was not only insufficient, but ethically indefensible. In the tenth anniversary edition released in late 2019, Professor Singer examines the progress we have made since the book’s release and how the first edition transformed the lives of both readers and the people they helped. “I’ve argued that we can expand our circle of moral concern and that that’s an important th...
Decoding cancer cell communication
January 22, 2020 01:00 - 26 minutesTwenty years ago, Professor Elizabeth Vincan set out to understand how cancer cells ‘talk’ to each other and the cells around them. Her research group was among a number to realise that some cancer cells always ‘switched on’ specific genes that function in an ancient form of cell-to-cell communication. And the idea was that if you could find out what these genes did, and block them, it could provide a new way to treat cancer. “At that time I was a young post doc mum and working where I was ...
Being bold in medical research
January 08, 2020 01:00 - 29 minutesLupus isn’t well known, but the currently incurable autoimmune disease often marked by a ‘butterfly’ rash on the face, is highly prevalent, affecting five million people globally. Treatments are few and far between and few researchers are focused on it. But award winning medical researcher Professor Fabienne Mackay has concentrated much of her career on tackling lupus, and in 2011 her genetic research work led to the approval of the first new treatment for the disease in more than 50 years. ...
Eavesdrop on Experts on holiday 2019 - 2020
December 25, 2019 01:00 - 2 minutes - 2.22 MBEavesdrop on Experts is on a short break over the holiday period, but we will be back with new episodes starting on Wednesday January 8, 2020. Thanks for all your support throughout 2019. We had great fun talking to experts and researchers who liked to obsess, profess and confess… Thank you for listening and we’ll catch up again on January 8, 2020 for all new episodes of Eavesdrop on Experts.
What will it be like for teenagers of the future?
December 11, 2019 01:00 - 24 minutesThe teenage brain is very interesting. According to Dr Katherine Canobi, author and cognitive developmental psychologist at the Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences, it’s a time when young people are starting to work out who they are, as well as looking to form meaningful and authentic relationships. “During this stage, their brains are still developing in various ways, for example executive function like decision making isn’t fully developed yet and neither is impulse control.” Comb...