Talking STEM
26 episodes - English - Latest episode: over 1 year ago -Interviews with science communicators across Australia.
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STEM OUTREACH - Where are we failing?
April 02, 2023 00:32Written by Georgie Aiuto Edited by Yvette Marris Many of us in STEM today would have childhood memories of going to museums, having goofy experts arrive at our schools to do experiments, or competitions where we had 72 hours to find a scientific solution. These are all STEM outreach programs. Over the summer, I conducted a small 6 week research project, as I wanted to know more about the state of outreach programs within Victoria, and see what opportunities were out there for young people ...
Working in Healthcare in a Post-COVID Climate
March 15, 2023 09:41This blog is a part of the OmniSci magazine’s a Year in Science Summer Edition. Huge shoutout to the OmniSci team, and Tanya Kovacevic for editing this piece for the edition. More info about the OmniSci A Year in Science is below. It would be hard to write about a Year in Science without having the obligatory COVID article. We hear constantly about the stresses of being a frontline healthcare worker (HCW), and about the signs and symptoms of Long COVID, and the endless vaccine scepticism. ...
Redheads and Anaesthesia
February 05, 2023 04:36The Rise of Pharmacogenomics and Personalised Medicine When I was 16, I had my first ever surgery - a simple wisdom teeth removal. When I woke up, the doctors told me that apparently I had tried to wake up mid-surgery and even roll off the table. I am also a redhead. Now these two facts may seem completely unrelated, but as we’ll soon see, maybe not. The mechanism of action of many inhaled anaesthetics is unclear. Generally, anaesthetics like desflurane, isoflurane or sevoflurane act on...
Doing science: collaborative or competitive?
December 06, 2022 04:05Competition is the catalyst but collaboration is what produces real change. In the study of history there is an old, and somewhat misleading term, known as the ‘the Great Man in History’. Suggesting that the course of history is determined by the actions of one ‘great’ person, this theory from the 19th century sparks much debate amongst academics. Take for example, a criticism from one of the founders of the science of sociology, Herbert Spencer: "You must admit that the genesis of a gre...
And the Winner Is ...
November 01, 2022 07:46STEM Public Speaking Grand Final 2022 Written by Georgie Aiuto Edited by Yvette Marris It is already November! Wow, the year has gone by so fast. A month ago, the Let’s Torque crew held the Grand Finals for their STEM Public Speaking competition. It had been a massive year with three workshops building our fellow undergraduate’s Science Communication comprehension, workshops for John Monash Secondary School, multiple blogs, podcasts and other online content. But all of our work had come...
Let's Torque Workshop 2 Wrap Up
July 05, 2022 03:40Being the Best Science Communicators We Can Be… Tips and Tricks to Communicating your Passion The Dreaded Public Speaking Anxiety… If you were to Google: Public Speaking Anxiety, you would find that it comes up with approximately 123,000,000 results. When talking about public speaking anxiety, performance anxiety, glossophobia, whatever you want to call it, there are two pathways a lot of these results go down. Either how to get rid of it, or why it happens. We read about the physiol...
Let’s Torque Workshop Wrap Up
May 17, 2022 03:16At our first workshop for 2022, Science Beyond the Lab, we had the fantastic A/Prof Chris Thompson share some of his Science Communication wisdom and ran some pretty fun activities. In case you couldn’t make it, here is a wrap up of what happened. So, what did we learn? Why does Science Communication matter? Despite the fact that not everyone is as science-mad as the rest of us, there’s no denying that science plays an integral role in the way we live our lives - from the technology that ...
ThoughtForms: Mind, Matter and Everything In Between
March 22, 2022 08:43If you want to get a stunning look at the science inside our minds, it’s worth taking a look at the amazing ThoughtForms exhibit by Dr Kellyann Guerts and Dr Indae Hwang in the Science Gallery, at Melbourne Connect, Melbourne University. ThoughtForms is an amazing blend of technology, science and self-reflection, where users are able to produce a snapshot of their own thoughts, with a mobile EEG (brainwave detector) and a 3D-printer. Inspired by some of her own lived, mental health experien...
2021 Let's Torque Grand Final
September 17, 2021 04:55Amidst the excitement of Science Week, Let’s Torque held their annual STEM public-speaking competition. We were honoured to witness the sharp and engaging presentations from some of the finest undergraduate science communicators! Our fantastic judging panel featured esteemed science communicators: Catriona Nguyen-Robertson (@CatrionaNR), Dr Leonie Walsh (@lkw_sci) and Dr Shane Huntington (@DrShaneRRR). The keynote address from Zoos Victoria’s wonderful Dr Marissa Parrott (@drmparr...
2021 Semi-Finals
August 15, 2021 14:05In the lead up to the exciting GRAND FINAL, let’s look back on our semi-final. As well as the Olympics, early August held another spectacular competition. Let’s Torque had the chance to meet our talented semi-finalists and listen to their stunning presentations. Topics ranged from the recycling of cells from umbilical cords for medical application to the novel use of nanoparticles to fight against bacterial infection! Although our fierce competitors were behind monitors, their c...
Episode 3: Talking STEM with Nathan Higgins
June 21, 2021 07:07 - 30 minutes - 42.9 MBIn our third episode, Tess interviews Amy (Runner Up) and Nathan (Winner) on their experiences with the virtual Let's Torque competition, what they believe makes for effective SciComm and more!
From Slacker to Dopamine Hacker: the Science of Motivation
May 28, 2021 13:05Photo by Jukan Tateisi on Unsplash These blogs ideally take 2 hours to write, and somehow I’ve consistently stretched this into an 8-hour endeavour. Sure, there’s background research to accomplish. Editing. Paraphrasing. Fixing sentence flow. Spell-checking, grammar checking, sanity checking. H O W E V E R . My other browser tabs include looking up how to make the best toasties. Scrolling Instagram. Watching videos of people’s pets. Binging Netflix. Frequently checking on the COV...
Workshop 1 - 2021: Science Beyond the Lab
May 21, 2021 13:43Let’s recap our very first (and technically second) workshop of 2021! Jack from Let’s Torque introducing Workshop 1. On a chilly April evening, we were lucky enough to host Workshop 1 and take shelter within the cosy function room at the Royal Society of Victoria (RSV). We had the wonderful, singing scientist Catriona Nguyen-Robertson as our guest speaker. The PhD candidate and lecturer at The University of Melbourne is known for outreaching STEM online towards fresh, non-traditio...
Ancestor, Distant Or Close Relative? - The Issue Of Physical Variation Within The Fossil Record
May 14, 2021 06:05By Eloï Ducasse Differences and variations witnessed in fossil remains that are thought to be of different species due to their geographic location could possibly be misinterpreted cases of notable physical variations within the same species. Photo by Mathew Schwartz on Unsplash Homo Sapiens - The One Who Knows Even long before Darwin published his most notorious and polemic piece, the same everlasting question has been left unanswered by science: where do we come from? To a cert...
Healthy Human Babies: A Complicated Birth Delivery Trend Paradox
May 09, 2021 01:19By Eloï Ducasse The caesarian-section (c-section) procedure has increased in prevalence in the recent decades and so has the average quality of life for most countries. Could there be an underlying correlation between those two tendencies? Ave Caesaria Stories have been told for centuries if not millennials, but sadly like it is sometimes the case in human history, the truth can be distorted and altered after every account. According to the historical records and oral traditions, the pr...
Breaking the Laws of Known Physics
April 09, 2021 14:42By Michelle Nguyen New evidence from subatomic particles ‘wobbles’ our understanding of unseen particles and forces in the universe Muons – a heavier, unstable counterpart to electrons – challenge one of science’s most watertight theories, the Standard Model of particle physics. Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash Like electrons, muons are also negatively charged and have a quantum property called spin. In a magnetic field, spin allows muons to wobble like spinning tops. A muon wobbles f...
SPACE WASTE
March 26, 2021 12:41By Michelle Nguyen It was collision of two specks in the sky. With each hurtling at 35,000 km per hour into one another only to crash and shatter into a thousand pieces. The spectacular crash scattered broken fragments and shrapnel some 800 km above our heads. One of the specks went silent. We lost contact with the once active U.S.-based communication satellite Iridium 33. This accidental collision in 2009 with the already inactive Russian Cosmos 2251, was the first time we knew about s...
Swapping the stage for the screen
March 12, 2021 08:15By Michelle Nguyen A global pandemic has reinvented much of our lifestyle – from the way we interact, work and learn. The drag and drop of our existence onto monitors and LCD screens has been quite draining. Yes, I’m recalling those never-ending zoom classes… Despite all of this, science communicators are embracing digitalisation and getting creative. They’re now connecting with a wider and more diverse audience by swapping their scientific stage for the screen. As a many of us know, scie...
Episode 2: Talking STEM with Dr Jen Martin
September 22, 2020 12:42 - 36 minutes - 83.4 MBIn our second episode, we interview Dr Jen Martin, renowned science communicator and longtime presenter on Triple R community radio. Listen as we discuss Antarctica, climate change and possum sex!
STEM Public Speaking Grand Final 2020
August 05, 2020 08:33Thank you to all participants for your hard work and commitment to enhancing your science communication skills. After a lengthy discussion, we’re proud to announce our six Grand Finalists for 2020. They will be judged through a live Q&A panel made up of three expert science communicators. Tune into our Facebook livestream on 22 August at 6pm to support our competitors and vote for the People’s Choice Award! 2020 FINALISTS Amy Xie Bobby Le Declan Jackson Nathan Higgings Sam Mackay...
Episode 1: Talking STEM with Dr Djuke Veldhuis
July 05, 2020 08:07 - 36 minutes - 83.7 MBIn our first episode, we interview Monash University’s Dr Djuke Veldhuis. We discuss her career with FameLab, the broader scientific and social impact of COVID-19 and climate change and her tips for scicomm students! Let’s Torque is an undergraduate student run organisation promoting and teaching science communication skills. Read more about us on our website: www.letstorque.org
Interview With Kirsty Costa: Learning Innovation Leader at Zoos Victoria
May 29, 2020 03:50Kirsty Costa’s connection to nature and wildlife was nurtured by a childhood of camping trips, bushwalks and ocean swims. She has spent more than 20 years working in education and sustainability. Kirsty has been a classroom teacher, an education consultant for hundreds of schools and worked at an executive level in large not-for-profits. As Learning Innovation Leader at Zoos Victoria, she designs education programs that help teachers, young people and wildlife to thrive in our changing ...
5 ways to come up with an idea for your Talking Points
May 23, 2018 07:41With the deadline for talking points coming up, we’ve been hearing a few people have been struggling to come up with topic ideas. So, we’ve put together five ways to find something to talk about! 1. Something from a lecture Has your lecturer been talking about some super cool research or science that you could talk about? Maybe this is a chance to look into it a little further? 2. News sites Websites like Cosmos or The Conversation have loads of interesting articles that could sp...
The Art of Presentations
May 03, 2018 04:40Imagine the photos that adorn the various surfaces of your home; those photos are probably displayed within frames of different shapes, sizes and materials. Now, have you ever considered how your choice of frame can change mood and message conveyed with your photo? Exhibits displayed below. One frame exudes a feeling of modern moodiness and mystery; the other frame manifests a vintage vibe. In the same way a frame can influence how a photo is perceived, so too can our mannerisms influence h...
Head and Heart
April 08, 2018 14:30Have you ever wondered what persuaded you to buy a particular product? Maybe it was those new pair of earphones you bought last week even though you have various pairs lying around your home. Did you buy it because the sales assistant was cute? Probably not. Chances are, they presented an excellent sales pitch to you. Perhaps, they even made an appeal to your head and heart. But what exactly do we mean by "your head and heart"? An appeal to the head is done through the presentation of knowl...
Why does science communication matter?
May 22, 2017 22:51Talking – a mastery of humanity. Communication, however, is an art, one that must be tailored to engage the audience. The words themselves need to be understood, and not only by colleagues but by outsiders and the general public. Communication is an essential part of everyday life as a scientist. They must connect with a variety of audiences, by writing papers and proposals, presenting talks, and educating others both within and outside of the science community. Science has been around for ...