Eavesdrop On Experts

In this bonus episode of Eavesdrop on Experts, our reporter Dr Andi Horvath ventures into the misunderstood world of quantum physics and, specifically, quantum sensing. While the discussion about “spooky” quantum phenomena like Schrödinger’s famous cat is about a hundred years old, there’s a revolution coming in quantum sensing. Quantum sensors exploit of the quantum mechanical behaviour of atoms or ions to measure physical quantities such as frequency, acceleration, rotation rates, electric and magnetic fields, or temperature with the absolute accuracy. The sensors use properties (like entanglement) to achieve measurements beyond the reach of traditional systems, and are currently are used in devices like atomic clocks and magnetometers. And while sensors like this have been around for at least a decade, the new generation of quantum sensors are making major advances with real-world impact. Episode recorded: March 27, 2018. Interviewer: Dr Andi Horvath. Audio engineering: Arch Cuthbertson. Production: Ch

Synthesisers are the stars of the Grainger Museum’s latest exhibition, Synthesizers: The Sound of the Future. The exhibition celebrates these democratising instruments, with a particular look at Melbourne’s emerging electronic music scene in the 1960s and ‘70s. Chris Hatzis takes a stroll through the exhibition and chats with curator Heather Gaunt, MESS's director and sound artist Byron Scullin, and artist and composer David Chesworth. Music used in episode: "Kraut Mich Mit Einen Dachshund" "3 3/4" "Flea Circus" "Necrophilia" All songs by David Chesworth from the album 50 Synthesizer Greats, originally released in 1979 and reissued by Chapter Music in 2017. Synthesizers: The Sound of the Future exhibition at the Grainger Museum runs until Sept 9, 2018. Episode recorded: August 9, 2018 Interviewer: Chris Hatzis Producers: Dr Andi Horvath and Silvi Vann-Wall Audio engineer: Arch Cuthbertson Producer and editor: Chris Hatzis Banner image: Non Event/Flickr

Loneliness and isolation can be a very real issue for many older Australians. Dr Amanda Krause’s research is looking at how listening to the radio can help. Episode recorded: August 3, 2018 Interviewer: Steve Grimwade Producers: Dr Andi Horvath, Chris Hatzis and Silvi Vann-Wall Audio engineer and editor: Chris Hatzis Banner image: Getty Images The survey for Dr Krause’s Radio for Wellbeing research project can be completed online. You can also visit the Community Broadcasting Foundation website for more information.

Back in the day, ‘applied life science’ might have referred only to winemaking. Nowadays the massive biotechnology industry is responsible for a vast array of projects that fight diseases, find the functional age of cells, and even create effective alternatives to vaccines. But, as Dr Lynn Johnson Langer warns, many of these exciting new projects will never leave the lab without the right funding and the development of relevant and in-depth business skills. Episode recorded: July 18, 2018. Interviewer: Dr Andi Horvath. Producers: Dr Andi Horvath, Chris Hatzis and Silvi Vann-Wall. Audio engineer and editor: Chris Hatzis. Banner image: Henk Caspers/Naturalis Biodiversity Center.

Associate lecturer Susan de Weger is a French horn player. In fact, she’s a self-confessed “failed musician”, who walked away from music and went on to establish a multi-million dollar IT consulting practice in Europe. But music didn’t walk away from her. Once she returned to Australia, she decided to change her internal narrative and tackle a Performance Master’s degree at the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music, University of Melbourne. Now she teaches music entrepreneurship to a new generation of musicians, helping young performers build careers that are artistically and financially rewarding. Episode recorded: July 3, 2018 Interviewer: Dr Andi Horvath Producer, audio engineer and editor: Chris Hatzis Co-production: Dr Andi Horvath and Silvi Vann-Wall Image: supplied

If Facebook continues growing at its current rate - by 2130 the number of dead users will surpass the living. In fact, the number of the dead on Facebook is already growing fast. By 2012, just eight years after the platform was launched, 30 million users with Facebook accounts had died, and that number has only gone up since. These days, it’s not unusual to see memorial pages on social media - but how is the digital world changing our approach to death? From algorithms that can post tweets in our style after we die to bequeathing a digital legacy - Dr Martin Gibbs from the Interaction Design Lab at the School of Computing and Information Systems, alongside Associate Professor Tamara Kohn and graduate researcher Hannah Gould, both from the School of Social and Political Sciences, are exploring the impact of digital disruption on death itself. Episode recorded: 20 June 2018 Interviewer: Steve Grimwade Producers: Dr Andi Horvath, Chris Hatzis and Silvi Vann-Wall Audio engineer and editor: Chris Hatzis Banner: Ge

In this encore presentation of Eavesdrop on Experts, environmental psychologist Dr Wouter Poortinga shares how the 5p plastic bag tax in the UK reduced consumption between 70 and 90 percent almost overnight. He discusses how, with a little bit of prompting, habits can change and how we need a plan to stop wasting take-away coffee cups. Episode recorded: 8 February, 2017 Interviewer: Steve Grimwade Producers: Dr Andi Horvath and Chris Hatzis Audio Engineering: Gavin Nebauer Editor: Chris Hatzis Banner image: Claudia Hooper and Lep Beljac

Get emotional - it's for your own good. For decades, emotional stability - that is, not being outwardly emotional - has been upheld as the pinnacle of normal functioning. But things are changing, and Dr Peter Koval wants to show everyone why letting your emotions show is the way of the future. Episode recorded: 29 May 2018 Interviewer: Dr Andi Horvath Producers: Dr Andi Horvath, Chris Hatzis and Silvi Vann-Wall Audio engineer and editor: Chris Hatzis Banner image: Emotion/Flickr

Climate scientist and paleoclimatologist Dr Joelle Gergis has spent over a decade painstakingly piecing together Australia’s climate history, using historical records dating back to the First Fleet, natural records held in our trees, corals and ice and computer modelling. As she outlines in her book Sunburnt Country, published by Melbourne University Publishing, Australia’s climate has always been “spectacularly erratic”, but human activity has accelerated these rates of change. As the developed nation most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, she says we must act now to slow its worst impacts. Episode recorded: 11 May 2018 Interviewer: Steve Grimwade Producers: Dr Andi Horvath, Chris Hatzis and Silvi Vann-Wall Audio engineer and editor: Chris Hatzis Banner image: Brisbane floods, 1893/State Library of Queensland

Professor Frances Separovic has amassed many ‘firsts’ in her career as a scientist, including being the first female chemist to become a member of the Australian Academy of Science and the first female Head of the School of Chemistry at the University of Melbourne. Our reporter Dr Andi Horvath sits down for a chat with Frances, where she discusses the road she travelled to reach the peak of her profession, from school in Broken Hill to Deputy Director of the Bio21 Institute. Episode recorded: 30 April 2018 Interviewer: Dr Andi Horvath Producers: Dr Andi Horvath, Chris Hatzis and Silvi Vann-Wall Audio engineer and editor: Chris Hatzis Banner image: Professor Separovic (centre, right), with her research team at the Bio21 Institute. Picture: Peter Casamento/Bio21

Rivers in New Zealand, Australia, India and Colombia have all been granted legal rights recently. Environmental law expert Dr Erin O’Donnell explains to our reporter Dr Andi Horvath why granting nature legal rights is becoming more accepted. Episode recorded: 23 March 2018 Interviewer: Dr Andi Horvath Producers: Dr Andi Horvath, Chris Hatzis and Silvi Vann-Wall Audio engineer and editor: Chris Hatzis Banner image: The Whanganui River in New Zealand was the first in the world to be awarded legal rights. Picture: Tim Proffitt-White/Flickr

When social media micro-targeting is shaping political views and ‘alternative facts’ abound, is there any hope for democracy? Cognitive psychologist Professor Stephan Lewandowsky explains why we still believe something to be true, even after we have been told it is not, and why we are all so willing to believe what we read - including fake news. In our post-truth era he suggests we all need to become a little more cynical, to ward off misinformation and guard against its potential to manipulate. Episode recorded: March 26, 2018 Interviewer: Dr Andi Horvath Producers: Chris Hatzis, Dr Andi Horvath Engineer and editor: Chris Hatzis Banner image: Getty Images

Cultural geographer Tim Edensor is passionate about place. His career has taken him from the Taj Mahal to industrial ruins in England's north, and now to Melbourne and its stone buildings. Wandering is the best way to get to know a place, says Dr Tim Edensor, and as a cultural geographer who has explored everything from what Christmas lights reveal about British class identity to Melbourne's old stone buildings, he should know. Episode recorded: March 1 2018 Interviewer: Steve Grimwade Producers: Dr Andi Horvath, Chris Hatzis and Silvi Vann-Wall Audio engineer: Arch Cuthbertson Banner image: Travellers Travel Photobook/Flickr

Anthropologist Monica Minnegal has spent her career observing "the extraordinary things that people do", with much of her work dedicated to learning more about the Kubo people in Papua New Guinea. A community in the last uncontrolled part of the country, the Kubo are now encountering the West through mining companies and navigating the many cultural and social changes that brings. Episode recorded: February 23, 2018 Interviewer: Steve Grimwade Producers: Dr Andi Horvath, Chris Hatzis and Silvi Vann-Wall Audio engineer and editor: Chris Hatzis

In 1980 Ben Shneiderman published one of the first texts in the field that would come to be known as human-computer interaction, and has since pioneered innovations we take for granted today, like touchscreens and hyperlinks. He has now turned his attention to maximising the real-world impact of university research, by combining applied and basic research; a topic he addresses in his new book 'The New ABCs of Research'. He chats with our reporter Steve Grimwade. Episode recorded: December 14 2017 Interviewer: Steve Grimwade Producers: Dr Andi Horvath, Chris Hatzis and Silvi Van-Wall Audio engineer: Gavin Nebauer Editor: Chris Hatzis Banner image: Getty Images

Acting is not natural - but it can be learned, and the VCA's Rinske Ginsberg passes on her wisdom about how the body can express an internal state; as well what it takes to make it as an actor. The Melbourne Fringe 'living legend' talks to Steve Grimwade, reflecting on life in Melbourne's radical arts scene of the 1980s, and how performance and art making has changed since. Episode recorded: December 8 2017 Interviewer: Steve Grimwade Producers: Dr Andi Horvath, Chris Hatzis and Silvi Vann-Wall Audio engineer: Arch Cutherbertson Editor: Chris Hatzis Banner image: Laura Canovaro/Flickr

You're chatting and posting online to your various social media accounts. But where does that data go? Who else is seeing your daily data habits? And does your social media define your identity? In this episode, Professor Luciano Floridi from the University of Oxford explores some of the ethical questions about our digital lives that are being asked by us more and each day. Episode recorded: 25 October 2017 Interviewer: Dr Andi Horvath Producers: Dr Andi Horvath and Chris Hatzis Co-producer: Silvi Vann-Wall Audio engineer: Gavin Nebauer Editor: Chris Hatzis Banner image: iStock

The European experiment has been both revolutionary and successful, but having lurched from one crisis to the next in recent years does the future look as bright? Shaken by financial crises, Brexit and growing numbers of refugees, many - including US President Donald Trump - have questioned whether the European experiment is doomed to fail. In this episode Professor Loukas Tsoukalis from the University of Athens explains why he believes the EU will survive the current crisis, and what policies will help. Episode recorded: 23 October 2017 Interviewer: Steve Grimwade Producers: Dr Andi Horvath and Chris Hatzis Audio engineer: Gavin Nebauer Editor: Chris Hatzis Production assistant: Claudia Hooper Banner image: Elfleda/Flickr

How can music and food help promote healing? In this episode we explore how music transcends barriers to bring diverse peoples together through a common language. We head to a performance by Associate Professor Adrian Hearn's band, Suns of Mercury, at the Festival of Nations. Episode recorded: 25th October, Festival of Nations 4-5th October 2017 Interviewers: Dr Andi Horvath and Claudia Hooper Producers: Chris Hatzis, Claudia Hooper and Dr Andi Horvath Editor: Chris Hatzis Audio engineer: Arch Cuthbertson Banner image: Pixabay

How do you produce a seriously juicy steak? What's the difference between brewing a lager and a pale ale? How can students produce award winning wine? What role do drones have in the future of farming? In this special episode of Eavesdrop on Experts, the team hits the road to meet the agriculture experts based in the rural town of Dookie in northern Victoria, where the University of Melbourne has a campus. They bring a unique mix of expertise from the chemical molecules responsible for flavour to a knowledge of the history of age-old food practices, and explain how these can be reinvented for the 21st century and a more sustainable future. Recorded: 18 October 2017 Interviewers: Dr Andi Horvath and Claudia Hooper Producers: Dr Andi Horvath, Chris Hatzis and Claudia Hooper Editor: Chris Hatzis Audio engineer: Arch Cuthbertson Banner image: Claudia Hooper/University of Melbourne