Eavesdrop On Experts

The 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 social friendships, even just a brief hello with the local barista while we are ordering a coffee, social contacts, connections are in fact the things that alter our mood and protect our mental health because they are associated with increases in our sense of wellbeing.” And while COVID-19 has made that challenging, people should take the opportunity to reconnect as restrictions ease. “Our sense of belonging and connection and your sense of mental health and wellbeing depends on you stepping out of that door and not steppin

As 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 technology optimist,” says Professor Paterson. She points out that most people would be aware that their social media activity generates information and data about them that is being collected and used to target advertising at them. “The issue is that our interactions with the world are being mediated through these digital profiles that are created about us, so we cease to be ourselves – full, rich, interesting humans. For example, “there are all sorts of stories about the way now that insurance pricing is determined by you

The 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 of Melbourne's Psychological Sciences, researcher on social connection Our sound engineer is Arch Cuthbertson. Your hosts and researchers are Dr Andi Horvath ad Dr Suzie Fraser. Additional voices are Siri and Chris Hatzis. The producer is Dr Andi Horvath. Production assistant is Silvi Vann-Wall. This podcast was recorded in December 2020 and January 2021.

It’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, like bees. “If you spray a fly with insecticide it dies quite rapidly because it binds to a target protein in the brain. So, many insecticides aren’t really pest-specific at all because they also bind to proteins in the brains of non-pest insects.” Professor Batterham’s work aims to understand these insecticide interactions so as to underpin the development of more effective and sustainable control strategies that have a reduced environmental impact. “A former PhD student Felipe Martelli examined low-dose impacts of

The 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 Andi Horvath and Dr Suzie Frazer, audio engineering was by Arch Cuthbertson, with production assistance from Silvi Vann-Wall. This episode was recorded on the 11th of August 2020.

“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 worldwide.” Dr Vincent explains that in order to maintain the tradition of these works, some companies are resorting to problematic and outdated practices like blackface or yellowface makeup. “This is where you start to get a rift between different kinds of audiences, between the really traditionalist audiences who say opera should be done exactly the way as it was first intended to be done and between more modern, progressive audiences that say, we love opera but it needs to be updated in order to reflect a modern-day s

Einstein 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 guests: Margaret Wertheim and Peter Galison. Your hosts were Dr Andi Horvath and Dr Suzie Frazer, audio engineering was by Arch Cuthbertson, with production assistance by Silvi Vann-Wall. This episode was recorded on the 11th of August 2020.

“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 next department that will create, say in Love and Monsters, one of the big CG creatures. “The next person animates it to move him the way that he needs to into the footage, for another artist to add texture and colour. After that the next artist renders out those computer graphic images for the last department to put it all together with the live action footage. “It’s quite a complicated process. To create just two seconds of film, could involve up to 10 people and a couple of months of work.” Ms Camilleri says “working o

“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 elephants, where you ask people not to think about pink elephants... (but then) they tend to think about them more,” he says. Professor Bastian explains that many of us have a mistaken idea that we can continually build happiness and become, ever happier. “No matter what we do in life, we do tend to come back to somewhat of a resting baseline around happiness and this can be slightly different for different people. If you go and rent yourself a room in a five-star hotel it’s going to make you incredibly happy for a little wh

“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 thinking just probably isn’t going to work and the science doesn’t support that, but we’re starting to get better.” Dr Van Dam is the inaugural director of the Contemplative Studies Centre at the University of Melbourne, a first point of entry into the world of mindfulness, meditation and contemplative practice. The Centre focuses on interdisciplinary, evidence-based research into contemplative practice and methodology. “We’re trying to understand these practices - we’re starting to actually look at comparing meditation

“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 to counter the sexual violence we see in society, which is perpetrated predominately against women and the LGBTIQA+ communities. She says we can’t just rely on law reform, which has for decades failed to deliver substantive change. “I’m much more interested in, firstly, what can we do around preventing sexual violence and in changing those norms, attitudes and structural factors that drive sexual violence in the first place. “Secondly, how might we develop alternative avenues for achieving a sense of justice, because it’s

Queer 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. It’s about the processes of making and that is largely around collaboration and who else is in that team and is this being driven by this kind of commitment to challenging normative forms and structures as well as perhaps, say, telling gay stories.” In 2021, Alyson and Steve Farrier will lead a hybrid digital/face-to-face version of their Feral Queer Camp, hosting activities about what makes performance queer, and how we might develop a network of queer thinkers, all stemming from the performances in the Midsumma Festiv

“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 States,” Professor Stone says. But the Australian constitution addresses freedom of speech in a unique way. “Unlike most constitutions, it doesn’t have a provision that says there shall be freedom of speech, or everyone has the right to freedom of expression,” Professor Stone says. “Our constitution simply says that the two houses of parliament shall be directly chosen by the people, and that has formed the basis of a very interesting body of law, a lot like a right to freedom of speech. “The High Court has said, not

“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 me going through the whole writing process,” she says. Dr McKay says her initial inspiration was, what would happen if we could finally understand what other animals were saying? “Not with their mouths but really saying with their bodies and the way they are in the world, what are they saying to us and what are they saying to each other?” she adds. Her novel is an eerily-timed tale about a world in the throes of a pandemic, exploring other consciousnesses, and the limits of language. “It’s been a very, very strange time t

“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 since 1945. “In terms of how a political economic system like communism in Albania or the Soviet Union shaped music making, I look at the institutions and the kinds of political and economic logics that organise the activities of the musicians,” says Dr Tochka. Currently working on a book manuscript titled “Rocking in the Free World: Popular Music and the Politics of Freedom in Postwar America,” Dr Tochka is looking at how post-war politics influenced the reception and practice of rock genres in the US between the 1950s and

“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 the future of our cemeteries and cemetery spaces. Dr Gould’s work shows that two-thirds of Australians are open to new and perhaps innovative uses for cemetery spaces including walking tours, botanical gardens, fitness classes – or even public events like theatre or festivals. “Our word for cemetery comes from the Greek for ‘a sleeping place’,” says Dr Gould. “So the dead are at peace, for example. But now, they’re also popping up with Facebook notifications or you might even have an AI bot that Tweets out for you after yo

“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 actually women were some of the earliest professional programmers during the war effort in World War II. And when programming was a new occupation, it wasn’t gendered and computers weren’t gendered,” Professor Dunbar-Hester says. She says another of the really interesting things that came up during her research was that if you’re teaching people to program and hack because it’s fun, where does that lead? “I had spoken to people who were saying, well, you can wind up working for Silicon Valley,” Professor Dunbar-Hester says.

More 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 people and wildlife increases – both here in Australia and across South East Asia. But while the illegal wildlife trade flourishes, we will continue to see problems like we’ve seen during this pandemic; and governments must use this as an opportunity to improve their regulations and enforcement in order to protect the health of wildlife and humans in the future. Episode recorded: November 16, 2020. Interviewer: Dr Andi Horvath. Producer, audio engineer and editor: Chris Hatzis. Co-producers: Silvi Vann-Wall and Dr Andi Horvat

"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 around us and reveals the kind of reciprocity or the obligation that we have to the world in caring for it and looking after it." Associate Professor Michael-Shawn Fletcher explains that one of the things that Aboriginal people did was to maintain open landscapes with fire. “To care for Country, but also to increase green pick for animals, to increase grains, and there are a whole suite of species that Aboriginal people used in this Country that depend on fire at some stage in their life cycle.” “There are areas that were de

During 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 some people, this can last for decades, with them coughing more than 200 times every hour of their waking lives. Professor Stuart Mazzone is working to understand the neural networks or nerve circuits that are important for controlling coughing, and shine a light into the role of the brain and the cough. Episode recorded: November 9, 2020. Interviewer: Dr Andi Horvath. Producer, audio engineer and editor: Chris Hatzis. Co-producers: Silvi Vann-Wall and Dr Andi Horvath. Banner image: Getty Images.