x

75% of people globally want unbiased news (Pew Research) but are concerned they're not getting that.

Get balanced coverage with Symby. See how stories are covered across diverse outlets and spot when one side covers a story the other skips.

PODCAST

Eavesdrop on Experts

University of Melbourne

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.

education

All Episodes

26:28

What makes super-viral content so shareable?

Eavesdrop on Experts ·

2020/11/11

Dr 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 psychology,

en

19:20

The algorithms of art

Eavesdrop on Experts ·

2020/10/28

"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.” Professor

en

22:19

The tiny world of peptides

Eavesdrop on Experts ·

2020/10/14

"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

en

28:00

The brain benefits of music

Eavesdrop on Experts ·

2020/09/30

"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 even

en

16:39

New targets for epilepsy treatment

Eavesdrop on Experts ·

2020/09/16

Associate 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 to be

en

29:19

The state of democracy, before and during COVID-19

Eavesdrop on Experts ·

2020/09/02

“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

en

25:56

Catching sight of dark matter

Eavesdrop on Experts ·

2020/08/19

"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, so

en

25:31

Why are there so few drugs to treat viruses?

Eavesdrop on Experts ·

2020/08/05

“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 handful,

en

28:08

Launching the SpIRIT satellite

Eavesdrop on Experts ·

2020/07/22

“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 the

en

21:36

How better data on death can improve lives

Eavesdrop on Experts ·

2020/07/08

“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 specialises

en

21:54

Towards faster treatment for major depressive disorder

Eavesdrop on Experts ·

2020/06/24

Major 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 and

en

29:06

What's behind COVID-19 conspiracy theories?

Eavesdrop on Experts ·

2020/06/10

“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 or

en

24:20

Innovation during crisis

Eavesdrop on Experts ·

2020/05/27

“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

en

34:02

Lessons for a future pandemic

Eavesdrop on Experts ·

2020/05/20

“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 would be a

en

25:04

The isolation of domestic violence

Eavesdrop on Experts ·

2020/05/13

“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 calls women

en

27:06

The mental marathon of COVID-19

Eavesdrop on Experts ·

2020/05/06

“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. For some

en

28:43

The dynamics of disease

Eavesdrop on Experts ·

2020/04/29

“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 tax on

en

40:57

How have plagues and pandemics influenced the arts?

Eavesdrop on Experts ·

2020/04/15

One 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 overarching

en

28:11

Our flesh after fifty

Eavesdrop on Experts ·

2020/04/01

WARNING: 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 older

en

32:15

Shaping the brain: Before, during and after birth

Eavesdrop on Experts ·

2020/03/18

“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 given

en

118 results

Similar Podcasts

Science Talk

Albert Einstein College of Medicine

五分钟心理学

柠檬心理

Daily Facts

Amalia Dupray and Montgomery Jones.

Les dents et dodo

BFMTV

Veterinary Clinical Podcasts

The Royal Veterinary College