Wednesday 16 August 2023

Highlights from day five of National Science Week

Researchers, experts, and other interesting people available for interview around the country.

NSW: What’s the secret to happiness? An 85-year-long scientific study has some ideas.

VIC: Should we care about science denialism?

VIC: Decolonising fire: Indigenous land stewardship in Australia and America.

TAS: Multi-chambered vaginas, elongated clitorises, pseudo-penises and more: improv and 3D-printed animal vaginas reveal the world of female reproduction.

SA: How can you trick your senses to help with pain relief?

SA: From giant birds to mega-marsupials, what makes South Australia’s fossil heritage so remarkable?

QLD: The new race to explore the solar system with Dr Brad Tucker.

NSW: Modifying microbes to eat plastic.

Read on for more on these, including direct event contact details.

Also today:

• How did megafauna-filled Alcoota lose its giant animals, and become Australia’s red centre?
• How technology and innovation has changed the Western Australian Herbarium.

Great National Science Week ENTERTAINMENT stories up for grabs now around Australia

• National Science Quiz: Are you smarter than a TV personality?
• The Drag Experiment: Meet the performers mixing scientific concepts with drag.
• Satirical science music ‘Road to Reason’: album launch at a planetarium.
• Blade Runner: what do neuroscientists and bioethics experts think?
• An Aussie astronaut, art therapy, deep sea science, DNA sonification – Sydney Science Festival.
• Racing robots, seed bombs, an augmented reality sandpit, and more at Festival of Bright Ideas in Hobart.
• Street Science on the farm at the Ekka.
• ‘Scab’: MicroToons animation brings microbiology to people with autism.
• Paint with a UV torch at ‘Sea of Light’, a light installation at MAGNT.

More on these below and visit ScienceWeek.net.au/events to find more stories in your area.

Scientists, experts, performers and event organisers are available for interview throughout National Science Week.

Direct contact details for each event are below or contact Tanya Ha on tanya@scienceinpublic.com.au or 0404 083 863.

Media centre here. Images for media here.

Great National Science Week ARTS stories up for grabs now around Australia

• Is AI the next Shakespeare: can it write a play?
• DARK MATTERS exhibition – can art make the invisible universe visible?
• Meet the chemistry graduate turned artist behind the Atmospheric Memory exhibition.
• The Drag Experiment: Meet the performers mixing scientific concepts with drag.
• Creativity: are you born with it? Or can it be cultivated?
• Satirical science music ‘Road to Reason’: album launch at a planetarium.

More on these below and visit ScienceWeek.net.au/events to find more stories in your area.

Scientists, experts, performers and event organisers are available for interview throughout National Science Week.

Direct contact details for each event are below or contact Tanya Ha on tanya@scienceinpublic.com.au or 0404 083 863.

Media centre here. Images for media here.

Great National Science Week INDIGENOUS SCIENCE stories up for grabs now around Australia

• The culture of the cosmos: Country and Sky with a space archaeologist and an Indigenous astrophysicist.
• Indigenous science, song-lines and stars at the planetarium in Wollongong.
• The night sky, bush food, and technology at Redfern’s Indigenous Science Experience.
• Payirri-Apinthirlu Naalityangka: the First Nations Science Festival – Adelaide.
• A health lab on wheels and AI ‘time machine’ shows impact of disease.
• Limurr dharr djiwarr: learning on Country.
• Earth, air, water and fire: Noongar knowledge and elemental energies.

More on these below and visit ScienceWeek.net.au/events to find more stories in your area.

Scientists, experts, performers and event organisers are available for interview throughout National Science Week.

Direct contact details for each event are below or contact Tanya Ha on tanya@scienceinpublic.com.au or 0404 083 863.

Media centre here. Images for media here.

Great National Science Week ENVIRONMENT stories up for grabs now around Australia

• Do environmental policies add up? Ask Hugh Possingham, a professor of both maths and zoology.
• Bandicoots, platypuses, and more: can we save our endangered species through rewilding?
• Leafy green cities, coastal wetlands, microalgae: the climate solutions you wish you knew about.
• Citizen scientists wanted to investigate microplastics.
• Meet the super microbes who could save us from plastic.
• Archaeology in space and on Earth in a changing climate.
• How the Southern Ocean is keeping the planet from overheating.
• Tree scientist encourages gardeners to grow the urban forest.

More on these highlights below.

Scientists, experts and event organisers are available for interview throughout National Science Week.

Read on for direct contact details for each event, or contact Tanya Ha – tanya@scienceinpublic.com.au or 0404 083 863.

Visit ScienceWeek.net.au/events to find more stories in your area.

Media centre here. Images for media here.

Monday 14 August: highlights from day three of National Science Week

Researchers, experts, and other interesting people available for interview around the country.

NSW: Space junk and Sky Country: meet a space archaeologist and an Indigenous astrophysicist.

NSW: Bandicoots, platypuses, and more: can we save our endangered species through rewilding?

VIC: Astrophysicists vs science fiction, and a sci-fi costume competition.

National (QLD talent): TV presenter Dr Rob Bell shares bloody science with kids in 200 schools nationwide.

ACT: Join a model ichthyosaur at The Rocks That Shape Australia Exhibition launch.

ACT: Pew-pew! Fact or fiction in Hollywood ballistics.

SA: Can data save the dolphins? It may with your help.

Read on for more on these, including direct event contact details.

Also today:

• NT: The Territory’s Science Week Launch at Sea of Light at MAGNT.
• WA: Kids build model lungs, make mucus, learn about germs, and more at the Telethon Kids Institutes Discovery Centre’s Science Adventure.

Tuesday 15 August: highlights from day four of National Science Week

Researchers, experts, and other interesting people available for interview around the country.

NSW: Meganne Christian: meet the Aussie engineer set to become an astronaut.

National: Which artist-researcher duo will win the battle to design the top Shirty Science t-shirt?

ACT: Do environmental policies add up? Ask Hugh Possingham, a professor of both maths and zoology.

NSW: Leafy green cities, coastal wetlands, microalgae: the climate solutions you wish you knew about.

TAS: Cats, chemicals, brains, stress, and space junk: young scientists tour Tasmanian schools.

WA: A band of physicists go on a road trip to explain quantum and dark matter.

WA: Noongar knowledge and elemental energies from earth, air, water and fire.

NT: Paint with a UV torch at ‘Sea of Light’, a light installation at MAGNT.

NT: A health lab on wheels and AI ‘time machine’ shows impact of disease.

Read on for more on these, including direct event contact details.

Also today:

• SA: Boomerang engineering with the First Scientists.
• VIC: Extraterrestrial processing: how will we make materials with resources found on the moon?

Sunday 13 August: highlights from day two of National Science Week

Researchers, experts, and other interesting people available for interview around the country.

VIC: Is AI the next Shakespeare? See a play written by ChatGPT.

VIC: Solving great spider crab mysteries, without getting wet, sandy or bitten.

NSW: Meet the chemist-turned-artist behind Atmospheric Memory.

NSW: Meet a life-sized dinosaur at Science in the Swamp.

ACT: Keeping brains young with creative computing for seniors.

SA: Using data to map dolphin migration.

QLD: Street Science on the farm at the Ekka.

ACT: Space, robotics, and engineering with LEGO: science while you shop in Canberra’s malls.

National: Kooo-koo-kaa-kaa, croak, screeee… What is Australia’s favourite animal sound?

Read on for more on these, including direct event contact details.

Also today:

• SA: Fun for fur and feathers: how zoos enrich the lives of resident animals.
• QLD: Help scientists and conservationists find shy platypuses.
• TAS: Help create music inspired by science with an electric violin and loop pedal.

Dozens of Science Week stories around Queensland

• Street Science on the farm at the Ekka.
• TV presenter Dr Rob Bell shares bloody science with Aussie kids in 200 schools nationwide.
• A science fair for sick kids in The Children’s Hospital.
• Satirical science music ‘Road to Reason’: album launch at Planetarium.
• Meet human and marine stars of National Geographic’s SHARKFEST and Bull Shark Bandits – Currumbin.
• How butterflies inspire technology – Kuranda.
• A band of physicists go on a road trip to explain quantum and dark matter – touring Queensland.
• Kooo-koo-kaa-kaa, croak, screeee… What is Australia’s favourite animal sound?

More on these highlights below.

Scientists, experts and event organisers are available for interview throughout Science Week.

Read on for direct contact details for each event, or contact Tanya Ha – tanya@scienceinpublic.com.au or 0404 083 863.

Visit ScienceWeek.net.au/events to find more stories in your area.

Media centre here. Images for media here.