Dozens of Science Week stories around Victoria
- Why sharks have been around for 500 million years?
- Can nature help us concentrate?
- Artists find meaning in digital distraction
- Psychology is a Freud
- Minions meet physics
- Join the real-world cast of CSI: eDNA
- Vote for Australia’s most underrated animals
More on these highlights below.
National Science Week in Victoria is coordinated by Inspiring Victoria. Visit their website: inspiringvictoria.org.au.
National Science Week in Victoria: highlights
Why sharks have been around for 500 million years? – Ballarat
A 30-foot shark with a saw blade of jagged teeth protruding from its lower jaws. Sharks fossilised during mating. And new insights into the megalodon, the largest shark that ever lived, measuring 66 feet.
Flinders University palaeontologist Professor John Long reveals how sharks have outlasted multiple mass extinction events to remain at the top of the ocean’s food chain.
The author of The Secret History of Sharks: The Rise of the Ocean’s Most Fearsome Predators will also showcase ancient fossils, including a megalodon tooth.
Friday 15 August. Event details: www.scienceweek.net.au/event/the-secret-history-of-sharks/ballarat-central
Media enquiries: Professor John Long, john.long@flinders.edu.au or 0408 148 660.
Artists find meaning in digital distraction – Melbourne
See how Japanese cats respond to videos of their own image on ‘Cat Island’.
Outsmart AI in ‘Deviation Game’, drawing things that only humans understand.
Join a comedic televised set, ‘Pledge Drive for Attention’.
University of Melbourne’s Science Gallery explores how we can ‘harness the cacophony of digital content and find meaning within it’ through interactive games, play and technology in its free ‘DISTRACTION’ exhibition.
Highlights include:
- Deviation Game, by UK-based Studio Playfool, invites you to draw things that humans can understand but an image-recognition AI can’t.
- Cat Island, by Jen Valender, merges animal colour perception research from University of Melbourne’s Stuart-Fox Lab with technology that explores how cats on Japan’s Ainoshima Island (aka ‘Cat Heaven Island’) respond to digital stimuli, such as screen videos of their own image.
- Melbourne artist Xanthe Dobbie’s Unoriginal Sin focuses on the concept of ‘mean images’ (coined by artist Hito Steyerl) in an immersive video installation.
- US artist and Institute for Comedic Inquiry founder Laura Allcorn’s Pledge Drive for Attention opens the door to a comedic set based on a televised pledge drive, exploring how our attention spans are zapped by digital distractions.
From Saturday 26 July. Event details: www.scienceweek.net.au/event/distraction/parkville/
Media enquiries: Katrina Hall, kathall@ozemail.com.au or 0421 153 046.
Join the real-world cast of CSI: eDNA – solving eco-crimes with environmental DNA – Melbourne
Think David Attenborough meets CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. Don your lab coat, safety goggles and gloves and help a team of scientists solve eco-crimes by collecting and analysing environmental DNA (eDNA).
Step into a mock crime scene full of physical evidence, environmental samples and contextual clues that need to be deciphered. The eco-crime could relate to water pollution, endangered species trafficking, biodiversity loss, climate change or deforestation.
Learn how to collect environmental samples from water, soil and air, avoiding crime scene contamination with scientists including ‘eDNA Detective’ Mariea Pacheco (applied field ecologist), and ‘FungiGirl’ Ema Corro (mycologist). Then, conduct eDNA extraction and analysis using the world’s first portable DNA laboratory, the ‘Bento Lab’, before crunching genetic data and using DNA barcoding.
Friday 15 August – Sunday 17 August. Event details: www.scienceweek.net.au/event/csi-edna-solving-eco-crimes-with-environmental-dna/brunswick/
Media enquiries: Mariea Pacheco, mariea68pacheco@gmail.com or 0422 114 795.
Mariea Pacheo (project lead and applied field ecologist) and Emma Corro (mycologist and neurodivergent scientist) are available for media interviews.
Mariea can discuss environmental DNA applications and citizen science engagement. Emma can speak about accessible science education and fungal DNA analysis.
Can nature help us concentrate? – North Fitzroy
Melbourne researchers say looking to nature can improve your attention span.
University of Melbourne Psychology Professor Katherine Johnson discusses related findings about staying focussed.
Her research in the field of developmental cognitive neuroscience involves children and adults with developmental disorders including attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and autism spectrum disorder (ASD).
Thursday 14 August. Event details: www.scienceweek.net.au/event/the-science-of-attention-how-nature-can-help/north-fitzroy
Media enquiries: Katherine Johnson, kajo@unimelb.edu.au or 0406 780 657.
Professor Katherine Johnson is available for media interviews.
Psychology is a Freud – Brunswick
Is psychology a science, art, pseudoscience or potato? Or an ink blot of your parents fighting?
Sci Fight Science Comedy Debate brings together scientists and comedians ‘to debate serious issues in a ridiculous manner’ on the topic: Psychology is a Freud.
The showdown, hosted by Sci Fight co-founder/comedian/science communicator Atlanta Colley, features comedians Jude Perl and Martin Dunlop; magician and doctor Vyom Sharma; psychologist Kathryn Kallady; neuroscientist Elyas Arvell; and writer/editor Elizabeth Flux.
Tuesday 12 August. Event details: www.scienceweek.net.au/event/sci-fight-science-comedy-debate-psychology-is-a-freud-5/brunswick
Media enquiries: Alanta Colley, alanta.colley@gmail.com or 0478 143 905.
Comedian and science communicator Alanta Colley, who co-founded Sci Fight in 2017, is available for media interviews.
Minions meet physics: the science of Despicable Me 2 – Melbourne
Melbourne scientists are using Despicable Me 2 to explore the physics of everyday life.
They’re inviting the public to a special screening of the movie, followed by a Q&A with scientists from the RMIT Centre for Applied Quantum Technologies.
They explain principles like motion, energy and forces, illustrated by the Minions’ interactions with the world around them.
Wednesday 13 August: www.scienceweek.net.au/event/the-science-of-despicable-me-2/melbourne/
Media enquiries: news@rmit.edu.au or 0439 704 077.
What is Australia’s most underrated animal? – online
Do weird and wonderful Aussie creatures get the attention they deserve? For Science Week 2025, ABC Science wants Australians to cast their vote for Australia’s most underrated animal.
“Not the usual cuddly crowd-pleasers, but the ugly, the annoying and the lesser-known critters, who are often over-looked, under-conserved and… underrated,” says ABC Science producer Kylie Andrews, who leads the broadcaster’s Science Week project.
Australia’s underrated animals activities take place across social media platforms, ABC news digital and Radio National.
Friday 1 August – Friday 14 August: Updates and information on how to vote will be posted to www.abc.net.au/underrated-animals