Where Are We At With...?

Watch a movie from the 50s or 60s about the future, and apparently, we should be all wearing silver jumpsuits around now, or coloured PVC. Most of us aren't, but what we are wearing is shaped by a myriad external influences, be they cultural, social, demographic, economic, political, or more.

Dr Madeleine Seys from Adelaide University explains what role colonisation played on fashion in Australia, and why active-wear was already a t...

No longer just an eye in the sky, drones in the air, sea and on land have changed military strategy forever. The invasion of Ukraine by Russia has killed tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians alike. To the world's horror, international law and expectations have been savagely upended, but to its surprise, the smaller nation has managed to keep fighting.

Dr Oleksandra Molloy from UNSW explains why drones have become the most imp...

Nuclear fusion is the holy grail of power production. It is what powers the Sun and all the stars we see in the night sky.

For the past 80 years, scientists have been saying it's been only 30 years away from being perfected. Except now, with the massive projected electricity demands of AI and the scaling back of fossil fuel use, it could be close to reality.

Our guest is Dr Warren McKenzie, Managing Director of HB11, a small Austr...

Koalas did not catch chlamydia from humans. Humans can't catch it from koalas either, but we can catch it from birds!

Koala chlamydia often makes people snigger, thinking that the animal symbol of Australia can get what we think of as an STD. But the disease is decimating populations of the fluffy marsupial that are already struggling due to habitat destruction, road deaths and the curse of the feral cat, fox and dog. Not all is los...

Thunderbolt and lightning, very, very frightening, to me, and most of the sane world, given that climate change promises more frequent and intense storms, as well as droughts, and floods.

Forecasters and meteorologists rely on centuries of observations and modelling. Data is now available in exponentially greater volume and distribution and using it are not just humans, but computers with learning Artificial Intelligence that are tr...

It's the worst wildlife disease disaster ever, and yet so many people haven't even heard about it.

More than 90 amphibian species extinct, hundreds more on the brink, all from a fungal disease that spread around the world before we even knew what it was.

Researchers like Dr Tiffany Kosch, from the University of Melbourne, are working hard to find an answer deep within the froggy genome, and posing some tough questions about what we m...

The car of the future is apparently one that we don't even control. Autonomous vehicles are already commonplace in large mines, and have been popping up in a number of cities around the world as taxis.

Professor Michael Milford is the Director of the QUT Centre for Robotics in Brisbane, Australia. He explains why the ability to not drive yourself is a relief, the key hurdles that have already been overcome, and just how soon we will...

Cane Toads. An amphibian's attack on Australia.

Professor Rick Shine from Macquarie University explains how young toads can be like a bottle of scotch, what Fine Young Cannibals can teach us, and how Peter Pan could be the solution to the problem.

The international archetype of bio-control failure, South America's Giant Toad was introduced to Australia 90 years ago to control sugar cane pests. As it forged on beyond cane fields towar...