Trust Me, I'm An Expert

DAVID CROSLING/AAPCaptain James Cook arrived in the Pacific 250 years ago, triggering British colonisation of the region. We’re asking researchers to reflect on what happened and how it shapes us today. You can see other stories in the series here and an interactive here. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander listeners should be aware the podcast accompanying this story contains the names of people who are deceased. It’s 250 years since Captain James Cook set foot in Australia, and there’s a growing push to fully acknowledge the violence of Australia’s colonial past. On today’s episode of the podcast, historian Kate Darian-Smith of the University of Tasmania explains that the way Australia has commemorated Cook’s arrival has changed over time – from military displays in 1870 to waning interest in Cook in the 1950s, followed by the fever-pitch celebrations of 1970. Now, though, a more nuanced debate is required, she says, adding that it’s time to discuss the violence that Cook’s crew meted out to Indigenous people after stepping ashore at Botany Bay. “I think discussing those violent moments is quite confronting for many Australians, but also sits within wider discussions about Aboriginal rights and equality in today’s Australia,” Darian-Smith told The Conversation’s Phoebe Roth. In her companion essay here, co-authored with Katrina Schlunke, Darian-Smith argues many of the popular “re-enactments” of national “foundation moments” in Australia’s past have elements of fantasy, compressing time and history into palatable narratives for mainstream Australia. New to podcasts? Everything you need to know about how to listen to a podcast is here. Additional audio credits Kindergarten by Unkle Ho, from Elefant Traks. Podcast episode recorded by Phoebe Roth and edited by Sophia Morris. Tasfilm report on the 1970 commemorations of Cook’s arrival. 1970 news report of protest. Lead image David Crosling/AAP Read more: As we celebrate the rediscovery of the Endeavour let's acknowledge its complicated legacy

Uncle Fred Deeral as little old man in the film The Message, by Zakpage, to be shown at the National Museum of Australia in April. Nik Lachajczak of Zakpage, Author provided (no reuse)Captain James Cook arrived in the Pacific 250 years ago, triggering British colonisation of the region. We’re asking researchers to reflect on what happened and how it shapes us today. You can see other stories in the series here and an interactive here. Editor’s note: This is an edited transcript of an interview with John Maynard for our podcast Trust Me, I’m An Expert. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this article contains names of deceased people. There are a multitude of Aboriginal oral memories about Captain James Cook, right across the continent. As the research from Deborah Bird Rose shows, many Aboriginal people in remote locations are certainly under the impression that Cook came there as well, shooting people in a kind of Cook-led invasion of Australia. Many of these communities, of course, never met James Cook; the man never even went there. But the deep impact of James Cook that spread across the country and he came to represent the bogeyman for Aboriginal Australia. Even back in the Protection and Welfare Board days, a government car would turn up and Aboriginal people would be running around screaming, “Lookie, lookie, here comes Cookie!” I wrote about Uncle Ray Rose, sadly recently departed, who’d had a stroke. Someone said, “How do you feel?” And he said, “No good. I’m Captain Cooked.” Cook, wherever he went up the coast, was giving names where names already existed. Yuin oral memory in the south coast of NSW gives the example of what they called Gulaga and Cook called “Mount Dromedary”: […] that name can be seen as the first of the changes that come for our people […] Cook’s maps were very good, but they did not show our names for places. He didn’t ask us. Cook has been incorporated into songs, jokes, stories and Aboriginal oral histories right across the country. Why? I think it’s an Aboriginal response to the way we’ve been taught about our history. Read more: Captain Cook wanted to introduce British justice to Indigenous people. Instead, he became increasingly cruel and violent Myth-making persists but a shift is underway I came through a school system of the 50s and 60s, and we weren’t weren’t even mentioned in the history books except as a people belonging to the Stone Age or as a dying race. It was all about discoverers, explorers, settlers and Phar Lap or Don Bradman. But us Aboriginal people? Not there. We had this high exposure of the public celebration of Cook, the statues of Cook, the reenactments of Cook – it was really in your face. For Aboriginal people, how do we make sense of all of this, faced with the reality of our experience and the catastrophic impact? We’ve got to make sense of it the best way we can, and I think that’s why Cook turns up in so many oral histories. I think wider Australia is moving towards a more balanced understanding of our history. Lots of people now recognise the richest cultural treasure the country possesses is 65,000 years of Aboriginal cultural connection to this continent. That’s unlike anywhere else in the world. I mean no disrespect, but 250 years is a drop in a lake compared to 65,000 years. From our perspective, in fact, we’ve always been here. Our people came out of the Dreamtime of the creative ancestors and lived and kept the Earth as it was in the very first day. With global warming, rising sea levels, rising temperatures and catastrophic storms, Aboriginal people did keep the Earth as it was in the very first day to ensure that it was passed to each surviving generation. There was going to be a (now-cancelled) circumnavigation of Australia in the official proceedings this year, which the prime minister supported. But James Cook didn’t circumnavigate Australia. He only sailed up the east coast. So that’s creating more...

ShutterstockIn today’s episode, Clare Collins, a Professor in Nutrition and Dietetics at the University of Newcastle, explains how our diets might need to change depending on what stage of life we’re in. The Conversation’s Phoebe Roth started by asking: what should kids be eating and how much should parents worry about children eating vegetables? An edited transcript is below. New to podcasts? Everything you need to know about how to listen to a podcast is here. Additional audio credits Kindergarten by Unkle Ho, from Elefant Traks. Podcast episode recorded by Phoebe Roth and edited by Sophia Morris. Lead image Shutterstock Edited transcript Clare Collins: Parents worry so much about what children eat. But the rule of thumb is if they’re growing well, then you don’t need to worry. They are eating enough food. And the way you know if they’re growing well is: if you take their baby book or you have a growth chart on your wall and you plot their height and weight regularly, you’ll be able to see if they’re following one of the lines on the growth chart. And that’s the best indicator. The other thing that’s worth remembering is that a well child won’t starve themselves. But for children, their appetite is more variable than an adult. With us, we go, “Well, 12 o'clock, better eat lunch,” or “Oh, I’m awake, better have breakfast now because I’m going to be busy at work later.” But for children, they’re much more responsive to their internal cues. And the younger the child, the more variable their appetite. So a typical thing is, a two or three year old might eat a massive breakfast and tomorrow they don’t eat any. At daycare, they might eat a huge lunch or none at all. And then the same thing happens at dinner. So if your child’s in daycare, you might want to look in the book or ask the staff, did they eat afternoon tea and lunch today? And that’ll give you a little bit of a guide as to whether you should be encouraging them to eat a little bit more dinner or just go, well, they had just had a massive afternoon tea, so they’re not really going to be hungry. The other thing with children around the evening meal is that they often run out of steam by the end of the day. So having the evening meal as early as is practical. And for a young child, that may mean they’re having their dinner at five o'clock. And then what they eat at the family meal time is an optional extra. Because if you make them wait till 6 or 7pm, they’re over it and dinner becomes a nightmare. The other thing that we know about kids, in terms of should we worry about them not eating vegetables, is we’ve actually done some research on this. And we found for kids around the age of three, the biggest predictor of their vegetable intake was not what mum had eaten in pregnancy. It was actually what the parents were eating now. So if you really want your children to eat heaps of veggies, it’s monkey-see-monkey-do, then that means we’ve got to look at how much we love our broccoli, mum and dad. And then that will make a big difference. The other factor that comes into vegetable intake is genetics. And about 25% of people are what are called “super tasters”. That means they have got extra taste buds. And I wrote an article about this on The Conversation, actually. And so they taste things like the brassicas family – so Brussels sprouts, cauliflower – they taste it as more bitter than people who were either, not super tasters or, you know, have less taste buds. But more good news: even if you’re a super taster, if you don’t give up and you have repeated exposure, you even overcome that. So there’s no excuse for not liking your cauliflower. Read more: How much food should my child be eating? And how can I get them to eat more healthily? Phoebe Roth: That’s really interesting. I had no idea about a lot of that. So you started to touch on my next question, but I wonder if there are any other tips you’ve got. I was going to ask, what does the evidence...

Michelle Grattan talks with MPs Tim Watts (Gellibrand, Victoria), Fiona Martin (Reid, NSW), Clare O'Neil (Hotham, Victoria) and Helen Haines (Indi, Victoria) about how they do their job during the pandemic. They discuss the operation of their electorate offices in light of isolation requirements, and recount how the crisis is affecting their constituents. New to podcasts? Podcasts are often best enjoyed using a podcast app. All iPhones come with the Apple Podcasts app already installed,...

AAP/EPA/ANDY RAINWhat does the COVID-19 pandemic sound like? For this episode, Dallas Rogers – a senior lecturer in the School of Architecture, Design and Planning at the University of Sydney – asked academic colleagues from all over the world to open up the voice recorder on their phones and record a two minute report from the field about their city. Many of those who responded to the call are struggling, just like us, to make sense of their experience in the COVID-19 city. The resulting stories reflect on hygiene, disease, quarantine, social control and the urban environment from cities around the world. If you want to hear all the stories in full, you can find them here, and read more about the project here. Contributors Roger Keil (@rkeil), Professor at York University Jason Byrne (@CityByrne), Professor at the University of Tasmania Kurt Iveson (@kurtiveson), Associate Professor at the University of Sydney Tanja Dreher (@TanjaDreher), Associate Professor at the University of NSW Carolyn Whitzman (@CWhitzman), Professor and Bank of Montreal Women’s Studies Scholar at the University of Ottawa Tooran Alizadeh (@DrTooran), Associate Professor at the University of Sydney Eugene McCann (@EJMcCann), Professor at Simon Fraser University Beth Watts (@BethWatts494), a Senior Research Fellow at Heriot-Watt University Amanda Kass (@Amanda_Kass), PhD candidate at the University of Illinois at Chicago Elle Davidson, Aboriginal Planning Lecturer at the University of Sydney Creighton Connolly (@Creighton88), Senior Lecturer at the University of Lincoln Kelly Dombroski (@DombroskiKelly), Senior Lecturer at the University of Canterbury Kate Murray (@katiemelbourne), Connected Cities Lab at the University of Melbourne Em Dale (@carnivoresetal), at Oxford University Matt Novacevski (@places_calling), PhD candidate at the University of Melbourne Mirjam Büdenbender (@MBuedenbender), advisor to the chair of the social-democratic parliamentary group in Berlin Natalie Osborne (@DrNatOsborne), Lecturer at Griffith University Ash Alam (@urbanmargin), Lecturer at University of Otago Cameron Murray (@DrCameronMurray), Post-doctoral fellow at the University of Sydney Deepti Prasad (@Deepti_Prasad_), PhD candidate at the University of Sydney Madeleine Pill (@pillmad), Senior Lecturer at the University of Sheffield Matt Wade, (@geminidluxe), Post-doctoral Fellow at the National University of Singapore is with Renae Johnson, an independent artist, in Singapore Susan Caldis (@SusanCaldis), PhD candidate at Macquarie University Paul Maginn (@Planographer), Associate Professor at the University of Western Australia Music Credits Crop circles by Craft Case, Inspri8ion by Pulsed, The city below by Marten Moses, Someone else’s memories by So Vea. https://www.epidemicsound.com/ Theme beats by Unkle Ho from Elefant Traks. Production credits Project coordinated by Dallas Rogers. Audio edited by Miles P. Herbert, with additional audio editing by Wes Mountain. Lead image AAP/EPA/ANDY RAIN Read more: Coronavirus is stressful. Here are some ways to cope with the anxiety

Author provided (No reuse)In this special hour long podcast presented by Mark Evans, professor of governance and director of Democracy 2025, the panel discusses Australian democracy with Emeritus Professor Ian Chubb and Michelle Grattan. The panel dissects the Australian trust in government, compared with other modern democracies around the world. Drawing on the world values survey, the report notes the sharp focus on the quality of democratic governance, especially in the time of global...

Dave Hunt/AAPThe coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, which causes the disease COVID-19, has infected nearly half a million people and taken the lives of more than 21,200. No person in Australia is more qualified to speak on the science of this global pandemic than Professor Peter Doherty. Professor Doherty was awarded the Nobel prize for medicine in 1996 for his work studying the immune system. The Doherty Institute, now at the forefront of Australian research on the coronavirus, bears his name. In...

What do you need to know about COVID-19 and coronavirus? We asked our readers for their top questions and sought answers from two of Australia’s leading virus and vaccine experts. Today’s podcast episode features Professor Michael Wallach and Dr Lisa Sedger – both from the School of Life Sciences at the University of Technology, Sydney – answering questions from you, our readers. An edited transcript is below. And if you have any questions yourself, please add them to the comments below. New to podcasts? Everything you need to know about how to listen to a podcast is here. Transcript Sunanda Creagh: Hi, I’m Sunanda Creagh. I’m the Digital Storytelling editor at The Conversation, and I’m here today with two of Australia’s leading researchers on viruses and vaccines. Lisa Sedger: Hi, my name’s Lisa Sedger. I’m an academic virologist at the University of Technology Sydney. And I do research on novel anti-viral agents and teach virology. Michael Wallach: I’m Professor Michael Wallach, the Associate Head of School for the School of Life Science (at the University of Technology Sydney) and my expertise in the area of development of vaccines. Sunanda Creagh: And today, we’re asking these researchers to answer questions about coronavirus and COVID-19 from you guys, our readers and our audience. We’re going to kick it off with Dr. Sedger. Adam would like to know: how long can this virus survive in various temperatures on a surface, say, a door handle or a counter at a public place? Lisa Sedger: Oh, well, that’s an interesting question, because we hear a variety of answers. Some people say that these types of envelope viruses can exist for two to three days, but it really depends on the amount of moisture and humidity and what happens on that surface afterwards, whether it’s wiped off or something. So potentially for longer than that, potentially up to a week. But with cleaning and disinfectants, etc, not very long. Sunanda Creagh: And what’s an envelope virus? Lisa Sedger: Well, viruses are basically nucleic acid. So DNA like is in all of the cells in our body or RNA. And then they have a protein coat and then outside of that they have an envelope that’s made of lipids. So it’s just an outer layer of the virus. And if it’s made of lipids, you can imagine any kind of detergent like when you’re doing your dishes, disrupts all the lipids in the fat. That’s how you get all the grease off your plates. Right? So any detergent like that will disrupt the envelope of the virus and make it non-infective. So cleaning surfaces is a good way to try and eliminate an infective virus particle from, for example, door handles, surfaces, et cetera. Sunanda Creagh: And Professor Wallach, Paul would like to know: should people cancel travel plans given that this virus is already here? Does travelling make the spread worse? And that’s international travel or domestic travel. Michael Wallach: So this question has come up to many different governments from around the world who’ve reacted very differently. Australia’s been very strategic in banning travel to certain places. And of course, those places you would not want to travel to at the time when there’s an outbreak like China, Italy, Iran, etc.. I was also asked the question on ABC Tasmania: should the Tasmanians restrict domestic travel to Tasmania? At the time, they had a single case. And I said to them, if you have one case, you most likely have more. You will not prevent the entry of the virus into Tasmania. But what restricting travel can do is restrict the number of people who are seeding that area with virus and make it more manageable. So it’s a question of timing. As I was saying to you earlier, the cost-benefit of closing off travel has to be weighed very carefully because the economic impacts are very great. So I think it’s a case by case basis. Ultimately, the planet is now seeded. And we’re moving into the stage of exponential growth and that it will affect travel very...

Lukas Coch/AAPWith 100 domestic cases as of March 10, federal and state governments and health authorities face daunting challenges posed by COVID-19 in coming weeks and months - securing a workforce of nurses and doctors to treat the sick, ensuring enough testing facilities to meet a rapidly growing demand, and stemming the spread of the virus, to the maximum extent possible. As Chief Medical Officer for the federal government, Professor Brendan Murphy is confident about maintaining enough...

ShutterstockAre we alone in the Universe? The expert opinion on that, it turns out, is surprisingly consistent. “Is there other life in the Universe? I would say: probably,” Daniel Zucker, Associate Professor of astronomy at Macquarie University, tells astrophysics student and The Conversation’s editorial intern Antonio Tarquinio on today’s podcast episode. “I think that we will discover life outside of Earth in my lifetime. If not that, then in your lifetime,” says his fellow Macquarie University colleague, Professor Orsola De Marco. And Lee Spitler, a Senior Lecturer and astronomy researcher at the same institution, was similarly optimistic: “I think there’s a high likelihood that we are not alone in the Universe.” The big question, however, is what that life might look like. Read more: The Dish in Parkes is scanning the southern Milky Way, searching for alien signals We’re also hearing from Danny C Price, project scientist for the Breakthrough Listen project scanning the southern skies for unusual patterns, on what the search for alien intelligence looks like in real life - and what it’s yielded so far. The Parkes radio telescope is scanning the southern skies, searching for signals from intelligent alien life.AAP/MICK TSIKAS Read more: 'The size, the grandeur, the peacefulness of being in the dark': what it's like to study space at Siding Spring Observatory New to podcasts? Everything you need to know about how to listen to a podcast is here. Additional audio credits Kindergarten by Unkle Ho, from Elefant Traks. Lucky Stars by Podington Bear, from Free Music Archive Illumination by Kai Engel, from Free Music Archive Podcast episode recorded and edited by Antonio Tarquinio. Lead image Shutterstock

MICK TSIKAS/AAPAppointed minister for resources, water, and northern Australia in the Nationals reshuffle, Keith Pitt was handed a diverse portfolio with some highly contested issues. As water minister, he’ll soon have a report from Mick Keelty on the Murray-Darling Basin, which could spark more fighting between states, and the ACCC report into water trading, expected at the end of the year. “We do need to ensure the trading is fair,” he says. “I’m as concerned as anybody else if people...

Kelly Barnes/AAPMark Butler, Shadow Minister for Climate Change and Energy, is optimistic that Labor is better placed to prosecute its climate policy at the next election, compared to the last. “I think we are better positioned now for two reasons.” “Firstly, I think the business community has shifted substantially over the last couple of years, and that’s a global shift that reflects particularly the fact that regulators…and investors have recognised that climate change poses a very...

ShutterstockYou’ve heard of dark matter. You’ve probably heard there’s a fair bit of it out there in space, and that astronomers don’t know for sure what it is. But, strange as dark matter is, there’s an even more mysterious thing out there in the Universe – and quite a lot of it. Dark energy, believed to be responsible for the acceleration of the expansion of the Universe, makes up the vast majority of space. Today, editorial intern and astrophysics student Cameron Furlong, dives into what we know about dark energy and what it means for our place in the Universe. Read more: The Dish in Parkes is scanning the southern Milky Way, searching for alien signals New to podcasts? Everything you need to know about how to listen to a podcast is here. Additional audio credits Kindergarten by Unkle Ho, from Elefant Traks. Pulsars by Podington Bear, from Free Music Archive Podcast episode recorded and edited by Cameron Furlong. Lead image Shutterstock Read more: 'The size, the grandeur, the peacefulness of being in the dark': what it's like to study space at Siding Spring Observatory

The coronavirus is presenting a major threat to Australia’s education export industry, which is highly dependant upon the China market, and a huge challenge to the universities. Phil Honeywood, CEO of the International Education Association of Australia says: “At the end of the day, China is the most heavily populated country in the world, it’s on our regional doorstep and it has an incredible appetite for having their children study offshore.” This podcast was recorded before the...

Adam Bandt began his political journey in the Labor party, but the issue of climate change drew him to the Greens. Last week he became their leader, elected unopposed. Asked about his ambitions for the party, Bandt aspires to a power-sharing situation with a Labor government, akin to the Gillard era. “Ultimately Labor’s got to decide where it stands, and if Labor decides that it does want to go down the path of working with us on a plan to phase out coal and look after workers in...

Mick Tsikas/AAPStarting the year with a leadership spill will be seen by many, especially those hit by the bushfires, as the Nationals being particularly self-indulgent. Nationals leader and Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack admits as much, but notes he wasn’t the initiator of his party’s bad behaviour. “We should not have been talking about ourselves. This was never of my making or doing. And we should have spent the entire day, not just those sitting hours, but the entire day...

When we are imagining this time, next year, are we limiting our thinking to how we avoid the conditions we faced in this summer? Or are there bigger questions we can ask?ShutterstockEditor’s note: Today, on Trust Me, I’m An Expert, we hear from Clare Cooper, design lecturer at the University of Sydney, on how futuring techniques can help us think collectively about life under a drastically hotter climate. Her accompanying essay is below. Australians, no matter where we are, are coming to acknowledge that our summers – and our autumns, winters and springs – are forever changed. We are, bit by bit, reviewing our assumptions. Whether we need to radically rethink our calendars, or question where and how we rebuild homes and towns, we face a choice: collective, creative adaptation or increased devastation. How might this time next year feel - anxious, hot and sticky? How might it smell - like bushfire smoke? How might it taste - would seafood and berries still be on the menu in future summers as our climate changes? (One of my favourite placards at a recent climate rally was “shit climate = shit wine”). When we think about this time next year, are we freaking out, or are we futuring? How might the Australian summer of the future look, taste, smell?Shutterstock Read more: Why we should make time for remembering the future Collaborative futuring in a climate crisis “Futuring” is sometimes called futures studies, futurology, scenario design or foresight thinking. It has been used in the business world for decades. Futuring means thinking systematically about the future, drawing on scientific data, analysing trends, imagining scenarios (both plausible and unlikely) and thinking creatively. A crucial part of the process is thinking hard about the kind of future we might want to avoid and the steps needed to work toward a certain desired future. But futurists aren’t magical people who sweep in and solve problems for you. They facilitate discussions and collaboration but the answers ultimately come from communities themselves. Artists and writers have been creatively imagining the future for millennia. Futuring is a crucial part of design and culture-building. My research looks at how futuring can help communities work toward a just and fair transition to a drastically warmer world and greater weather extremes. Collaborative futuring invites audiences to respond to probable, possible, plausible and preposterous future scenarios as the climate crisis sets in. This process can reveal assumptions, biases and possible courses of action. Cars lie damaged after a surprise hailstorm hit Canberra in January. Extreme weather events are predicted to worsen as the climate changes.AAP Image/Mick Tsikas Read more: How we forecast future technologies Getting creative Futuring is not predicting futures. It’s a way of mixing informed projections with imaginative critical design to invite us to think differently about our current predicaments. That can help us step back from the moment of panic and instead proactively design steps to change things for the better – not 20 years from now, but from today. If you peeked into a futuring workshop with adults, you might see a lot of lively conversations and a bunch of post-it notes. For kids, you might see them making collages, or creating cardboard prototypes of emerging technology. You might have done some futuring today, talking with friends and family about changes you might make as it becomes obvious our summers will grow only hotter. I’ve seen futuring occur at my daughter’s school, where children are invited to imagine being on the other side of a difficult problem, and then work out the steps needed to get there. 13-year-old protester Izzy Raj-Seppings poses for a photograph outside of Kirribilli House in Sydney late last year.AAP Image/Steven Saphore Read more: 'This situation brings me to despair': two reef scientists share their climate grief Futuring a just transition...

The Parkes radio telescope can detect extremely weak signals coming from the most distant parts of the Universe.ShutterstockFor John Sarkissian, operations scientist at the CSIRO Parkes radio telescope, astronomy has been his life’s passion – starting from the age of six. “When I was six years old, I watched Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walk on the Moon,” he says of the radio telescope made famous in the film The Dish. “In fact, on the cover of my year nine mathematics textbook was a painting of the Parkes radio telescope. I remember sitting in the class staring at the painting and daydreaming working there one day. And so here I am now, 40 some years later.” Today, on Trust Me I’m An Expert, editorial intern Antonio Tarquinio speaks to Sarkissian about the research underway at one of Australia’s most famous astronomical research facilities including: the role Parkes is playing right now in the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence how the telescope detects extremely weak signals coming from the most distant parts of the Universe why even a light breeze can imperil the dish unless it’s in the right position how the explosion of phones, wi-fi and radio frequency interference is affecting research in the once-deserted Parkes location. And Sarkissian’s own take on whether Parkes will help find alien life? “Well, as of today, the only place we know of the entire Universe that there is definitely life is right here on Earth,” he says. “And what does that say? It says that we should appreciate our place in the Universe a little more.” Read more: 'The size, the grandeur, the peacefulness of being in the dark': what it's like to study space at Siding Spring Observatory New to podcasts? Podcasts are often best enjoyed using a podcast app. All iPhones come with the Apple Podcasts app already installed, or you may want to listen and subscribe on another app such as Pocket Casts (click here to listen to Trust Me, I’m An Expert on Pocket Casts). You can also hear us on Stitcher, Spotify or any of the apps below. Just pick a service from one of those listed below and click on the icon to find Trust Me, I’m An Expert. Read more: Trust Me, I'm An Expert: what science says about how to lose weight and whether you really need to Additional audio Kindergarten by Unkle Ho, from Elefant Traks. Extra Dimension by Kri Tik, from Free Music Archive Images Shutterstock Read more: Darkness is disappearing and that's bad news for astronomy

Today we hear about some of the fascinating space research underway at Siding Spring Observatory – and how, despite gruelling hours and endless paperwork, astronomers retain their sense of wonder for the night sky.ShutterstockHow did our galaxy form? How do galaxies evolve over time? Where did the Sun’s lost siblings end up? Three hours north-east of Parkes lies a remote astronomical research facility, unpolluted by city lights, where researchers are collecting vast amounts of data in an effort to unlock some of the biggest questions about our Universe. Siding Spring Observatory, or SSO, is one of Australia’s top sites for astronomical research. You’ve probably heard of the Parkes telescope, made famous by the movie The Dish, but SSO is also a key character in Australia’s space research story. In this episode, astrophysics student and Conversation intern Cameron Furlong goes to SSO to check out the huge Anglo Australian Telescope (AAT), the largest optical telescope in Australia. Siding Spring Observatory, north east of Parkes.Shutterstock Read more: Darkness is disappearing and that's bad news for astronomy And we hear about Huntsman, a new specialised telescope that uses off-the-shelf Canon camera lenses – a bit like those you see sports photographers using at the cricket or the footy – to study very faint regions of space around other galaxies. Students use telescopes to observe the night sky near Coonabarabran, not far from SSO.Cameron Furlong Listen in to hear more about some of the most fascinating space research underway in Australia – and how, despite gruelling hours and endless paperwork, astronomers retain their sense of wonder for the night sky. “For me, it means remembering how small I am in this enormous Universe. I think it’s very easy to forget, when you go about your daily life,” said Richard McDermid, an ARC Future Fellow and astronomer at Macquarie University. “It’s nice to get back into it to a dark place and having a clear sky. And then you get to remember all the interesting and fascinating things, the size, the grandeur and the peacefulness of being in the dark.” New to podcasts? Podcasts are often best enjoyed using a podcast app. All iPhones come with the Apple Podcasts app already installed, or you may want to listen and subscribe on another app such as Pocket Casts (click here to listen to Trust Me, I’m An Expert on Pocket Casts). You can also hear us on Stitcher, Spotify or any of the apps below. Just pick a service from one of those listed below and click on the icon to find Trust Me, I’m An Expert. Read more: Trust Me, I'm An Expert: what science says about how to lose weight and whether you really need to Additional audio Kindergarten by Unkle Ho, from Elefant Traks. Lucky Stars by Podington Bear from Free Music Archive. Slimheart by Blue Dot Sessions from Free Music Archive. Illumination by Kai Engel from Free Music Archive. Phase 2 by Xylo-Ziko from Free Music Archive. Extra Dimensions by Kri Tik from Free Music Archive. Pure Water by Meydän, from Free Music Archive. Images Shutterstock Cameron Furlong Read more: Antibiotic resistant superbugs kill 32 plane-loads of people a week. We can all help fight back

The Yearbook is a collection of 50 standout articles from Australia’s top thinkers.The ConversationLast week, Michelle Grattan and Peter Martin (economics editor at The Conversation) were in Sydney to launch the 2019 Conversation Yearbook. The event was held at Glebebooks and presented an opportunity for readers to hear Michelle and Peter’s discussion about the year that was, and ask questions. This podcast is an edited recording of that event. New to podcasts? Podcasts are often best...