This was a fairly monstrous episode (in a good way) - several people, competing voices (not necessarily opinions!), and plenty of ground covered.
Download here.
Lucas was on board again, as was
Dr Krystal Evans (yes, I just linked you to a Twatter. I feel dirty), who is a researcher at the
Walter and Eliza Hall Institute working on a live malaria vaccine, a panelist on radio station RRR's science program
Einstein a Go Go (which, as Ed points out, is a terrible name...) and was a strong presence in the program that we referred to in an earlier episode,
Discoveries Need Dollars. She's the kind of scientist I would have liked to be - dedicated to the point of wanting to actively engage, erudite and with a passion for science that will hold her in good stead for any shit that's thrown in any career scientist's path. The sort of stuff that I couldn't get over as a scientist. I realised, listening to her, that I'm way out of the loop, and a big part of me is very sad about that.
Anyway, enough rumination. Topics:
Search engines changing the way memory works;
Forests as carbon sinks, and why planting trees won't necessarily work as the only means of offsetting emissions;
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Conversely, cities as carbon sinks;
Ethnic disparities in Genome Wide Association Studies;
The other side of GM - Round Up Ready turf grass and the potential for selection of resistant weeds;
More on Greenpeace's act of GM vandalism;
The genomes of
the potato and
coral sequenced.
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