Ockham's Razor - ABC RN

How are your knees feeling? There's a pretty good chance one or both of them are sore — after all, knee osteoarthritis is a leading cause of disability globally, and Australia's no exception. Trouble is, we don't really have any way of treating it. But never fear — this week we're hearing from someone who's bringing her engineering background to take a peek inside dodgy knees and see what it might take to fix them.

What does it take to survive on the driest inhabited continent on Earth? Indigenous people have tens of thousands of years of knowledge about this, but their place in the conversations about water planning and management are often tokenistic at best, or worse, completely absent. Bradley Moggridge wants to change that. He's a Kamilaroi man and hydrogeologist, and he knows Indigenous knowledge needs to be central to Australia's water future.

Don't you love tipping your head back on a clear, dark night, and seeing those silvery stars twinkling above you? We know in our brains that they're giant balls of burning gas, even though they look like fairy dust scattered across the sky. And the reason we know this is because of the science of astronomy. This week we're hearing from an astronomer about the incredible discoveries her field has managed to uncover, and what the next generation of radio astronomy might achieve… right here in Australia.

You probably have a favourite colour, flower, or song. But do you have a favourite parasite? Shokoofeh Shamsi does - although she studies parasites for a living, so maybe that makes a bit more sense. The bad news for the rest of us who don't spend a lot of time thinking about this stuff? Her favourite parasites live in many Australians' favourite food.

We know that exercise is good for us — good for our muscles and bones and mental health. But what if it's good for other parts of us as well? Research is showing that exercise releases molecular signals that can protect our eyes from diseases like age-related macular degeneration. The next step is to figure out how to harness these benefits, which is exactly what Dr Joshua Chu-Tan is on a mission to do.

What does a natural landscape look like to you? Maybe you think of a dense forest, or a sparkling body of water. Somewhere untouched by humans, right? Maybe the word “wilderness” comes to mind. Today we're hearing from someone who wants you to think twice about this idea of wilderness. Michael-Shawn Fletcher is a geographer and a descendant of the Wiradjuri – and he wants to challenge the idea that country that's untouched by humans is a good thing.

Do you have a favourite place that's been affected by the extreme weather that's hit Australia over these past couple of years? This week on Ockham's Razor we're hearing from Barbara Norman, who has her own special place that's been hit hard by climate change. But luckily, Barbara is an expert in urban and regional planning, and she has ideas on how we can plan better to adapt to climate change.

There are some moments you can look back on and go 'yep – that's when I knew what I wanted to be when I grew up.' The moment your ambition really crystallised. This week, we're hearing from Emily Finch about when that moment happened for her – on a family field trip to what she calls the “science donut”.

Priyanka Pillai combines computer science skills and a background in biomedical sciences to take on complex challenges in health data, particularly for pandemic preparedness research. You know, just in case we ever need that sort of thing …

Sexual selection is a potent evolutionary force responsible for much of the weird and wonderful diversity of life on our planet. So what happens when it's disturbed by human-induced environmental change?

What's Australia best known for? Venomous creatures? Football with weird rules? What about… space exploration?

Who's the strongest person in the world? And how would you measure it? Today's guest has a metric in mind.

Somewhere between the very, very big physics and the very, very little physics is ... condensed matter physics. You might not have heard of it before, but it's just as mindblowing – as today's guest Elise Kenny will demonstrate.

If you're not something straightforward like a lawyer or a teacher or an electrician, there's a question you hate getting at dinner parties – what do you do? And this week on Ockham's Razor we're hearing from someone who particularly dreads this question. But Johanna Nalau's job – and what it means for our future – is an important one to get your head around.

It's no secret that Australia is home to many a venomous snake but this week's guest wants to convince you that we should look at this as a blessing, not a curse.

Look, don't put your mobile phone in a blender. Just… trust me on this one. But if you did, you'd find more of the periodic table of elements in that pulverised phone dust than you might expect. What's that, you want more context? Allison Britt from Geoscience Australia can explain. First broadcast 11 July 2021.

If you could take your brain and zoom in a couple of times – and then a bit more – you'd see structures that look like towers and tentacles, and behave like pieces of automatic Lego.  It's a crazy miniature world, and one we're going to get a tour of today. Our tour guide is Dr Kiara Bruggeman, who's hijacking and hacking these nano-sized structures, in the hopes of helping stroke-affected brains heal. [First aired July 25, 2021]

They will have played a critical role in many of your favourite albums, but what exactly does an audio mastering engineer do? And how is artificial intelligence shaking up what's traditionally been an exacting audio science?

What makes someone who cruises through life relatively happily different to someone who struggles with mental health issues? At least part of it lies in our genes – and there's not much we can do about that. But there are other factors that we can control. Mary McMillan is trying to figuring out the divide between the two through a highly scientific process involving ... spit in a cup. First broadcast 28 March 2021.

What does it take to peel a banana? It's something most of us can do without thinking, but imagine making a machine that could operate with that much dexterity. This week, we're hearing from Geoff Spinks, a materials engineer whose focus is on creating teeny, tiny machines that could fit inside your body.

What does it take to raise a generation of healthier kids? Well it depends a bit on what's around them – and what's further away. What's cheaper, or at least feels like better value for money. And what options they have in their downtime.

Each year, in hundreds of Australian towns, the annual highlight is the country show. For Kathryn Bowden, showtime isn't just about checking out the stock and produce. It's a reminder of the generations of farming knowledge that have been passed down through her family, and the ability of Australian farmers to adapt to the changing world around them.

What's the most important human invention from history? The wheel? Fire? How about… language and culture? This week, archaeologist Sam Lin takes us on a tour of very early human history, featuring an item that crops up too regularly to be an accident: an almond-shaped piece of sharpened stone.

What can gobies – those teeny bottom-dwelling fish – teach us about how we cope with lockdowns?  

What do your undies have to do with the health of Australian soils? Dr Oliver Knox is a researcher in cotton farming and soil health -- and he wants you to give you a challenge. First broadcast 18 April 2021.

Are you a fan of pop music? What about rap? Or maybe you like edgy, experimental, electronic stuff? Well – that's what you think. But if we covered your head with sensors and played you some music, we might discover differently. First broadcast 28 August 2021.

We know that giving students choice and ownership over their own learning is best, but has it been lost from the education system?

Think about the stem cells in an embryo – they're a bit like a teenager on the brink of adulthood, with the potential to be almost anything they want to be.

There are those places in nature that we come back to, again and again. The reason we come is because they're so beautiful, or peaceful… but it's the act of returning regularly that helps us notice when things are different. The landscape is telling us in those subtle changes what's happening to it.

What do boiled bandicoot, smuggled salami and an invisibility cloak have in common? Dr Deb Bower can tell you. She's a conservation biologist working on reptiles and amphibians ... with no shortage of fieldwork adventures to share. And the key to understanding the relationship between those seemingly very different items lies among the rough forest tracks of Papua New Guinea. Originally broadcast 7 March 2021.

520 million years ago, the oceans teemed with some of the most bizarre animals ever to have lived.

Every day we make hundreds of choices, big and small, that build to become the story of our lives – the friends we make, the careers we choose, our partners and our purpose.

What if our entire universe, including you and I, could be boiled down to one object: a vibrating string?

They breathe air but live underwater, and like their land-dwelling counterparts their bites are venomous.

Nathan Brooks-English usually studies the geological processes that make mountains but on one particular field trip, the thing he learned most about was human connection.

You've got one, I've got one, and even cows have them. I'm talking, of course, about a microbiome – that collection of trillions of microorganisms that live on and in us and that we literally couldn't live without. You know who else has a microbiome that's a matter of life and death? One of our favourite insects: the honeybee.  This week, we're hearing from Mengyong Lim, who's been getting up close and personal with bees' digestive tracts to make sure we humans aren't wreaking too much havoc on them…

The year is 1911, and a young man by the name of Thomas Midgely Jr. is graduating university with a degree in engineering. Thomas doesn't know it yet, but he will have a greater impact on the Earth's atmosphere than any other single organism. He will help create two world-changing chemical inventions that will improve the lives of many, and negatively change two parts of our ecosystem in the process with decades-long consequences.

If there's one thing Australians know how to be smug about, it's that our country is home to some of the most incredible ecosystems in the world. But today, we're visiting one that is massive in size, massively economically important … and massively underappreciated, to the point that that you may never have even heard of it.

Mention the term “startup” and your mind probably goes to Silicon Valley and high-tech computer science. But startups exist in regional Australia as well – and what's more, they're crucial to our future. This week, we're hearing from Elena Kelareva on startups in Gippsland, in regional Victoria – and how getting away from preconceptions is one of the first steps to startup success.

Where does cancer come from? Well there are a few answers to that question – genetic changes, maybe it's triggered by a virus. But for two species of cute, fuzzy animals, they can be transmitted directly. This week, we're hearing from Ruth Pye about this surprising thing that two species in very different parts of the world have in common.

Are you a fan of pop music? What about rap? Or maybe you like edgy, experimental, electronic stuff? Well – that's what you think. But if we covered your head with sensors and played you some music, we might discover differently.

Our own health and the health of our planet as two things that are intertwined. Today, we hear from obstetrician Kristine Barnden about the gap between good health in theory, and the challenges to having it in practice. It's something Kristine sees not just in human health… but in the health of our climate as well.

Did you know that across the Tasman, in New Zealand, some kitchens have roller cupboard doors instead of, you know, normal cupboard doors? It's because of the earthquakes. Sometimes they're so bad that your crockery can shake out of your cupboards and smash, and the roller ones prevent this. Lucky for us, earthquakes don't really happen in Australia, so it's not something we need to worry about. Right? Well… it's time you met seismologist Dr Trevor Allen.

If you had to pit endangered species next to each other in a contest of who was most good-looking, tigers would have to be pretty close to the top of the list. They're gorgeous – and getting people on board with the idea of protecting them isn't too hard. But what about the people who live on the edges of their habitat? This week, we discover that conservation is a noble goal… but it's got to be done in partnership with local communities. Our narrator: Professor Wendy Wright from Federation University. And the story starts early one morning in rural Nepal.

Living as we do in a country that's prone to drought, it's no surprise that the subject of irrigation for farming can become a contentious one in Australia. Stepping up to the mic today is Rose Roche, who wants to bring some much-needed nuance to the water debate… and she's enlisting the help of fairy tales and Disney princesses.

If you could take your brain and zoom in a couple of times – and then a bit more – you'd see structures that look like towers and tentacles, and behave like pieces of automatic Lego.  It's a crazy miniature world, and one we're going to get a tour of today. Our tour guide is Dr Kiara Bruggeman, who's hijacking and hacking these nano-sized structures, in the hopes of helping stroke-affected brains heal.

You know in movies, where it turns out the scrappy young hero had the power to succeed inside themselves all along – they just had to learn how to harness it? It turns out this is more than just a storytelling trope – it can also be true for communities, recovering from disaster.

Look, don't put your mobile phone in a blender. Just… trust me on this one. But if you did, you'd find more of the periodic table of elements in that pulverised phone dust than you might expect. What's that, you want more context? Allison Britt from Geoscience Australia can explain.

We're pretty used to walking into a supermarket and expecting the stuff we want to be on the shelf. Or at least we were until last year, when panic-buying lifted the curtain a bit on just how complex our food supply can be. Lucky for us, it's something smart people are studying hard – including development economist Katie Ricketts.

We know that giving students choice and ownership over their own learning is best, but has it been lost from the education system?

When I say “brown coal”, what word comes to mind? Dirty? Well maybe that's fair… if you want to burn it. But Vince Verheyen reckons there's a future for it in a net zero emissions world. The starting point is understanding what it is, geologically, and how to make the most of its ingredients.