The humble crisp has come a long way since its invention more than 200 years ago. You can get them in flavours such as bolognese, cheeseburger and beef rendang … which taste uncannily like bolognese, cheeseburger, and beef rendang. So how are these complex flavours made, and how do food chemists get them tasting so close to the real deal?

Nearly two decades ago, a small group of scientists in Australia came surprisingly close to resurrecting the extinct gastric brooding frog.  Hear from the scientists involved about the highs and lows of de-extinction efforts, and the challenges facing researchers today. 

Since President Donald Trump retook office, the state of research in the States has been precarious for many, with billions of dollars of proposed cuts from science and health research. But there is a silver lining: other countries such as Australia are implementing programs to recruit US researchers looking to relocate.

Pauline Newman meets biosecurity officer Brent Madden who explains how a dog’s obsession with tennis balls is used to elicit a desired behaviour.

Challenging ideas such as whether plants communicate and planting according to cycles of the moon - a healthy scepticism presented with hope and vision.  

Professor Marilyn Renfree describes the genius and spirit of her late husband reproductive biologist Roger Short.

Get ready for gravitons, dark photons and altered transition states. Kathryn Zurek takes us on a tour of a bewildering world, our world, with us knowing so much, while at the same time, knowing so little.

Len Fisher tackles accusations that some scientific papers and some science books contain misinformation. How well are they checked? Are academics too busy or too few to monitor the work of others?

In her book Beyond Green, Geographer Lesley Head argues that Indigenous presence in wilderness in Australia has existed in a balanced way. And Robyn is taken on a walking tour of the highlands around the Shoalhaven River in NSW by two Indigenous guides.

It can come, not only from the indulgent use of drugs, but also from the exchange of genes within our own guts.

Claire Saxby shows how the restless Earth can have fissures in its crust leading to huge explosions from deep in the sea, forming islands such as Hawaii whilst allowing thousands of living things to flourish under water.

Long-term stress may have consequences. These are being studies in marmots and humans.

The diapause, the suspension and then triggering of foetal development, has allowed Australian marsupials to battle the extreme environment with remarkable success.

A group of amateur fossil hunters in Victoria has uncovered fossilised tracks left in a slab of mud, which have been dated as 35-40 million years older than the previously oldest known evidence of an early reptile.

David Walker of UCLA has studied aging for 30 years and thinks he now knows how it happens and, at least in fruit flies, how to reverse it.

Jonathan Davis, Zofia Witkovsky-Blake and Jessie French discuss their lives as tertiary students combining their interests spanning science and the arts.

Australia’s eminent immunologist Gus Nossal is 94 and ailing but as enthusiastic as ever for the prospects for research.

David Attenborough describes one of his favourite birds, Birds-of-paradise with their golden crests.

Dung beetles were introduced to Australia to clean up after cattle. Rhiân Williams describes the lives and work of dung beetles in her book for younger readers, One Little Dung Beetle.

Cockatoo Island in Sydney Harbour has a rich Indigenous history, the one-time industrial site is now a nature reserve and function centre.