Lab Notes: How microscopic algae can devastate ocean life
A couple of months ago, a killer started mobilising off the South Australian shore — one that would wipe out marine life, make surfers feel sick, and smother picturesque beaches in thick foam.The culprit? A bloom of tiny organisms called microalgae. We can't see them with the naked eye, but in big enough numbers, they can devastate ecosystems.So what made the South Australian algal bloom so lethal, and can anything be done about blooms like it?
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13:34
Black white and green
People have been in the Australian wilderness for generations. But can people be considered part of the natural landscape or will they always have an impact?
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54:36
Lab Notes: AI that outperforms humans is coming
If you were impressed by generative AI such as ChatGPT, then artificial general intelligence or AGI promises to really knock your socks off.Over the past couple of decades, tech companies have been racing to build AGI systems that can match or surpass human capabilities across a whole bunch of tasks.So will AGI save the world — or will it spell the beginning of the end for humanity?
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14:41
Mary Somerville - Brilliant polymath, scientific genius triumphed against the odds
She could only read and write from age 10. She reared children and had a first unsupportive husband. But Mary Somerville was able to correct the work of Isaac Newton, help discover Neptune, and write a science book which became a university text.
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54:51
Lab Notes: Why a metre is a metre long
The next time you pick up a bag of spuds from the supermarket or fill up the car with petrol, you can thank the Treaty of the Metre for the metric system that underpins daily life.The treaty was signed exactly 150 years ago, when delegates from 17 countries gathered on a Parisian spring day to establish a new and standardised way of measuring the world around us.But the metre's inception predates the treaty that bears its name by nearly 100 years. So how did it come about, and how has its definition changed over the centuries?
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