The Science Show - Separate stories podcast

One of the most obvious challenges to our concept of reality, is the idea that there are many other universes coinciding with ours. But how? And can we prove it? Another quandary is Einstein’s theories of relativity mashing space and time together. Professor Geraint Lewis has a new book: The Shortest History of Reality ready to confound us. Now!

As Professor of Practice at the University of New South Wales, Lisa Harvey-Smith provides support for teachers of junior science. She has written books for juniors linking quarks, stars, radiation and sunshine. Lisa Harvey-Smith reflects with Robyn Williams on the state of particle physics and the mysteries at the heart of some of the major questions being pursued in astrophysics today.

It was a full page in the Australian Financial Review last week and included top names in both energy and climate science. The signatories are calling for the federal government to tax exporters of Australian natural gas with the proceeds to directed to science research including Australia’s developing fire crisis. We hear from one signatory, David Bowman, Professor of Fire Studies at the University of Tasmania.

As spring approaches in Australia, we prepare for dust storms, driven mainly by cold fronts moving over the continent’s southeast and interior. But Mars is a whole different planet. Astronomer Chelsea Huang describes conditions on Mars which produce planet-wide dust storms which make the strongest on Earth seem like a gentle breeze.

It has been more than 30 years since astronomers found the first exoplanet — a planet outside the Solar System — and now researchers from Chile think they may have detected the first exomoon.