Boiling Point is Eastside Radio’s 30-minute foray into the scientific world. The BP crew discuss obscure scientific facts, recent developments and play tunes with a tenuous connection to their topics of choice!
Tropicalisation has reached NSW’s waters – fish communities and ecosystems are changing Close your eyes for a moment and picture yourself diving into the tropical world of corals and fish right off the coast of New South Wales. Sounds like a dream? Well, it’s not a dream anymore, climate change causes tropical fish to move […]
Dendrochronology is the science of tree rings and a branch of science that researchers came up with for the trees in the northern hemisphere. Australian trees and their rings have long lived in the shadows of their northern cousins. But that ignorance is about to end. The tree rings of Australia are equally full of […]
We throw it in the bin and it is gone. So we hope. But of course it is not. Recyclable plastics like milk bottles are only at the start of their long journey when we throw them away. Until recently, most of it was shipped to China. When China banned the plastic import it went […]
Read More… from A long journey ahead – where do our recyclable plastics go?
Whale sharks are actually pretty well dressed. But their clothes are invisible. They consist of billions of microbes that protect the sharks’ skin. Tim and Cat chat with marine microbial ecologist and whale shark researcher, Dr Michael Doane, about one of his favorite study subjects. Wanna follow a tiger, bull or great white sharks on […]
Manta rays can recognize themselves in the mirror, sharks can learn from watching each other’s behaviour, some fish can remember the day of the week and all fish feel pain. Fish cognition specialist Culum Brown finds fish fascinating and in his many years of research, he learned quite a bit about their mental capacities that […]
Read More… from The fish whisperer and the miraculous brain of fishes
Why do sharks attack? What motivates them? Do they sometimes play like a cat? How can we reduce the risk of shark attacks? These and more questions have been going through Chantelle’s head after she was attacked by a great white shark last year in August. Tim and Cat chat to Chantelle about her shark […]
Read More… from When Chantelle forgot to wear her pineapple hat
A creature grows inside its host’s belly and feeds on the hosts’ energy reserves until it finally breaks free to live on its own. What sounds like a scene from ‘Alien’ is actually an every-day scenario. I am talking about pregnancy. Pregnancy is a tricky situation for the immune system of the mother. The baby […]
Read More… from The alien within – Pregnancy and the immune system
Our cities are getting hotter and our changing climate is framing all the future challenges ahead of us. This week on Boiling Point Tim and Ben talk to Alessandro Ossola, researcher coordinator from the Smart Green Cities Centre at Macquarie University. Alessandro tells us how through proper planning, policy making and through our day to […]
Read More… from Throwing Some Shade – Heat Trees and Climate Change
What do you do with a General Science Degree? Is Academia or teaching your only option? In today’s episode three of our presenters: Anastasia, Ben, and Tim talk about their experience working in the industry. We dive into how we got the job, what our day-to-day is like, what our experience taught us, and our […]
Almost everyone around the world knows about the most mysterious of mammals, the platypus. But how did it become what it is today? A new study from Denmark provides new insight into its genome. Also on the show, this is the summer of cicadas. They are everywhere and they are deafening. Why are there so […]
They are small in size and yet, their impact is huge. Without them the world would be different. Well, at least the oceans would be different, as almost the entire marine ecosystem depends on them, as they are the food source of numerous predatory species. Learn more about krill, the crustaceans that mean the world. […]
Read More… from Krill – the tiny shrimp that feeds the world
Why do we have different blood types? And what do they actually mean? Our guest, Dr Bethany Pillay, is an immunologist and knows her blood types. They are tiny molecules on the surface of red blood cells and yet, they can mean the world. They can even influence our susceptibility to a range of diseases […]