0:00

ABC Listen, podcasts,

0:02

radio, news, music

0:04

and more. When

0:08

the first Europeans arrived here in Australia,

0:11

they thought it would make a good

0:13

penal colony, but not much else. A

0:16

topsy-turvy world, they called it,

0:18

where trees shed paper, big

0:20

birds laughed, and instead of deer, there

0:23

were things that hopped. Even

0:25

Darwin was rude about the new colony. But

0:28

now the science has shown what a wondrous

0:30

place Australia really is, not

0:32

least with its astonishing mammals. Hello,

0:47

Robin Williams of The Science Show

0:49

about Indigenous innovation later on. But

0:51

we start with a groundbreaking paper published on

0:54

Monday from the Australian Museum. You'll

0:56

have heard some of it already this week in the papers

0:58

and so on. Here's my partner, Dr.

1:01

Jonathan Newby, formerly of Catalyst with

1:04

lead author Tim Flannery. Well,

1:06

Tim, you have had already

1:09

a big life and a

1:11

big career, but how does this latest

1:13

discovery rate? Look,

1:16

this discovery, it's one of the fundamental discoveries

1:18

that I've made, I suppose, because

1:21

what it's revealed is a whole age of

1:24

mammals that we just didn't know about before.

1:26

And that's a rare thing. I mean, I

1:28

don't think I'll see it again in my

1:30

lifetime. The fossil record of mammals is pretty

1:33

well known globally now. So to

1:35

discover or fill a gap as big as this

1:37

is really extremely rare. Well,

1:40

it does sound incredible, but you better

1:42

explain. What have you found? What

1:45

we've found is that 100

1:47

million years ago, Australia was

1:49

home to an evolutionary radiation

1:51

of monotremes. So they're related

1:53

to echidnas and platypus and

1:55

things. We're talking egg-laying mammals.

1:58

Yeah, egg-laying mammals. In

2:00

the past so far more diverse than

2:02

what we see today. So that array

2:04

of monotremes we've discovered in potted. it's

2:06

like the my soup your for you

2:08

seen as ready to die. We've got

2:10

five different families and monotremes coexisting in

2:12

Australia one hundred million years ago and

2:14

I rise from little tiny things attempts

2:16

the size of a brush. how fast

2:18

can guide you know maybe a hundred

2:20

and fifty grams. You might have to

2:22

pick sized animals so they really varied.

2:25

So I believe some people have been calling

2:28

this. A New Age The age of them

2:30

on a train. Will, That's right it.

2:32

it really is because there were no

2:34

other mammals found at the site. It's

2:36

all monotremes. me are normally. In.

2:38

The age of dinosaurs. On other continents

2:40

you see several different orders of mammals comprising

2:42

the memo Foreigner, but here in stride it

2:45

is just one would have. The mana frames

2:47

and I seem to be occupying all of

2:49

the ecological niches. Well

2:52

this paper consults. This.

2:54

Wait, what exactly is the paper

2:56

and can you tell me what

2:58

led to this discovery? Sure

3:01

look. The paper is describing three

3:03

new genera and one new family

3:05

of monotremes from the Lightning Reach

3:07

open fields we previously we knew

3:10

about three. Different. Monotremes. So

3:12

we doubled the number of monad frames

3:14

from lightning reach. And in fact, the

3:16

three New Gen represents an increase of

3:19

about twenty percent of the total nine

3:21

monotremes globally. So to be piece of

3:23

scientific news, how time about? Well, it's

3:25

one of those wonderful museum stories are

3:28

going into the museum during it must

3:30

have a that appeared when lockdown would

3:32

be lifted through Twenty Twenty Two briefly

3:35

and I was shown this little bit

3:37

like a little box with these. Fragments.

3:40

of opal i stores in them

3:42

and i realize that this was

3:44

something very special they're worth i

3:46

think nine fragments of jews all

3:48

to yeah that's ultimately we discovered

3:50

that for them fit together to

3:52

form a single white lodge to

3:54

enter they represented three completely different

3:56

kinds of monotremes so at the

3:58

bounties specimens has been selected in

4:00

the 90s but had just been

4:02

laid around and not really looked at carefully.

4:04

Yeah well I gather there are

4:06

millions of specimens at the Australian

4:08

Museum and it's physically impossible to

4:10

re-look at every single one. It

4:12

would take, I don't know, decades.

4:15

Well that's right, yeah exactly and museums are one

4:17

of the great places to look for fossils. You

4:19

know a lot of people go out in the

4:21

field to find new fossils. Museums actually are a

4:23

much better bet because there's a concentration there, stuff

4:25

people have brought in over the years and there's

4:27

just a shortage of paleontologists. So there's a lot

4:29

of stuff there that hasn't really been examined. And

4:32

I guess this extraordinary discovery, the one

4:34

you describe as being one of the

4:36

biggest of your career, perhaps wouldn't have

4:38

happened without COVID and without the lockdowns,

4:40

forcing you to stay in Australia and

4:42

stop going off on conferences and all

4:44

the various other things you've done as

4:46

a climate advocate and writer. Yeah

4:49

that's probably true. It also came at the

4:51

right time for me in my career. You

4:53

know I trained as a paleontologist. I loved

4:55

the discipline. I did a lot of work

4:57

when I was younger and then I became

4:59

a climate activist and climate commissioner and you

5:01

know for 20 years I really didn't have

5:03

a chance to do any science. And it

5:06

was the lockdown, it was the establishment

5:08

of the Climate Council with a group

5:10

of really excellent young people doing all

5:12

that work that really gave me the

5:14

breathing space to look at fossils again.

5:16

And it's been fantastic for me. I

5:18

must say I really enjoyed the

5:20

adventure. Well it is

5:23

an adventure because this has all

5:25

the hallmarks of a classic movie

5:27

level treasure hunt. In fact you've

5:29

even got gemstones at the

5:31

end of it. Tell me about that. Well you

5:34

do and can I tell you what it

5:36

felt like when I found these things. So

5:38

as I was gradually putting together in my

5:40

mind what these nine fragments represented, I

5:43

felt my god we've discovered the

5:45

equivalent of the Etruscan civilization. We only, you

5:47

know, if you only knew about Romans and

5:49

you found about the Etruscans, that's kind of

5:51

how it felt like to me because this

5:54

was a pre-existing biodiversity that we

5:56

just had no idea about before. So

5:58

it was very very exciting. And of

6:00

course the fact that they're preserved in opal

6:02

is wonderful because you can

6:04

literally see through these fossils and

6:07

see the structure of the mandibular

6:09

canal and the canals, the nerves

6:11

run along. And for

6:13

one of the species it was really striking

6:15

how similar it was to a platypus which

6:17

has a unique structure of nerves in the

6:19

jaw to allow the electro-sensitive beak to operate.

6:22

Paint me a picture of their life. What

6:25

are they? And what sort of place were

6:27

they living because they were all from Lightning

6:29

Ridge? Yeah, they were all from

6:31

Lightning Ridge and at that time of course we

6:33

were still deep in the age of dinosaurs. So

6:36

there were lots of dinosaur fossils from Lightning Ridge

6:38

and elsewhere. But at the

6:40

time those animals lived, Australia was a lot

6:42

further south than it is today. So Lightning

6:44

Ridge was at about 60 degrees

6:46

south which is polar really. So

6:48

there's a period of darkness every

6:51

year and it's very strong

6:53

seasonality. And we think

6:55

the monotremes are adapted to that environment. They

6:57

seem to have begun as

7:00

small mammals that probed in moss and

7:02

so forth in the ever-wet forests of

7:04

those areas. Using perhaps

7:06

their electro-sensitive scents to find their food

7:08

and of course in a dark environment

7:10

eternally wet, that's a very good way

7:12

of finding food. It's like

7:14

we think of monotremes, egg-laying mammals

7:16

as primitive but they actually have

7:18

a superpower that we don't which

7:20

is this electro-sensing that you just

7:22

mentioned. They have more than one

7:24

superpower. They are incredible animals. You know you look

7:26

at the brain of the echidna and the frontal

7:29

lobes of the brain are larger proportionately than they

7:31

are in humans. And that's where all of our

7:33

higher-level thinking goes on. Just because they have this

7:35

little beaky face, they don't give away a lot

7:37

in terms of what's going on inside but I

7:40

think they're really smart. I've had quite a lot

7:42

to do with echidnas and I think they're very

7:44

intelligent. And that's not to mention the four-headed penis

7:46

and all the other wonders that these animals have.

7:50

Not to mention whether that brain is quietly working

7:52

out relativity or something like that.

7:54

Exactly. They might already be there,

7:56

I don't know but they are fascinating

7:59

animals and to find this great diversity of

8:01

them in the past has really been a

8:03

revelation. Watch this space. Congratulations.

8:05

And I hope you're celebrating. Oh,

8:08

we are. We'll be celebrating with a zoom call on

8:10

a glass of wine on Monday evening. Fantastic.

8:12

Thank you, Jim. Thank you. Great. Professor

8:15

Tim Flannery is a visiting distinguished fellow

8:17

at the Australian Museum in Sydney with

8:19

my partner, Dr. Jonathan Newby. And

8:22

that paper was published this week in

8:24

Alcharinga, an Australian journal

8:26

of paleontology. And there'll

8:28

be much, much more about that story

8:30

in future science shows on our end.

8:33

And we'll also have revelations about

8:36

the deep ocean and archaeology. Do

8:38

you know about Point Nemo? Here you're

8:41

in search of Point Nemo. Is

8:45

that Nemo the fish? Well,

8:47

he could have visited, maybe. But

8:49

Point Nemo is otherwise known

8:52

as the oceanic pole of

8:54

inaccessibility or the absolute

8:56

farthest point from land. And

9:00

at any one sort of average

9:02

time, the astronauts in

9:04

the International Space Station are closer

9:07

to Point Nemo than any of us would

9:09

be. So it's like out there.

9:12

Pacific Ocean Middle. Yeah. When

9:14

all the space programs are trying to figure out where to

9:17

get rid of their space debris so it doesn't fall over

9:19

land, so it doesn't hit anybody in the head. I mean,

9:21

we know we've all heard about space to be falling.

9:23

It's not great. So they

9:25

decided to start programming stuff to go

9:27

to Point Nemo. Middle of the Pacific

9:29

Ocean. And I think the first one that was

9:31

sent there was in 1971. It was a

9:33

solute. And since then, over 263

9:38

craft of various types and sizes have

9:40

been directed to Point Nemo. But I'm

9:42

getting off track. The point is Point

9:44

Nemo is based debris ocean. How

9:47

cool would that be to go check out?

9:50

And I have a friend who is a

9:52

space archaeologist. I think she came

9:54

to World Science Festival last year. Alice

9:56

Gorman, she's down in Flinders. We've had

9:58

some chats about this. as well. And

10:01

you would think that things would burn

10:03

up through the atmosphere, but they

10:05

won't because rockets will make it

10:07

through. And then you would

10:09

think that there would also be some form

10:11

of disintegration when it hits the surface of

10:14

the water and some spreading as things travel

10:16

down. But things that are

10:18

quite heavily built and resistant to

10:21

heat, like fuel

10:23

tanks or rocket boosters, have

10:25

a high potential of perhaps being

10:28

present in this

10:30

location, although scattered across

10:32

the wide area. And I mean,

10:34

that is archaeologically the best

10:37

evidence of early human space

10:39

exploration that's on our planet.

10:42

Extraordinary. So let's go. Dr.

10:46

Emily Jettiff from the National Maritime Museum

10:48

in Sydney. Yes, Point Nemo

10:50

in the deepest ocean may

10:52

rival museum drawers as a

10:54

source of archaeological remains. That

10:57

extract is from a deep ocean science show

10:59

special to be broadcast in July. But

11:02

what about that so-called space junk?

11:05

It's all in a book by Lisa Rand

11:07

at Caltech. Why is Apollo

11:09

16 your favorite? Because

11:12

Apollo 16, after returning from

11:14

the moon, the crew engaged

11:17

in a kind of whimsical act of

11:19

taking out the garbage or littering, depending on

11:21

how you want to frame it. They

11:24

opened the hatch and performed an extra

11:26

vehicular activity in cislunar space. And

11:28

one of the first things they did in that process was

11:30

take what was called a jettison bag

11:32

or a jet bag for short and

11:35

toss it out the window and

11:37

said, bye-bye bag, and then

11:39

continued on with their work. And

11:42

this was just one act of taking out the

11:44

garbage in the Apollo program. It became really

11:46

part of each mission. It got

11:48

written into the mission checklist.

11:50

The very first picture that Neil Armstrong took from

11:53

the surface of the moon features one

11:55

of these jet bags full of items the

11:57

astronauts no longer wanted or needed, underneath

12:01

the lunar module legs. So

12:04

we have this iconic images from the surface of

12:06

the moon taken by Neil Armstrong that

12:08

if you certain ones if you take a look at them you can

12:10

see this white bag that seems

12:13

really unassuming and uninteresting and

12:15

yet it shows that

12:17

these practices of discard

12:19

of throwing things away that no longer

12:21

serve a particular designated purpose is something

12:24

that extended to the first

12:26

steps of another planet. Surely the idea

12:29

is to bring it back like you do if

12:31

you go on a picnic you bring it all

12:33

the rubbish back and recycle it or whatever it's

12:35

supposed to do rather than just leave it

12:37

there. Why? Well

12:40

if you just leave it in the

12:42

park for someone else to clean up it's

12:44

impolite and you've

12:46

got more chances of recycling it if you bring it home

12:49

or put it in the right place

12:51

then checking it out into space. What's

12:53

it gonna do in space? Just hang around

12:55

forever. Well there's a whole lot of space

12:58

not a whole lot of space in an Apollo capsule

13:00

so think about how much more room they would get if they threw

13:03

a jettison bag full

13:05

of fecal containers collection devices or

13:08

tubing or things they just didn't need that

13:10

can make a lot of room for things like

13:13

moon rocks or other things or just

13:15

space for the astronauts to move around that if it's something

13:17

you don't need and I don't know

13:19

the exact reasoning where the command came

13:21

from it's something I'd be interested in when that decision was

13:23

made to not just leave something on the

13:25

surface of the moon but to actually throw

13:27

it out into outer space. It's interesting when

13:30

you have space junk as you've called it

13:32

at what

13:34

point does it become in the

13:37

way forever that is a huge concern

13:39

for people like yourself? Well

13:41

one of the things that I'm trying to demonstrate

13:43

with my research is that space junk has been

13:45

a concern from the very beginning. This is not

13:47

a new problem this is

13:49

not something that specialists or even

13:52

everyday people were not aware of it's

13:54

something that's kind of had popular attention but

13:56

one of the things I'm working on right now is exploring

14:00

how the very first encounter

14:02

that most citizens of

14:04

the planet had with the space age, with

14:06

the very first artificial satellites, was not with

14:09

that shiny beach ball-sized

14:11

sphere that we all think of as Sputnik. It

14:14

was with the much larger rocket, core of the

14:16

rocket that sent to the loft. Because

14:18

beach balls, not that big, hard to see. Even though

14:20

it was polished up to a high shine, not

14:23

easy to view from the ground. But a 20-meter

14:25

long rocket, it was 20 meters. That could catch

14:27

a lot of sunlight at dawn and dusk when

14:30

the sky is dark, but there's still sunlight coming

14:32

around the horizon. Much, much easier

14:34

to view with the naked eye, no specialized equipment

14:36

needed. And when people reported

14:38

seeing Sputnik, what they were actually seeing

14:41

was this object that arguably

14:43

was the first piece of space junk,

14:45

but also arguably was one part of

14:47

the first satellite. That the

14:50

first satellite was not just one object, it

14:52

was multiple objects that all served different

14:54

unique purposes at different points in time,

14:56

depending on who was using that object.

14:58

Whether you were a politician or a

15:00

scientist or an American citizen or

15:03

a Soviet citizen or an unaligned, unaffiliated

15:05

citizen, all of these different pieces

15:07

of the Sputnik object and

15:09

the Sputnik experience had different

15:12

meanings and different uses at different points of time during those

15:14

few months that they were in orbit. The question is, if

15:16

you've got a fecal bag that's got a few other

15:18

things in it, it's tackling a

15:20

gigantic speed that's not allowed even on

15:22

an American freeway around the corner, and

15:25

therefore it's likely to zap a number

15:28

of other things and even

15:30

reflect and seem like something that gets

15:32

in the way of astronomical viewing. Isn't

15:35

that why it shouldn't be there? Well,

15:37

something like a jet bag, as far as I

15:39

know, they only did that once, throwing something out of

15:41

the window in cislunar space,

15:43

which is very far away from the Earth. I

15:46

am unaware that it has

15:48

ever been tracked. Whereas objects that

15:50

lower orbits, those

15:52

tend to be of primary

15:54

concern to astronomers,

15:57

to space industry specialists who are

15:59

looking to some new kinds of

16:01

satellites or satellite operators who want to

16:03

make sure that their properties are safe

16:05

and not threatened by these, as you

16:08

mentioned, very, very fast moving objects

16:10

in space. We're at an interesting

16:12

point right now, particularly within the last five

16:14

years or so, when the

16:17

sheer quantity of objects,

16:19

of artificial objects in outer space has

16:22

really grown exponentially with the rise of

16:24

Starlink and other so-called mega-constellations. So this

16:27

is becoming more of a common discussion of what

16:29

that future might look like, especially because, so I

16:31

will say, one of the things I think it's

16:33

important to keep in mind about your question about,

16:35

oh, there's all these fast

16:37

things moving around. Why would anyone do

16:39

that? Wouldn't that be a risk? Well,

16:41

at lower orbits especially, the outer space

16:43

environment has long been relied upon by

16:45

satellite operators, by space industry leaders to

16:48

clean up the messes established

16:50

there, right? So the effects

16:52

of Earth's atmosphere extend much, much, much

16:54

further out than you might imagine and

16:57

depending on the levels of solar activity at

16:59

the time, at certain altitudes,

17:02

the atmosphere exerts drag and friction

17:05

on objects that are no

17:07

longer being controlled, draws them back

17:09

into the atmosphere, they disintegrate, burn up,

17:11

and any pieces that are left that

17:13

might hit the ground usually fall in the ocean, though not all

17:15

the time. So this has been

17:18

something that space operators

17:20

have been really relying upon for decades,

17:24

but within the last five years, the rate of

17:26

reentry of that process and the rate of launch

17:30

have kind of flipped. So

17:33

we're replacing, or if I say

17:35

we, I mean space operators, right, are replacing

17:37

artificial objects in outer space more quickly

17:39

and the atmosphere can remove them for

17:41

us. Associate Professor Lisa Ruth

17:43

Rand is writing a book about space

17:45

junk and has even grown red lettuce

17:48

from seeds that have flown on the

17:50

International Space Station and she's

17:52

at Caltech. And by

17:54

the way, we at RN in Sydney are sort

17:56

of homeless as part of our building as being

17:58

turned upside down for real. renovation. And

18:01

in the process we found two archaeological

18:03

specimens of mine, two ancient

18:06

typewriters, one electric and one

18:08

gorgeous fossil, a mechanical one.

18:11

Let's bring them back and

18:13

solve the dreaded AI problem.

18:16

Our late great poet Les Murray put

18:18

it this way. The

18:20

privacy of typewriters. I

18:25

am an old book troglodyte, one

18:28

who composes on paper and

18:30

types up the result as many times

18:32

as need be. The

18:35

computer scares me. It's

18:38

crashes and codes. It's links

18:40

with spies and gunshot. It's

18:43

text that looks pre-published and

18:45

perhaps has been. I don't

18:48

know who is reading what I write on

18:50

a carriage that doesn't move or ding. I

18:54

trust the spore of botch.

18:57

Whiteouts where thought deepened.

19:00

Wise freedom from spell check.

19:02

Sheets to sell the National

19:05

Library. I

19:07

fear the law of

19:09

that baleful mistruck key that

19:11

fills a whisked screen with

19:13

a writhe of child pornography

19:16

and the doors smashing

19:18

in and the cops handcuffing me

19:20

to a grisly of video culture,

19:23

choraline in an ever colder

19:25

sea. William

19:40

Zapper reading The Privacy of

19:42

Typewriters by Les Murray. Bring

19:45

them back. The science show on

19:47

our end where last week we also discussed

19:49

the preciousness of objects, some in

19:51

museums with Rose Hiscock, for instance. Yes

19:54

I remember when I was in the

19:57

Royal Institution taking a bunch

19:59

of visitors. from Australia and

20:01

looking at some very cute things

20:03

in glass cases and bits of

20:05

apparatus here and the odd picture

20:07

of a bloke with a long

20:09

wig frowning at you. And

20:12

they were reasonably impressed and

20:14

I said, now I'm going to take you downstairs. I'm

20:17

going to take you to where

20:19

Michael Faraday did

20:21

his experiments and

20:23

they looked a bit puzzled. And

20:26

we went in quite a small room with

20:28

his apparatus as he left it and there,

20:30

the size of my recorder here, big

20:33

box jupot size like that. I

20:35

said, this is the first ever electric

20:37

motor. This

20:39

created the second industrial revolution. Two

20:42

of them nearly fainted. Exceptional,

20:47

what an experience. My experience

20:49

now with that kind of

20:51

very emotional response is

20:54

with indigenous collections. So

20:56

one of the parts of my responsibility

20:58

at the University of Melbourne is working

21:01

with indigenous colleagues around the indigenous

21:03

collection and seeing those

21:07

exceptional cultural objects, whether they're a

21:09

basket that has a woven design

21:11

that is talking about a culture

21:14

in the design through to other

21:17

cultural objects and working

21:20

alongside Aboriginal and Torres Strait

21:22

Islander curators. Again, very moving

21:25

and we have so much

21:27

to learn and to work

21:29

with those collections. Interesting

21:32

that there had been discovered actually,

21:34

there's two scientists from Melbourne, from

21:36

Monash University, from a dig on

21:38

Lizard Island, go deep

21:40

down and a couple

21:42

of thousand, maybe up to 6,000 years

21:44

ago, there was pottery. Exceptional,

21:46

it makes me think about a scientist

21:49

at the University of Melbourne not wanting

21:51

to be competitive with our universities here,

21:53

but Michael Pachon Fletcher, who

21:55

takes Earth core samples and

21:58

through analysing those samples. understands

22:01

Indigenous practices and particularly fire practices

22:03

at looking at the soil and

22:05

those changes. We have a few

22:07

on display actually of those at

22:09

Science Gallery if people wanted to see them but

22:11

yeah beautiful work. About time I went

22:13

to see you again, thank you. Oh

22:16

come in Robin, you know you're welcome

22:18

any time. Rose Hiscock in charge of

22:20

museums at the University of Melbourne and

22:22

that includes the Science Gallery which yes

22:24

I must revisit and so

22:26

to that broader topic of innovation and the

22:28

human history of Australia. As astounding

22:30

as that of the biology we heard about

22:33

at the beginning of this science show. My

22:36

name is Lynette Russell and I am

22:38

a distinguished professor at Monash University and

22:40

I have just written a book with

22:43

Professor Ian McNiven called Innovations

22:45

Looking at the Last 65,000

22:47

Years of Indigenous Australia. Now

22:51

my first question and this is rather

22:53

interesting given the extent of

22:55

time that human beings have been in

22:58

Australia and the research at Maja Bibi

23:00

and so on suggesting 65,000 years.

23:03

Now in your book you

23:05

show that it wasn't simply

23:07

we all turn up by

23:09

happenstance in northern

23:11

Australia but they've been

23:13

checking out the coastline at a

23:16

distance and the distance

23:18

was slightly shorter than it

23:20

is now because you could actually

23:22

do island hopping because

23:25

the level of the sea was low.

23:27

So when abouts and how many people

23:30

do you think checked out the coastline

23:32

before the arrival of human beings with

23:34

large numbers? The thing that is

23:37

becoming increasingly clear from the work of

23:39

some of our colleagues who are mathematical

23:41

modelers is that it's

23:43

many hundreds if not thousands of

23:45

people who arrive. So the

23:48

actual number of people who might have done the checking

23:50

out of the coastlines probably a little bit of a

23:52

mystery but the reality is

23:54

this is a sustained

23:58

planned strategic movement

24:01

of people out of Southeast Asia

24:03

into northern Australia. There's nothing random

24:05

about it and certainly

24:08

when I was training as an undergraduate the whole kind

24:10

of debate was was it just a pregnant woman on

24:12

a log as if somehow that

24:15

could have created the

24:17

diversity of Australia that we saw in

24:19

the 19th century somehow that could

24:21

have come from just one person and of course

24:23

we know that to be completely false. So

24:25

it is in fact many hundreds and

24:28

certainly in terms of the actual settlement it's at

24:30

least a thousand maybe 1500 or more.

24:33

That's impressive. And

24:35

the way they came across indicated

24:37

as you put in the book

24:39

one of the most sophisticated ways

24:41

of marine travel in human

24:44

history. Yes exactly and

24:46

it's really important to remember that people build

24:48

the sorts of boats that they need. There

24:50

are a lot of comments around well

24:52

Aboriginal people didn't have particularly sophisticated

24:55

watercraft in say southern Australia but they didn't actually

24:57

need it either but they might have needed something

24:59

they could get them from A to B along

25:02

the river. But if you're planning

25:04

on coming from one island

25:06

nation to a continent and

25:09

yes indeed it was something and they could

25:11

do an island hop but it

25:13

still requires significant distance of open water

25:16

and that's not an easy thing to

25:18

do and you definitely could only do

25:20

it in a boat that is actually

25:22

built for that very purpose. And

25:25

a couple of weeks ago in the science

25:27

show Dr. Anna Florin from the Australian National

25:29

University indicated how the food

25:31

that they ate and how they gathered

25:33

that was initially

25:36

quite early on very sophisticated.

25:39

But what you say about how you don't need

25:42

particular ships in the

25:44

way in which the communities

25:46

developed. Similarly there was

25:48

an argument about whether you needed

25:51

something more evident of sophisticated innovation.

25:53

I remember when Hugh Morgan from

25:55

Western Mining was on the ABC

25:58

radio this is a while ago. He

26:00

said with all that time, if you're there for

26:02

tens of thousands of years, why didn't you invent

26:04

the wheel? Well perhaps

26:06

because there were no roads, who knows,

26:08

but what you're talking about is innovation,

26:11

in other words, doing things in

26:13

a different imaginative way adapting

26:15

to the surroundings, not just

26:17

making inventions. So how

26:20

did that develop? It depends entirely on

26:22

the particular culture. I think it's really important

26:25

that we understand that you

26:27

only invent what you need. And

26:30

if you don't need wheels, if you don't

26:32

need to be transporting large amounts of material

26:34

from A to B or large numbers of people from A

26:36

to B, then you don't necessarily

26:39

require that particular kind of transportation.

26:41

Our take really is that

26:44

over millennia, Aboriginal people had

26:46

a sustainable, innovative

26:49

culture that adapted them to

26:51

changing circumstances but also importantly

26:54

made innovations into their society so

26:56

that they could have exactly what

26:58

they wanted. And from the outside,

27:00

Europeans might have seen it as

27:03

conservative or unchanging or

27:05

somehow primitive. But when

27:07

you drill down and when you spend time in

27:09

any of those communities, the archaeology and the archaeological

27:12

record, you realise that

27:14

it's actually extremely sophisticated

27:17

and it's very complex. It's much more complex than

27:19

we imagined it was. And

27:21

it's turning up with new evidence all

27:23

the time. I remember broadcasting through Ian,

27:25

your co-author, archaeologist

27:27

Monash, the discovery

27:30

of pottery on a lizard

27:32

island digging through what seemed

27:34

like a sort of superficial midden. It went

27:36

down and down and down and down. And

27:39

suddenly it may have been about 2000, who knows, 4000

27:41

years old piece of pottery indicating,

27:45

and this is interesting because it seems

27:47

to be what you're driving at on

27:49

land as well. These communities

27:52

interacted. They didn't just go to a

27:54

place and stay there and that was

27:56

the end of it, but they were

27:58

interacting rather like and this

28:01

is interesting, the Greeks on their

28:03

different islands were coming and going

28:05

and developing their own sophisticated civilization.

28:07

Yeah, and the Jigaru pottery is

28:10

really interesting, the work of Sean Almondy

28:12

and McNiven and others. What

28:14

it demonstrates is first of all, it is

28:16

local pottery. So it's pottery

28:18

using local materials. It

28:21

also does indicate significant interaction with

28:23

people to the north, almost certainly

28:25

Papua New Guineans who have a

28:27

long tradition of pottery. So

28:29

that pottery represents two things. It

28:32

represents a local innovation in that

28:34

it is locally made and it's using

28:36

local materials, but it also

28:38

represents communication and the transfer of

28:41

knowledge from one group to another.

28:43

And we've also been able to show through the

28:46

historical record that particularly from

28:48

the north, people did travel right down

28:50

the Queensland coast and getting to

28:52

Jigaru or Lizard Island is not so

28:54

surprising really. And also

28:56

going back north again to the islands,

28:59

so there's toing and froing. Absolutely.

29:02

But also when it comes to some

29:04

of the sophistication, because Anna

29:06

Ploron was saying almost in the beginning

29:08

that you had examples of the use

29:10

of fire and Rhys Jones from the

29:13

Australian National University for Archaeology a long

29:15

time ago talked about fire stick farming.

29:17

Now, is it the case

29:19

that because of the huge variety of

29:22

landscape and therefore of different communities,

29:24

it was an

29:26

adaptation to the circumstances where

29:28

they were using

29:31

fire in different ways, understanding the

29:33

landscape in other words. Ian

29:35

describes this as enhanced landscapes.

29:37

The idea of fire stick farming, which of

29:40

course has been of late relatively controversial, quite

29:43

problematically so, but we know that they used

29:45

fire. We know that they used fire in

29:47

a kind of mosaic pattern and in different

29:49

regions they used it differently. So

29:52

obviously people understood their individual

29:54

landscape really intimately, carefully,

29:56

understood the kind of growing conditions,

29:59

but also in... importantly, knew what animals

30:01

and what plants they wanted to

30:03

enhance. So that fire

30:05

becomes the mechanism by which they

30:07

enhance the landscape so that it

30:09

is as productive as they want it to be. And

30:13

so what sort of variety do you get?

30:15

Give me a couple of examples of different

30:17

ways fires use perhaps. So there's

30:19

the low-cool burns in northern Australia and

30:21

I've actually seen them do this in

30:23

Kakadu and it's quite spectacular to watch

30:26

because people will light the landscape,

30:28

the grass will burn very quickly

30:30

and then people literally can walk on

30:32

it. It's so cool that it doesn't

30:34

even hurt them as insects are coming

30:36

out and lots of bird

30:38

life suddenly descends and it becomes this

30:41

kind of amazing magical place of

30:43

activity. But then you have

30:46

other sorts of fire stick farming or gissifier

30:48

in places like Tasmania and

30:50

Michael Sean Fletcher has shown some extraordinary

30:53

work where we would

30:55

look now and say that these are

30:57

pristine landscapes and he actually has demonstrated

30:59

that the reforestation is actually really quite

31:02

recent because people had used fire

31:04

to keep the grasslands open and in fact

31:07

what we're seeing is not necessarily

31:09

always an old growth forest but

31:11

in fact something relatively recent. And

31:15

what about, we talked about the

31:17

difference between innovation and inventions but

31:19

what about those inventions, the fish

31:22

traps and the various throwing devices,

31:24

who knows the value. Boomerang, how

31:26

do they come up? Well,

31:30

I'd say many, many, many

31:32

trial and error over decades

31:34

because if you take a look at

31:37

a returning boomerang, it

31:39

is such an extraordinary piece of

31:42

carving. There's a twist

31:44

on them, there's a particular way

31:46

of them being handled and the

31:48

carving just makes them so aerodynamic.

31:50

They're quite remarkable. If anyone's

31:52

even ever tried to throw one, you also know that

31:54

they're not that easy to get to return. So

31:57

the returning boomerang for an example is...

32:00

definitely something that shows an

32:02

extraordinary sophistication and understanding of

32:05

the properties of the wood, of the

32:07

properties of flight, understanding how you can

32:09

make something so precise that will actually

32:11

land back at your feet. It's

32:13

amazing. It really is

32:15

amazing and I'm amazed

32:18

by every time I read about David

32:20

Uneippon just to leap from if

32:22

you like ancient history or distant history

32:25

to the present day or near modern

32:27

times. I could not believe

32:29

how many things David Uneippon did. He seemed

32:31

to be about five different people. Could you

32:33

give us a rough summary? He

32:36

truly was a Renaissance

32:38

man, absolutely astonishing. He

32:40

had so many inventions, including as we

32:42

know the wide combs, the shearing,

32:44

and obviously he invented a particular

32:47

propeller type arrangement which was meant

32:49

to give lift. The sad part about all of that

32:51

is that he never had the funds to

32:54

register any of those designs that he came

32:56

up with. In fact, they just passed

32:58

and he never was actually

33:00

able to benefit from his extraordinary

33:02

mind. When you read some of

33:04

the mission records, they talk about

33:07

his voracious appetite and he would

33:09

launch himself into these really

33:11

highly technical scientific books, particularly

33:13

around physics and mechanics.

33:16

Obviously, he just was an astonishingly

33:18

interesting man and a man who,

33:20

well I guess yet, he was

33:22

an innovator par excellence. Where

33:25

was he based and did he have any

33:28

contact with other people who took on his

33:30

work? Indeed, he was based in

33:32

South Australia at the Macleod Mission and he

33:34

certainly had lots of experience

33:37

and lots of engagement with other people because

33:39

he traveled around the country. Often on foot,

33:41

I might add, he was very keen.

33:44

He said he was keen for people to understand

33:46

in the parlance of the day and it's not

33:48

necessarily language we'd use today. He wanted

33:50

people to understand the aborigine, which is what

33:52

he termed used, as

33:55

a sophisticated human being, as

33:57

a person, as people who

33:59

were clever. and capable of

34:01

what he saw as advancement.

34:04

Yes, in fact, when I set

34:07

up this rather quixotic idea of

34:09

the top 100 scientists, he

34:11

was there but there he

34:13

was I think he taught himself two

34:15

classical languages at the same time as

34:18

doing all that. Indeed, he truly was

34:20

a remarkable intellect. And on

34:22

the $50 note, still there?

34:25

He is still there, I believe. I

34:27

haven't seen a $50 note for a while. Rather

34:30

less cash floating around. So what is

34:32

the lesson? The point of your book

34:35

really is to show how

34:37

people adapt, how human beings are in

34:39

their place and do what they need

34:41

to do an experiment. And

34:43

this is for communities all over

34:45

the place. But here was

34:48

a continent that was

34:50

in many ways isolated and therefore

34:52

had different kind of influences but

34:54

also so incredibly varied in terms

34:57

of, we said before, the

34:59

landscape, the animals, everything

35:02

was different. And so

35:04

when Europeans turn up,

35:06

they hardly knew what they were looking at.

35:08

They called it a topsy-turvy world as if

35:11

it was wrong and weird. Yes, which

35:13

had blue trees rather than green. Europeans

35:16

failed to see what was

35:19

clearly evident and that is

35:21

that first of all it was an extraordinarily

35:23

diverse country because we have 250 different

35:26

languages, more than 600 different

35:28

cultural groups and they

35:30

are doing their own thing. They don't necessarily

35:33

share a belief system and they certainly, as

35:35

we said, don't share a language. So

35:37

there's a whole range of different ways that

35:39

people are interacting with

35:42

their environment, their culture. And

35:44

Europeans, I would suggest, couldn't fail

35:47

to have noticed that diversity,

35:49

particularly those that worked closely or

35:51

lived on the land. So some

35:54

of your early, what we might call settlers

35:56

or invaders, some of those early people undoubtedly

35:58

would have never been able to live in the land. noticed that the

36:00

group that they were dealing with had different

36:03

customs to the group that

36:05

someone further away was dealing with or

36:07

working with or indeed invading. So

36:09

there's that kind of aspect of it. The people

36:12

failed to see or at least remember

36:14

the diversity. And

36:16

I don't think because they didn't see what

36:19

they were expecting to see and that would be

36:21

monumental architecture, fences. So the sort

36:24

of thing that they were looking

36:26

for just wasn't evident. And

36:29

of course, I think there was a blind spot from

36:31

the beginning. That was that Australia

36:33

was meant to be taking possession with permission

36:35

of the indigenous people. We

36:38

know that when Cook announced possession on

36:40

Possession Island in the Torres

36:42

Strait, he certainly did not have the permission. And

36:45

I think there's a blind spot that echoed down for

36:47

a very long time. And I

36:49

think it's only really in the 20th

36:51

century and I think it probably even from the mid

36:53

20th century onwards that people

36:55

start to consciously recognize

36:58

the diversity, the complexity and

37:00

the absolute fascination of

37:02

integer of Australia. How much work

37:04

is going on now? I know that for instance, he's

37:07

an Australian, he was director of Kew Gardens and

37:09

he's living in Albany and he's doing work with

37:11

local people in Western Australia

37:13

looking at the ways in which

37:15

fire stick farming actually is happening

37:17

now. Are there many

37:19

examples of such work where you've

37:22

got, if you like, conventional Western

37:24

science working with traditional Australian science?

37:27

Oh, absolutely. And it's happening

37:29

all over the countryside. So certainly it is

37:31

happening around things like the use

37:33

of fire and the maintenance of the landscape.

37:36

But it's also happening in

37:38

other ways too. I mean, we've got people

37:40

looking at various types of indigenous food stuff

37:42

that we might grow. So what sort of

37:44

plants might we be able to grow? I

37:47

think it'd be a fantastic thing if we

37:49

could reduce our carbon footprint by using native

37:51

plants. So that's a really

37:53

positive thing. We've also got Aboriginal and

37:55

Torres Strait Islander people working on fishery

37:57

knowledge, on various knowledge.

38:00

that are appropriate to the ways in

38:02

which they manage their landscape and that's

38:04

all been taken up by Western scientists

38:07

and our new centre of excellence which

38:09

is commencing in July this year

38:11

which is the Australian Research Council

38:13

Centre of Excellence in Indigenous and

38:16

Environmental Histories and Futures. So

38:18

that's very much about looking at the

38:20

nexus between Western science and

38:22

Indigenous science and Indigenous ways of knowing.

38:24

And that's someone based in northern Queensland

38:26

is it? It's based at JCU there

38:29

is a note at Monash which Ian

38:31

McNiven and I are the chief investigators

38:33

on and it's also got a note

38:35

in WA, one in South Australia

38:37

and of course ANU, University of New South

38:39

Wales. James Cook University in Monash

38:42

and I remember when you look at the

38:44

voice and the vote which said no that

38:48

during that debate Fiona Stanley was

38:50

talking about work in the north

38:52

of Western Australia and

38:55

she was showing the evidence

38:57

for especially psychology and

38:59

medical matters the work done

39:02

between conventional science with

39:06

the Indigenous reference as well that

39:08

was twice as productive if not

39:10

more so than that which is

39:12

just done if you parachute in

39:14

and apply conventional wisdom. The productivity

39:17

was so much more significant. Absolutely

39:20

it's really important that

39:22

everything that we do in this

39:24

space we do collaboratively. There's

39:26

no point in his parachuting in and

39:29

deciding that you know what's best because

39:31

invariably that will not work and we've

39:33

seen this over decades so

39:35

it's really important that everything be co-designed.

39:38

One of the principles of our new Centre of

39:40

Excellence is from the beginning we actually are co-designing

39:43

with our community partners and we

39:45

consider ourselves as academics

39:47

and scholars to have a toolkit and

39:49

we go into our communities and say

39:52

here's our toolkit here's the range of

39:54

skills that we've got in

39:56

what way would you like to work with us if

39:59

that appeals people think, well yes, we're interested

40:01

in environmental studies or we're interested in

40:03

the history or interested in the archaeology.

40:06

We can say, well we've got the people here

40:08

with that skill set and then you sit down

40:10

with the community and you co-design and

40:12

it's more than just coming up with the blueprint

40:14

for the research. It's every aspect of the

40:16

research bringing the community along making sure that

40:18

they're also part of the output when we

40:20

come to publishing it so that

40:23

all voices are given an equal say.

40:25

Distinguished Professor Lynette Russell at Monash

40:28

University. Her book is Innovations, Looking

40:30

at the Last 55,000 Years

40:33

of Indigenous Australia written with

40:35

Professor Ian McNiven, The

40:38

Science Show on our end. Ammonia.

40:53

Yes, you recognize the smell in used

40:56

mappies and you know it's a very

40:58

useful chemical as well, though hard to

41:00

manufacture cheaply because of the unwillingness of

41:03

nitrogen to connect. We rely

41:05

on plants to provide instead. So here's

41:08

Professor Kautish Manthuran with an

41:10

exciting innovation which may perhaps

41:13

soon replace the famous harbor

41:15

Bosch process we've relied upon

41:17

for so long. Yeah,

41:19

we want to start with just air and

41:21

water. Those are the molecules, the material inputs

41:24

that we put into our processes and

41:26

we want to be able to react those with

41:28

the power of sunlight ultimately to be able

41:31

to make the physical world, to make everything

41:33

that we touch, wear, stand on, sit on.

41:35

That's our goal. Why do you need to

41:37

do that when plants are doing it anyway?

41:39

Yeah, so plants actually give us inspiration for

41:41

this, that plants are able to work with

41:43

these very basic feedstocks to make everything that

41:46

they need. Our goal is to take inspiration

41:48

from that but to find processes that are

41:50

scalable, processes through which we can

41:52

make these things in a way that everyone

41:54

in the world can access them and use

41:56

them at a reasonable cost. And

41:58

even though nature can do some these things, nature can't

42:01

always do it at a cost that makes

42:03

sense for the entire world. And so that's

42:05

really our goal is to figure out man-made

42:07

processes that can do that. Interesting.

42:09

So on a vast scale, listen to

42:11

it, except you're trying to do it

42:13

on a small scale, which is somehow

42:15

manageable. How are you getting on? Yeah.

42:18

So I think it's fascinating to hear you

42:20

describe scales because our goal is to have

42:22

impact by reaching the vast scales that you

42:24

described. And yet having impacts

42:26

on those vast scales requires that

42:29

we do and learn and understand things

42:31

at a small scale first. And that's

42:33

what happens in our research laboratories. These

42:35

are prototypes that can sit in the

42:37

palm of my hands that we test and understand and

42:39

we probe and we interrogate. But through

42:41

that understanding, we're building the foundation to

42:43

be able to make devices that are

42:45

even bigger. Now the history

42:47

of chemical manufacturing is doing it in

42:49

really, really large reactors, reactors that are

42:52

beyond what any of us can probably

42:54

comprehend and scale in size. They often

42:56

cost one to $3 billion to build

42:58

a chemical plant that makes, for instance,

43:00

a chemical like ammonia. We

43:02

believe though that the future of chemical manufacturing might

43:04

be more distributed, that there might be a way in

43:07

which you can make chemicals closer to where they're needed.

43:09

And so these new technologies that we're developing where

43:11

you're using air, water, and sunlight

43:14

together to make chemicals, it might be possible

43:16

to make them in a more distributed fashion

43:18

closer to where they're actually needed.

43:20

You mentioned ammonia then, because ammonia

43:22

is really wonderful for transporting

43:25

energy, for all sorts of

43:27

fertilizers and you name it. But it's

43:29

also got nitrogen in it. And

43:32

if I can talk to you about gossip,

43:34

we have a leading scientist

43:37

who's working on quantum computing

43:39

and she also knows

43:41

about AI. And the

43:43

question was, what would you ask

43:46

this sort of immensely powerful intelligent

43:48

machine? And she said, one thing

43:50

we could do is to ask

43:52

it how to incorporate nitrogen

43:55

out of the air, which is difficult to pin down,

43:58

except through plants. in a

44:00

way that we could then copy and

44:02

make more efficient so obviously

44:05

you've got someone on the other side

44:07

of the world who's thinking in the

44:09

same way how are you getting on

44:11

yourself. Yeah so if we think back

44:13

to a century ago folks were really

44:15

worried because we were tied to using

44:17

only naturally existing methods of fixing nitrogen

44:19

to make ammonia we were relying on

44:22

that natural enzymatic toolkit ways in

44:24

which lightning strikes can make small amounts

44:27

of nitrogen that's the history of the

44:29

world. A century ago the

44:31

Haber-Bosch process was developed it's a synthetic

44:33

method through which you can convert nitrogen

44:35

along with hydrocarbons from natural gas and

44:37

petroleum along with water combine all those

44:39

at high temperatures and pressures to be

44:42

able to make synthetic ammonia. Now

44:44

the problem there is that you have a huge

44:46

CO2 footprint you're ripping hydrogens off of methane you're

44:48

ripping hydrogens off of water. There's

44:50

carbons and oxygens that recombine to make

44:53

CO2 and that's this carbon footprint that

44:55

we're up against this is why ammonia

44:57

production has the largest CO2 footprint of

44:59

any chemical that we make today and

45:01

that's the problem to be solved. And

45:04

so our synthetic methods aspire to overcome

45:06

that core problem that's what we're trying

45:08

to solve so we're taking for that

45:10

reason just nitrogen and water and combining

45:12

just those. And there are a

45:14

whole coalition of people now are all over the

45:17

world who recognize this problem this problem of CO2

45:19

footprints and this problem of harsh conditions

45:21

high temperatures and pressures those are all the

45:23

things that we want to alleviate for our

45:25

next generation method. Yeah you mentioned Haber-Bosch harvest

45:27

one of the most controversial people a good

45:30

man and a bad man in some ways

45:32

but another story you're

45:34

trying this astounding way of

45:37

approaching it what techniques are

45:39

you using? Yeah so

45:41

our group's approach is to be able to take

45:43

the power of the sun to be able to

45:45

make that into electricity and then use the electricity

45:48

to make and break chemical bonds. So

45:50

these are often called electrochemical devices

45:52

these are devices where you have an electrode that

45:54

electrodes and contact with an electrode light so this

45:57

is a liquid that has salt in it and

45:59

make it conductive. And there

46:01

are these electron transfers that occur

46:03

across that interface from the solid

46:05

electrode into the electrolyte where

46:07

there are molecules that we want to

46:09

have reactions happen with. So these are

46:11

molecules like, for instance, dinitrogen from the

46:14

atmosphere. It now has to react with

46:16

hydrogen from water to be able to

46:18

make ammonia. So these electron transfers then

46:21

are facilitating this molecular level of dance

46:23

that occurs between nitrogen and water to

46:25

be able to ultimately make that ammonia.

46:28

Well, of course, it sounds like a simple

46:30

thing. You take your water, you take

46:32

the electricity from the PowerPoint,

46:34

but does it have to

46:36

be exquisitely fine in its

46:38

process? In other words, the amounts of each?

46:41

Yeah, so these are ultimately going to be

46:43

continuous processes where you have a nitrogen stream

46:45

that you're introducing that's flowing through, you have

46:47

a water stream that's flowing through. And so

46:50

you would control them, the ratios of these

46:52

molecules coming in. Ideally, you would

46:54

have perfect stoichiometric mixture that gets you from

46:56

N2 plus H2O to NH3

46:59

ammonia plus O2. But

47:02

there are often situations where you're having to introduce

47:04

a slight excess of one or the other.

47:06

The good thing here, though, is that these are

47:08

not harmful molecules to the world. So you have

47:10

small amounts of these end up in waste streams.

47:13

Neither water nor nitrogen are going to be things

47:15

that are harmful to the world. So you like

47:17

that these are a process without harmful reagents and

47:19

without harmful products that are more nitrogen in this

47:21

room. And then there is any other gas and

47:24

of course water, especially with

47:26

your new season. Deluge, you

47:28

had it on my arrival.

47:31

I had half the rainfall that

47:33

London gets in a year fall

47:36

in one night. It's incredible to

47:38

see what's happening. And it's scary to see

47:40

what's happening. Right. And we know that we

47:42

have our work cut out to keep this

47:44

planet together. What we're doing in terms of

47:46

making chemicals more sustainably and even chemicals that require

47:49

water by doing that. We will hopefully get the

47:51

planet to a place where our weather patterns

47:53

maintain some of their stability rather than going

47:55

off in the light as they are. So

47:57

we hope to play some small role in

47:59

terms of. making things more predictable

48:01

on Mother Earth. And does it not work? You

48:03

know, I've failed a lot, is the truth, right?

48:05

You know, science is one of those things where

48:07

you know you're working on the right thing if

48:10

you fail more often than you succeed. And

48:12

so we have found time and time again that

48:14

we failed. It's because the nitrogen triple bond is

48:16

so strong. It's an inert

48:18

molecule. It's really tough to react.

48:21

And yet we've had success. We've

48:23

developed catalytic processes whereby at room

48:25

temperature and ambient pressure, you can

48:27

actually fix di-nitrogen to make ammonia.

48:29

Catalytic, you don't use an enzyme so

48:31

the catalyst is still as pure and

48:33

simple as you described. Yes,

48:35

the catalyst that we're using here is lithium metal.

48:38

You can actually plate lithium ions in very thin

48:40

layers on the surface of an electron and

48:42

that lithium metal can then react with nitrogen

48:44

to make what's known as lithium nitride. It's

48:47

a solid state dissociated form of

48:49

nitrogen. So lithium has actually

48:51

done the difficult work here. It's reacted with

48:53

di-nitrogen. It's broken the triple bond and

48:56

it's made these isolated nitrogen atoms within this

48:58

lattice of lithium nitride. And

49:01

then we can introduce a proton donor which can

49:03

replace the lithium ions with protons and

49:05

you go from Li3n to H3n which

49:07

is ammonia. You end up with the

49:09

target molecule that you wanted and you

49:11

discharge lithium ions into solution which can

49:13

once again be plated to make lithium

49:16

metal and you can continue around this

49:18

cycle. And so we're then catalytic

49:20

in lithium ions or in lithium metal in this

49:22

process. Thank you very much. It is

49:24

awesome. Don't

49:27

worry about the chemical sequence so much but

49:29

it's lithium in yet another crucial

49:31

role to make ammonia. A

49:33

great way to transport hydrogen as well. Karthish

49:36

Mantiran is a professor of

49:38

chemistry at Caltech. His family is

49:41

originally from India. And

49:43

so for next week I hope to bring you

49:45

Jennifer Doudna who starred at the University of New

49:47

South Wales and the Sydney Opera House a week

49:49

ago to great acclaim. And

49:52

more thoughts on the top 100 scientists. Professor

49:56

Doudna would certainly be in that top

49:58

list but she comes from Hawaii. Also,

50:01

we'll have some thoughts about Paul

50:03

Ehrlich, whose autobiography is called Life,

50:06

and whose notoriety is based on the population

50:08

bomb, which he wrote in 1968. Here

50:12

he is in 1986, talking in Perth. I'd

50:15

like to start out by setting the stage

50:18

with some kind of personal statistics, which I

50:20

think, in a sense, draw the boundaries around

50:22

many of the current problems we have in

50:24

the world. At the moment,

50:26

there are about 4.9 billion people on

50:28

this planet. I've been alive

50:30

for 53 years. To most of you,

50:32

that seems like an incredibly long time, an old duffer-like

50:34

Ehrlich up here. But believe me, when you're 53 years

50:36

old, as a few of you in the audience can

50:39

testify or even older, you still feel like a kid

50:41

inside your head, and it doesn't seem like all that

50:43

long a time. But when I think

50:45

back to 1932, when I was born, there

50:47

were only about 2 billion people in the

50:50

world at that time. That is, in the

50:52

time of my short life, the population of

50:54

the world has much more than double. You

50:57

have all of the increase in population size from

50:59

the year zero, wherever you put it, a few

51:01

million or a few hundred thousand years back, depending

51:03

on where you define the start of humanity. To

51:05

my birthday, we managed to get up to 2

51:08

billion people. Now we're at 4.9, and

51:11

if some of you are very unfortunate, you might

51:13

actually live to see 7 or 8 billion people

51:15

on this planet. That's one thing. The

51:18

second thing is that the

51:20

world is vastly overpopulated, as Australia is

51:22

vastly overpopulated, by many standards. But the

51:24

simplest is that the human family is

51:26

doing something that no sane family would

51:28

ever do in the course of their

51:31

family finances. That is, we're living on

51:33

capital. We're not living on income. We

51:36

are visually exploiting a whole series

51:38

of non-renewable resources. When they're

51:40

gone, we won't be able to support even something

51:42

remotely like 4.9 billion people.

51:44

Okay, so guess what the world population is now

51:46

in 2024? Well,

51:49

it's 8.1 billion. Does

51:53

it feel a bit crowded now? Are we short

51:55

of homes? We review Paul Ehrlich's

51:57

book Life next week in The Science Show.

52:00

which was produced by David Fisher. My

52:02

thanks to Roy Huberman, Simon Brantewait,

52:04

Anne-Marie de Betancourt and the other

52:06

technical geniuses who fixed my edits.

52:09

And to Glenda Sorekin and Kate Levy,

52:11

both of whom are now leaving the

52:14

ABC. To run the country,

52:16

I hope, they are capable. I'm

52:18

Robin Williams. Discover

54:01

more great ABC podcasts, live

54:03

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54:05

ABC Listen app.