It Starts With...

Explore Australia’s hidden world of native bees with Dr Kit Prendergast and Clancy Lester.Kit is a native bee scientist, ecologist and passionate advocate for Australia’s bee diversity. Clancy is a science communicator helping Australians discover the extraordinary pollinators living all around us.They discuss with David how to make a good bee hotel for native species and the surprising answer to what is a bee.Want to know more?Follow Kit on InstaFollow Clancy on Insta or LinkedinWatch Kit's Birds & the Bees showBuy Kit's book Creating a Haven for Native BeesFacebook group The Buzz on Wild Bees

Microplastics are everywhere – in water, food, air and even our bodies. But are microplastics as scary as some news headlines would have us believe?In this episode of the It Stars With… podcast, David Bolderman chats with science journalist Ellen Phiddian about microplastics.Ellen gives us the latest facts and figures on microplastics: where they’ve been found and how much have polluted our planet. Everywhere microplastics have been found – oceans, soil and even the human body – scientists are beginning to build a picture of the damage they can cause to the ecosystem and organisms that encounter the tiny fragments.Understanding these microscopic fragments of plastic – where they come from, why they don’t break down, where they’re appearing, how they affect organisms – is the key to being able to resolve an increasingly complex environmental and health problem brought on by their proliferation.

Science journalist and author Smriti Daniel explains what actually separates a robot from a smart toaster and why the most useful robots don't look human at all.Smriti also discussed with host David Boldeman how robots are already fighting bushfires, working inside Fukushima, and collecting whale snot.She also shares her five favourite robots, some are quite bizarre.Smriti has written the book Robot Responders aimed at kids aged 8 to 12. It is published by CSIRO Publishing and is available in print or eBook.CSIRO has created the online game CSIRO Robot Responders and unplugged card game, where players design, test and refine robots to complete missions inspired by real-world science and engineering. It is recommended for 10 to 14 year olds.

Bees aren't the only pollinators. There’s a whole host of birds and insects, from flies and beetles to moths and even mosquitoes, which move between and feed on flowers while helping plants proliferate.In this episode of the It Starts With… podcast, David Bolderman is joined by biologist and naturalist Peter Bernhardt to discuss the thousands of species of insects and other creatures which pollinate. They are, as he calls them, the “unsung heroes” of pollination.This even includes mosquitoes. Not only do these blood-sucking insects feed on our vital fluids, but one species gets its energy from sugars in a specific orchid’s nectar.Many plants have a special relationship with particular pollinators. David and Peter discuss how understanding those relationships is key to protecting biodiversity and native species. This could even be as simple as choosing which plants to plant in your garden. It all has an impact on the pollinators and their symbiotic relationship with flowering plants.Peter is author of the book Unsung Heroes of Pollination, published by CSIRO Publishing. It is available in print or eBook.

The Great Southern Reef wraps around most of southern Australia and rivals the Great Barrier Reef in size and biodiversity — yet most Australians have never heard of it.David Bolderman speaks with marine ecologist Scott Bennett in this episode of It Starts With… to understand the hidden world of the Great Southern Reef.Scott is Chair of the Great Southern Reef Foundation which aims to promote understanding and protection of this marine environment.The Great Southern Reef itself was only identified by science in 2015. It’s not an interconnected coral reef like the tropical Great Barrier Reef, but a temperate collection of rocky reefs. It is home to a stunning array of biodiversity, including the vulnerable kelp forests off Tasmania’s coast.

Alcohol has been socially lubricating, intoxicating and relaxing humans for thousands of years. But the chemistry behind alcohol and the biological effects it has on the human body are still being understood.Join David Bolderman and science journalist Ellen Phiddian in this episode of the It Starts With… podcast as they take a sip from the chalice of knowledge to get to the gurgling heart of what alcohol is and how it affects the body.Ellen and David explore the properties of ethanol, why we get drunk, as well as the harmful effects of overconsumption of alcohol on the human body.

Soil health has big implications for farms and land management. In this podcast episode, David Bolderman talks with soil scientists Lisa Lobry de Bruyn and Oliver Knox about communication between science and key stakeholders in agriculture and land use.They discuss how soil health depends not just on the microorganisms within them, but also on how people understand soil and make decisions about it. This, Lisa and Oliver argue, is an example of science and real-world applications needing to work together to build better understanding of what’s needed.Talking Soil is a new book by Lisa Lobry de Bruyn and Oliver Knox published by CSIRO Publishing and will be available in print or eBook in early 2027.

Dark energy. Physicists believe it makes up 70% of the universe, but we don’t know what it is or how it works. Yet this mysterious force is responsible for pushing everything in our universe apart. This elusive phenomenon has had cosmologists scratching their heads for decades.What if it could be interpreted through music?In this episode, David Boldeman is joined by Nobel Prize-winning astrophysicist Brian Schmidt, composer Constantine Koukias, as well as ConnectSci News journalist Evrim Yazgin to talk about the universe and music. They cover literally light-years of listening revelry from Pink Floyd and The Beatles to whether or not it’s true that in space no one can hear you scream. The discussion led to a Spotify playlist of the best songs.Koukias was given the daunting task of composing a piece of music to convey the concept of dark energy. His piece – an epic which plays with more than 100 voices and the space of the theatre itself – will premiere at this year’s Beaker Street Festival which will take place over 2 weekends during 6–17 August in Hobart, Australia.No 2 seats will hear the exact same music. No one will be left not wondering how they fit into the vastness of the cosmos.Koukias’s composition, called VAST, will be playing at the Theatre Royal on 12 and 13 August. On 13 August, Koukias and Schmidt will hold a conversation at the Theatre Royal about the piece, the discovery of dark energy and the expanding universe. Get your tickets through the Beaker Street Festival website.