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Description

Where does Australia’s culture of innovation come from, if it exists at all?

Dr Jonathan Englert unravels the conundrum, fresh from his PhD looking into Australian innovation, where he interviewed various inventors and explored his relationship to Australian culture.

We uncover the stories of inventors like Barry Marshall, who rejected the establishment to change medicine forever, Lawrence Hargrave whose kites paved the way for flight, and David Skillern, a leader of the Wifi team.

Comedian Mandy Scotney, still on her PhD journey, joins us with her insightful and hilarious takes, biting commentary and tales of wombat poo.

Promised notes from the episode:

• In the episode, we mention putting bricks in the toilet - the cistern specifically, which was a thing many householders did before the Australian invention of the dual flush system.
• The wombat poo...

It’s vaguely cube-shaped. The reason? Biomechanical engineers, who were studying how it becomes cube-shaped, postulated that perhaps it is to signpost their territory (it doesn't roll away). Research into how wombats make it cubed was done at the Georgia Institute of Technology…yep, in the USA. Biomechanics researcher on the study, David Hu, says, the wombat's strategy could help engineers design better ways to shape valuable or sensitive materials. 

Hosted by Rachel Rayner, Science Explainer

Transcript

Links for more:

• Highlight article by Rachel Rayner, Science Explainer
• Bonus episode on Jonathan’s journalistic interview technique, the Bueller method, is our episode 7!
• Lawrence Hargrave, who is credited as supplying key innovations to enable airplanes in the 1890s.
• Barry Marshall, who worked out that bacteria cause stomach ulcers in the 1980s
• David Skellern, a key figure in the story of inventing fast Wifi in the 1990s.
• Henry Hoke, who built a collection of innovations like the rope hammer and the leg pull from the first half of the 20th century. 
• Mark Thomson, keeper of Henry Hoke’s archives and founder of the Institute for Backyard Studies.
• Follow Mandy and find out what she’s up to next

Credits

Producer: Rachel Rayner, Science Explainer

Guests: Jonathan Englert, Mandy Scotney

Music: Michelle Cashman

Editing: HoboHut Media

Made possible through Meta Australia Journalism Fund, administered by the Walkley Foundation, with support from Comedy Victoria.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.