Saturday 10 August
Highlights from day 1 of National Science Week
Researchers, experts, and other interesting people available for interview around the country.
NSW: Saving turtles with a smartphone – Sydney Zoo
VIC: Art-science exhibition explores science fiction – Parkville
QLD: Please touch the dinosaurs: Queensland Museum exhibition supersizes accessibility for visually impaired kids
TAS: Pseudo penises, temporary passages, and other vaginal vignettes from the animal kingdom
ACT: Ghost Trees: big data, art and sound bringing back landscapes lost
ACT: Meet reptiles, daleks, dinosaurs, robots, and more while you’re shopping
NT: Art bringing Miocene megafauna back to life in Alice Springs
Read on for more on these, including direct event contact details.
Also today:
- ACT: Come and see ANU’s high-energy ion beam making Heavy Ion Accelerator Facility
- SA: How boomerangs fly and other First Nations science
- WA: Help scientists survey magical macrofauna and invertebrates in the bushland above Calgardup Cave
National Science Week 2024 runs from 10 to 18 August.
Visit ScienceWeek.net.au/events to find more stories in your area.
Media centre here. Images for media here.
General Science Week media enquiries: Tanya Ha, tanya@scienceinpublic.com.au or 0404 083 863
Saving turtles with a smartphone – Sydney Zoo, Bungarribee, NSW
Help scientists save turtles and platypuses with smartphone apps, find out about chimps and orangutans, or build a bee or bug hotel. These are some of the things Sydney locals, visitors and an online audience will be invited to do as part of Sydney Zoo’s Science of Survival festival, located in Western Sydney.
Activities and workshops include wildlife friendly gardening workshops, virtual excursions for schools, protecting local turtles with First Nation knowledge and TurtleSAT-enabled citizen science, and a Discovery Trail to view endangered species including the green and golden bell frog, koalas, bilbies, potoroos, eastern quolls, orangutans, tigers, giraffes, elephants, cheetahs, African painted dogs, and lions. Signs and QR codes to short videos explain the importance of the species survival and the science involves.
Saturday 10 - Sunday 18 August. Event details: www.scienceweek.net.au/event/sydney-zoo-presents-science-week-the-science-of-survival/bungarribee
Media enquiries: media@sydneyzoo.com or 02 7202 2558
Art-science exhibition explores science fiction – Parkville, VIC
The free exhibition SCI-FI: Mythologies Transformed at Science Gallery Melbourne offers fresh insights on science fiction – a genre built on envisioning alternative futures and imaginary realms.
The lines connecting science fiction with ancient philosophy and mythologies are brought to light by Asian artists and collectives. Shown in Australia for the first time, this narrative is expanded to incorporate First Nations perspectives and knowledges.
SCI-FI includes works by:
- Paola Balla, a Wemba-Wemba and Gunditjmara woman of Italian and Chinese heritage
- Japanese multidisciplinary artist Mariko Mori, whose practice explores themes of technology, spirituality, and transcendence
- Asian American artist and engineer Xin Liu, an artist-in-residence at The SETI Institute (SETI is short for ‘Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence’).
This free exhibition features contemporary artworks, historical artefacts, books, and cinema from both Asia and the West.
Image credit: Miko No Inori (1996) by Mariko Mori.
From Saturday 10 August. Event details: www.scienceweek.net.au/event/sci-fi-mythologies-transformed/parkville
Media enquiries: Katrina Hall, kathall@ozemail.com.au or 0421 153 046.
Please touch the dinosaurs: Queensland Museum exhibition supersizes accessibility for visually impaired kids – Brisbane, QLD
Queensland’s own ‘velociraptor’, Australovenator wintonensis – a fiersome carnivore with serrated teeth and 30cm long claws – features in a sensory adventure for young Vision Australia members (aged six to 12).
Queensland Museum Palaeontologist, Dr Scott Hocknull, who discovered the dinosaur, nicknamed ‘Banjo’, will lead an accessible, behind-the-scenes tour of Dinosaurs Unearthed; a permanent exhibition containing more than 50 life-size reconstructions of Queensland’s prehistoric species and 100+ fossils and meteorites.
‘Touch, Feel and Imagine the World of Dinosaurs’ is the brainchild of the Vision Australia Library team, with the tactile experience enhanced with a ‘sensation soundscape’.
Saturday 10 August: https://www.scienceweek.net.au/event/touch-feel-and-imagine-the-world-of-dinosaurs/south-brisbane/
Media enquiries for Vision Australia: Phil McCarroll, phil.mccarroll@visionaustralia.org or 0416 632 253.
Media enquiries for Queensland Museum and Dr Scott Hucknull: Christine Robertson, christine.robertson@qm.qld.gov.au or 0417 741 710.
Vaginal vignettes: Sex in the animal kingdom - Hobart, TAS
Think the vagina is a simple tube? Think again!
Dr Tiana Pirtle’s Vaginal Vignettes shares the stories of the multi-chambered vaginas and temporary passages, elongated clitorises, pseudo-penises, vaginas that can sort sperm, and armoured vaginal openings that put female animals in the driver’s seat of reproduction and evolution.
From the times of Aristotle and Darwin to today, there has been a stereotype of the male as the active player in sex and the female as the passive recipient of sperm. This stereotype has shaped how science and the wider world view those possessing vaginas. But vaginas are anything but simple receptacles, and female animals are not the passive players they've been made out to be.
It’s time to re-write these stories.
This event is part of Beaker Street Late Night Sessions: hot, mad, and scientific. 18+
Friday 9 to Saturday 10 August. Event details: www.scienceweek.net.au/event/vaginal-vignettes-sex-in-the-animal-kingdom/hobart
Friday 16 August. Event details: www.scienceweek.net.au/event/vaginal-vignettes-sex-in-the-animal-kingdom-2/hobart
Media enquiries: Tiana Pirtle, Tiana.Pirtle@utas.edu.au
Ghost Trees: big data, art and sound bringing back landscapes lost – Acton
Step inside the ‘digital memory’ of an endangered forest to better understand what we’re losing in the natural world.
That’s the call to action by Australian artists, James McGrath and Gary Sinclair. Combining science, data and audiovisual art, their installation ‘Ghost Trees at the NFSA’, provides a 360-degree perspective of Rushworth Forest on the lands of the Ngurai-illam Wurrung people in Victoria.
The installation is developed entirely from environmental data captured for the Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network (TERN) by Ghent University’s Professor Kim Calders. James McGrath created the visuals from TERN’s three-dimensional LIDAR (light detection and ranging) scans, giving viewers kinetic and surprising perspectives on the forest, while Gary Sinclair’s surround-sound audio features eco-acoustic site recordings, with melody generated from the spatial data points of the trees.
Saturday 10 August - Sunday 8 September. Event details: www.scienceweek.net.au/event/ghost-trees-at-the-nfsa/acton/
Media enquiries: Jacqui Douglas, comms@nfsa.gov.au or 0417 738 434.
Images and vision available here on Dropbox.
Meet reptiles, daleks, dinosaurs, robots, and more while you’re shopping – multiple locations, ACT
Science while you shop! Pop-up science activity centres will give shoppers the chance to meet scientists, engineers, and daleks, and learn about space, engineering with LEGO, live reptiles, dinosaurs, parasites, chemistry, geology, robotics, and more.
Westfield Belconnen, Westfield Woden, South.Point Tuggeranong, Cooleman Court, Gungahlin Marketplace, and the Canberra Centre will host a variety of displays and hands-on science activities during the weekends of National Science Week (10 - 11 and 17 - 18 August).
Media enquiries: actscienceweek@gmail.com
Representatives from stallholders are available for interview.
Art bringing Miocene megafauna back to life – Alice Springs, NT
How do palaeo-artists reimagine and recreate what an extinct animal looks like when there are no living specimens to paint from life?
Renowned artist and book author Peter Schouten and fellow palaeo-artist and Megafauna Central’s senior curator of earth sciences Dr Adam Yates discuss the methods they used to put flesh, fur, skin, and scales on long extinct creatures and re-imagine their environments.
Megafauna Central will unveil Peter’s large mural showcasing iconic species from the Late Miocene Alcoota fossil assemblage in their main gallery.
Peter and Adam will discuss the unveiled work, and the process and challenges met in its creation.
Saturday 10 August. Event details: www.scienceweek.net.au/event/brushes-with-the-past-unveiling-the-late-miocene-with-peter-schouten/alice-springs
Media enquiries: Sam Arman, samuel.arman@magnt.net.au or 0431 197 171.
About National Science Week
National Science Week is Australia’s annual opportunity to meet scientists, discuss hot topics, do science and celebrate its cultural and economic impact on society – from art to astrophysics, chemistry to climate change, and forensics to future food.
First held in 1997, National Science Week has become one of Australia’s largest festivals. Last year about 2.7 million people participated in more than 1,860 events and activities.
The festival is proudly supported by the Australian Government, CSIRO, the Australian Science Teachers Association, and the ABC.
In 2024 it runs from Saturday 10 to Sunday 18 August. Event details can be found at www.scienceweek.net.au.