Fiona Pepper

5 days ago | abc.net.au | Belinda Smith |Fiona Pepper

A couple of months ago, a killer started mobilising off the South Australian shore — one that would wipe out marine life, make surfers feel sick, and smother picturesque beaches in thick foam. The culprit? A bloom of tiny organisms called microalgae. We can't see them with the naked eye, but in big enough numbers, they can devastate ecosystems. So what made the South Australian algal bloom so lethal, and can anything be done about blooms like it?

1 week ago | abc.net.au | Belinda Smith |Fiona Pepper

If you were impressed by generative AI such as ChatGPT, then artificial general intelligence or AGI promises to really knock your socks off. Over the past couple of decades, tech companies have been racing to build AGI systems that can match or surpass human capabilities across a whole bunch of tasks. So will AGI save the world — or will it spell the beginning of the end for humanity? Learn more on Lab Notes, the show that brings you the science of new discoveries and current events.

2 weeks ago | abc.net.au | Belinda Smith |Fiona Pepper

The next time you pick up a bag of spuds from the supermarket or fill up the car with petrol, you can thank the Treaty of the Metre for the metric system that underpins daily life. The treaty was signed exactly 150 years ago, when delegates from 17 countries gathered in Paris to establish a new and standardised way of measuring the world around us. But the metre's inception predates the treaty that bears its name by nearly 100 years.

3 weeks ago | abc.net.au | Katherine Smyrk |Nicola Heath |Fiona Pepper |Dan Condon

Court is, almost invariably, mind-numbingly boring. While dealing with incredibly important matters, on what could be the worst day of someone's life, the sheer scale of admin, stuffy language and lengthy protocol can make even the juiciest case a real snooze-fest. And when it comes to the case of Erin Patterson, accused of murdering three people by serving them death cap mushrooms, there's an overflow of both interest and information.

3 weeks ago | abc.net.au | Belinda Smith |Fiona Pepper

Southern right whales (Eubalaena australis) were named by whalers because their high oil content made them the "right" ones to kill. In the decades since whaling was banned, southern right numbers increased — but a new study shows that population growth stalled, and might've dropped a bit, despite current numbers still far below what they were in pre-whaling times. So what's going on with the southern rights?