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March 2021
Changing Forests in a Changing Climate: What Might the Future Hold?
Are this region's forests able to persist under the onslaught of climate-driven disturbance? Forest ecologist and silviculturist Professor Patrick Baker argues we need to consider whether there is a role here for forest management and, if so, what that might look like.
Find out more »April 2021
Platypus and the Changing Environment – What’s Needed to Help Populations Thrive in Future?
Dr Richard Marchant and Dr Melody Serena will discuss the factors vital to maintain healthy platypus populations, based on over 30 years research in Victoria and NSW.
Find out more »The Anthropocene: Where on Earth are we Going?
The current trajectory of the Earth System is a rapid exit from the Holocene, accelerating towards a much hotter climate system and a degraded, ill-functioning biosphere.
Find out more »May 2021
STEM and Society: SealSpotters
Dr Rebecca McIntosh Mr Ross Holmberg Join Dr Rebecca McIntosh and Ross Holmberg from the Phillip Island Nature Parks team as they prepare to launch the annual SealSpotter Challenge, when citizen scientists around the globe jump online to count Australian fur seals and contribute to vital conservation research. The SealSpotter program allows anyone with a computer to help with the management and…
Find out more »Why the World Needs Ecologists
We are drowning in bad news. Two pages into the (1000pg) United Nations Global Assessment of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services and you’ll be pleading for Tolstoy. Even David Attenborough is depressing these days. Ecosystems collapse and species loss is…
Find out more »Next-Gen Spatial Tech for Forest Management
New spatial technologies - like remote sensing, global positioning systems, ground based sensors, monitoring and other ICT interventions - are set to revolutionise our understanding of our forests and improve our capacity to manage and sustain them. Join three…
Find out more »Location, Location, Location: Immune Protection by Tissue-Resident T-Cells
T cells are specialised immune cells that are central to the complex, adaptive immune response to infection and disease. T cells are “trained” to recognise specific fragments or components of viruses, bacteria, and other pathogens (e.g. a component of the…
Find out more »June 2021
Liveable Cities for All: Are We There Yet?
Our definition of "liveability" is important if we are serious about cities that facilitate healthy and sustainable lifestyles that support both individual and planetary health.
Find out more »STEM and Society: The Anthropocene
Human pressures on the planet as a whole – the ‘Earth System’ – have now become so great that scientists have proposed that we have now left the Holocene, the geologic epoch that has been humanity’s accommodating home for…
Find out more »Coastal Resilience: How Landforms Cope with Changing Waves and Rising Seas
The 2021 Howitt Lecture Presented in partnership with the Geological Society of Australia (Victoria Division). Our coast is a dynamic system. As the protective boundary between the land and sea it absorbs the constant energy it receives from waves and…
Find out more »July 2021
Decarbonising Energy: At the Tipping Point
Australia has the highest per-capita greenhouse emissions of any advanced economy, we’re on track to miss our Paris commitment, and we're nowhere near achieving net zero.
Find out more »STEM and Society: A Hard-Won Theory – Tectonic Plates in Victoria
It can be confusing when we hear from scientists reluctant to deal in absolutes, who instead engage in conversations about ‘degrees of certainty’. In the world of science, a ‘theory’ is the closest something may ever come to being ‘the truth’. To understand what modern scientists can go through to arrive at an accepted theory, we’re taking a look at one of the major revelations of the past century: the theory of tectonic plates.
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