http://www.anu.edu.au/discoveranu/content/podcasts/ en celeste.ecuyer@anu.edu.au Copyright 2009 2009-11-05T03:40:10+10:00 http://www.anu.edu.au/discoveranu/content/podcasts/obesity_complex_problem/ http://www.anu.edu.au/discoveranu/content/podcasts/obesity_complex_problem/#When:00:47:42Z Obesity has increased dramatically across the world, and there is currently no solution to its control. While obesity is easily understood as the positive imbalance of energy intake and expenditure, this does not explain why it is easy to overeat and underexercise. Explanatory models that feed into energy balance include those of obesogenic environments, thrifty genotype, obesogenic behaviour, obesogenic culture, nutrition transition, political economic structures and biocultural interactions of genetics, environment, behaviour and culture. The last of these models has obesity as an outcome of the complex systems which constitute modern life, and in which biology, environment, sociality, economics, infrastructure, culture and behaviour interact. An attempt to understand obesity as complex system has come with an initiative of the British government, in which a qualitative systems map of obesity for the British population has been generated. In this presentation, various models of population obesity are considered in relation to the idea of obesity as complex system. Public Lecture, History & Archeology, Humanities, Medical & Health Science, Society & Culture, ANU College of Arts and Social Sciences, ANU College of Medicine and Health Sciences, Arts and Social Sciences, Medicine and Life Science 2009-09-29T00:47:42+10:00 http://www.anu.edu.au/discoveranu/content/podcasts/darwins_compass/ http://www.anu.edu.au/discoveranu/content/podcasts/darwins_compass/#When:23:21:45Z Orthodox neo-Darwinism very much emphasises the random and contingent. Re-run the tape of life, as Steven Jay Gould famously observed, and the outcomes would be utterly different. Terrestrial life maybe, but certainly no humans. They, like tulips and tape-worms, are just another evolutionary fluke. The basis of this is hardly surprising: think of random mutations, massive shifts in the environment, not to mention the odd giant rock dropping out of the sky. Life is on a roller-coaster and is flung from one strange place to another. Conway Morris argued for the exact reverse, that evolution is like any other science, that is it is predictable. The mainstay of this argument revolved around evolutionary convergence, the observation that from different starting points evolution arrives at the same solution. A classic example is the camera-eyes (and please do not mention ‘deep homology'), but less appreciated is that convergence is not common, it is ubiquitous. Evidence continues to grow that evolutionary bifurcations are far from random, but probably lead to inevitable outcomes. This suggests the Tree of Life is very different from the sprawling mass of foliage that is commonly envisaged. Also of great importance is the inherency of molecular systems and the capacity for self organisation. Darwinian evolution explains the mechanism, but not the outcomes. Public Lecture, Biological Sciences, Botany & Zoology, ANU College of Medicine and Health Sciences, Medicine and Life Science 2009-09-24T23:21:45+10:00 http://www.anu.edu.au/discoveranu/content/podcasts/working_together_for_better_health_care_system/ http://www.anu.edu.au/discoveranu/content/podcasts/working_together_for_better_health_care_system/#When:06:03:18Z Research findings and government reports indicate Australia's primary health care workforce is facing significant challenges and is lagging behind in its use of teamwork approaches. The National Health and Hospitals Reform Commission report finds that multi-disciplinary teams could help provide better primary health care services. However, getting GPs, nurses and other health care professionals to work together requires inter-professional learning. Professor Debra Humphris provided an overview of the impact of teamwork development within primary health care in the UK and its implications for the way services are delivered in Australia. Public Lecture, Medical & Health Science, ANU College of Medicine and Health Sciences, Medicine and Life Science 2009-08-06T06:03:18+10:00 http://www.anu.edu.au/discoveranu/content/podcasts/become_a_millionaire_without_losing_your_soul/ http://www.anu.edu.au/discoveranu/content/podcasts/become_a_millionaire_without_losing_your_soul/#When:03:54:18Z One of the few attractive ways of escaping the current economic depression is to create new companies and new industries. Scientific research provides perhaps the best starting point. Just how this can be achieved is illustrated by successful examples from Oxford University. From the Chemistry Department alone six members of staff have become millionaires without giving up their university posts or being given dispensation from duties. Professor W. Graham Richards graduated in Chemistry from Brasenose College, Oxford in 1962, and was a Fellow of Brasenose and lecturer, reader and professor at Oxford for over 40 years. For the last 10 years until his retirement in 2007 he was Head of Chemistry, the largest chemistry department in the Western World. This lecture was presented by The John Curtin School of Medical Research. Public Lecture, Medical & Health Science, ANU College of Medicine and Health Sciences, Medicine and Life Science 2009-07-27T03:54:18+10:00 http://www.anu.edu.au/discoveranu/content/podcasts/promises_challenges_developing_new_vaccines/ http://www.anu.edu.au/discoveranu/content/podcasts/promises_challenges_developing_new_vaccines/#When:04:01:15Z Learning how to harness the power of the immune system to combat infectious killers has been one of the most dramatic developments in the history of medicine.  Eradication of smallpox and the near elimination of polio serve to remind us that the destiny of disease can be written by human ingenuity.  These and other great feats continue to inspire us all as we strive to combat major infectious killers of the 21st Century.  Success rarely comes easily and we are enormously challenged by various viruses, bacteria and parasites that collectively cause several million deaths per year.  A common thread of the resistance to immunity and vaccine development is the uncanny ability to escape immune attack by altering coat proteins and to further subvert the immune system.  A major strategy of vaccine development is to identify a non variable region of the organism that can be an immune Achilles heel for the germ.  Another approach is to combine the most common immune determinants ('epitopes') of different strains of a particular organism into a single vaccine in the hope that the vaccine will prevent infection with the majority of strains.  Developing effective vaccines requires not only scientific nous but an understanding of the daily challenges of those peoples whose lives are affected.  It is critical that they are centrally involved in the research program and understand both the hope and the limitations of the various approaches.  If not, it is unlikely they will persist in a collaborative program that may take many decades to realise ultimate success.  Malaria vaccine research, as an example, has provided a roller coaster emotional ride over the last 25 years for both researchers and those living in endemic countries. While this can be disconcerting it is critical that we continue for malaria and the many other challenges that we face.  The consequences of not doing so are too awful to contemplate. This was the World Day of Immunology 2009 Public Lecture. Presented by The John Curtin School of Medical Research and Australasian Society for Immunology. Public Lecture, Medical & Health Science, ANU College of Medicine and Health Sciences, Medicine and Life Science 2009-05-04T04:01:15+10:00 http://www.anu.edu.au/discoveranu/content/podcasts/the_14th_annual_lions_oratory_competition_2008/ http://www.anu.edu.au/discoveranu/content/podcasts/the_14th_annual_lions_oratory_competition_2008/#When:02:06:30Z The 14th Annual Lions Oratory Competition saw selected ANU students from across the University present eight minute orations to convince the judges and the audience that they deserved to win the ANU Lions Oratory Trophy and prizes totaling $3,000 in cash. The event was hoseted by Esther Sainsbury, last years winner of the 2007 Lions Oratory Competition and judged by an esteemed panel of public-speaking experts. The oratory saw speakers addressing a range of subjects incorporating the Lions' messages of truth, righteousness, peace, love and non-violence - the core values of all major religions.Prizes included: First prize - The ManikKam Reddy Award: $1,500Second prize: $800Third prize: $500Donated by the Lions Club of Canberra Woden People's Choice Award: $400Donated by the Australian National University and the Lions Club of Canberra Woden Public Lecture, Humanities, Society & Culture, Student Life, ANU College of Arts and Social Sciences, ANU College of Asia and the Pacific, ANU College of Business and Economics, ANU College of Law, ANU College of Medicine and Health Sciences, ANU College of Science, University, Arts and Social Sciences, Asia and the Pacific, Business and Economics, Campus Life, Law, Medicine and Life Science 2008-09-24T02:06:30+10:00 http://www.anu.edu.au/discoveranu/content/podcasts/sustainable_funding_for_australias_future_health_care/ http://www.anu.edu.au/discoveranu/content/podcasts/sustainable_funding_for_australias_future_health_care/#When:00:29:30Z Like many other countries, Australia is facing significantly increased costs in the future in maintaining the health of its people.  In coming decades we will have more people suffering from chronic and debilitating health conditions such as diabetes, a higher proportion of older people with complex health care needs and burgeoning costs from new diagnostic and treatment technologies including pharmaceuticals. Another motivation for concern with current health financing arrangements is duplication in health insurance coverage.  Duplication arises because the Medicare coverage for public hospital services cannot be used for private hospital services.  Those who purchase private health insurance therefore have to pay a premium that covers the full cost of private hospital services and not just the additional cost of those services.  A large part of private health insurance coverage is therefore duplicate coverage while only a small part is supplementary coverage. Australia already spends around ten percent of its GDP on health care and some estimates show this increasing to over fifteen per cent by 2020 – an additional $50 billion each year. How will we pay for this? Are there better ways of financing and providing health care? This seminar discussed financing options based on Australian and international research undertaken through the Australian Centre for Economic Research on Health (ACERH) at ANU. The Speakers were Professor Jim Butler, Director ACERH; Dr Francesco Paolucci, research fellow ACERH; and Henry Ergas, Chairman, Concept Economics. Seminar, Medical & Health Science, ANU College of Medicine and Health Sciences, Medicine and Life Science 2008-09-17T00:29:30+10:00 http://www.anu.edu.au/discoveranu/content/podcasts/risk_uncertainty_national_security/ http://www.anu.edu.au/discoveranu/content/podcasts/risk_uncertainty_national_security/#When:03:10:00Z Officially we are still fighting a "War on Terror", but few people in Australia would say we are still living in an "Age of Terror". Oil prices have quadrupled, but we have not seen the same panicked queuing at petrol stations as when this last occurred. This lecture launches an important new book, Uncertainty and Risk: Multidisciplinary Perspectives , by discussing how risk and uncertainty inform the democratic politics of national security; and more specifically, how the management of national security is framed by the changing ways in which society assesses uncertainty and risk. It explores the emotion of fear in individual and social contexts, and examines how different security fears lead to different structures of national security. At this lecture, Professor Wesley launched Uncertainty and Risk: Multidisciplinary Perspectives edited by ANU Professors Gabriele Bammer and Michael Smithson. Uncertainty and Risk: Multidisciplinary Perspectives (Earthscan 2008), is a wide-ranging volume drawing perspectives from art history, complexity science, economics, emergency management, futures, history, intelligence, law, law enforcement, music, philosophy, physics, policy, politics, psychology, statistics and theology. Key problems that are a subject of focus are environmental management, communicable diseases and illicit drugs. Opening and closing sections of the book provide major conceptual strands in uncertainty thinking and develop an integrated view of the nature of uncertainty, uncertainty as a motivating or de-motivating force, and strategies for coping and managing under uncertainty. Public Lecture, Law, Justice & Law Enforcement, Policy & Political Science, ANU College of Medicine and Health Sciences, Arts and Social Sciences 2008-05-09T03:10:00+10:00 http://www.anu.edu.au/discoveranu/content/podcasts/immunity_altered_self/ http://www.anu.edu.au/discoveranu/content/podcasts/immunity_altered_self/#When:03:02:00Z World Day of Immunology 2008 Public Lecture What defines us as individuals? What makes us both similar and different to other individuals, other species? These are great philosophical questions throughout the history of human thought, they are a source of angst in teenagers, and they are fundamental issues in medicine. In this lecture Professor Goodnow explores these questions from the perspective of our immune system, whose raison d’etre is to distinguish our self from the legions of viruses, bacteria and other microbes that would wish to take part in or take over our self. He will give examples of progress, opportunities and challenges in improving health outcomes from the struggle between our self, our genome and our microbes. Public Lecture, Biological Sciences, Medical & Health Science, ANU College of Medicine and Health Sciences, Medicine and Life Science 2008-05-06T03:02:00+10:00 http://www.anu.edu.au/discoveranu/content/podcasts/socratic_forum/ http://www.anu.edu.au/discoveranu/content/podcasts/socratic_forum/#When:23:25:00Z In this debate, ANU plays host to a number of influential public figures including ACT Attorney General Simon Corbell; Dr Clive Hamilton, The Australia Institute; Professor Peter Bailey, ANU; Channel 10's Political Commentator, Paul Bongiorno; Karen Middleton, SBS; and Charles Sampford from the Institute of Ethics Governance and Law. Speakers contest a vigorous debate on issues surrounding Commonwealth-State Relations in Australia. The Socratic Forum is part of a national discussion series aimed at encouraging frank, non-partisan and open debate on issues of importance to the Australian community. Public Lecture, Economics, Law, Justice & Law Enforcement, Policy & Political Science, Society & Culture, ANU College of Medicine and Health Sciences, Law 2008-03-13T23:25:00+10:00 http://www.anu.edu.au/discoveranu/content/podcasts/biosecurity_upgrading_web_prevention/ http://www.anu.edu.au/discoveranu/content/podcasts/biosecurity_upgrading_web_prevention/#When:01:17:00Z In this lecture Professor Dando reviews international control of the biotechnology revolution, the threat of deliberate disease - from biowarfare, bioterrorism, and the possible misuse of benignly intended civil research. He looks at the recent history of the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention and the emphasis on in-depth implementation of the Convention including codes of conduct and education for life scientists. Professor Dando argues that there is much evidence that life scientists know very little about these issues. There is a wider question of how this prohibition regime might be strengthened. He asks, could the education of life scientists be improved though the development of appropriate education modules? Public Lecture, Biological Sciences, Law, Justice & Law Enforcement, ANU College of Medicine and Health Sciences, Medicine and Life Science 2008-02-19T01:17:00+10:00 http://www.anu.edu.au/discoveranu/content/podcasts/just_war_theory/ http://www.anu.edu.au/discoveranu/content/podcasts/just_war_theory/#When:23:45:00Z For several thousand years, philosophers, lawyers, and theologians have developed a theory of the just war, where rules are set for deciding when a war should be fought and what tactics can be employed in war. During the entirety of that period chemical and biological weapons have been banned. In this public lecture, reasons are given for thinking that just war theory cannot support a complete ban on such weapons, unless a similar ban on the use of bombs is also endorsed. Public Lecture, Law, Justice & Law Enforcement, Medical & Health Science, Policy & Political Science, ANU College of Medicine and Health Sciences, Arts and Social Sciences 2007-11-26T23:45:00+10:00 http://www.anu.edu.au/discoveranu/content/podcasts/great_pandemics/ http://www.anu.edu.au/discoveranu/content/podcasts/great_pandemics/#When:03:25:00Z The last five years have seen a remarkable increase in the level of financing and commitment in the war against AIDS, TB and Malaria. This period has also witnessed remarkable innovations in the business of development finance. The Global Fund has played a central role in both of these phenomena. Professor Sir Richard Feachem, who lead the Global Fund from its inception in 2002 until March 2007, discusses the fight against the great pandemics and the need to find a new architecture for development finance drawing on the experience of the first five years of the Global Fund. Professor Sir Richard will be cautiously optimistic about the struggle against HIV/AIDS, ambitious in his remarks on malaria, and provocative in his prescriptions for fundamental change in the way in which aid is provided. Public Lecture, Biological Sciences, Medical & Health Science, ANU College of Medicine and Health Sciences, Medicine and Life Science 2007-05-18T03:25:00+10:00