While most of the world knew Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple Computers, was ill, we were all shocked when the news came through that he died.
Normally this sort of story is part of my beat at the ABC, but with the Technology Editor away on leave, I ended up doing my far share of commentary.
Here I am chatting to Mark Holden on ABC 774 Melbourne.
Every Wednesday morning (around 9:40 am AEST) I chat with the wonderful Katya Quigley from ABC Mid North Coast NSW (Port Macquaire).
I love chatting to Katya as she always asks what I’m up to and what I think about topics that they’ve been discussing earlier on air.
Recently, Katya and Beth (wonderful producer) have started posting our conversations online. Here is the first one where we talk about a a development in the treatment of snake bites and explore the link between volcanoes and atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide.
Recently I was asked to write another piece for The Drum – the ABC’s online analysis and opinion website. This time the topic was climate change.
So here’s the first few pars. The rest you can read by clicking on the link below.
When it comes to climate change either you’re with us, or you’re on the other side. Well at least that’s how it appears at times. So what happens when someone from one camp says something that appears to support the other?
In the last few days, pro- and anti-climate change blogs have gone into overdrive over comments made at a US Congressional hearing into climate science.
To understand what it’s all about, you need to go back to November 2009. One of the biggest science stories that month was the ‘leaking’ of emails from the Hadley Climate Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia, including the unit’s head Professor Phil Jones.
Occasionally I get a call from ABC News 24 – our 24 hour television news channel. I’m ‘on call’ to talk about science, but most of it seems to be about space and astronomy. Here’s one of my most recent chats.
P.S. I enjoy really doing this and hope I get a call more often. 
Recently I received a call from ABC North Tasmania asking if I would chat about ‘sense of direction’. A quick search of our news archives revealed we had at least three interesting stories. So I agreed to speak with the breakfast presenter Penny Terry at 6:20 am (what I do for science).
Over the summer period I’ll be talking science with Julian Morrow on ABC Radio National, every Friday at around 8:15 am.
Last Friday we talked about arsenic eating organisms, Danish vodka foot spas, turkey and alcohol, and sleeping beauties.
You can download or stream the audio from the ABC Radio National website.
A busy week for me as I had to fill in some blanks in the schedule. One story was on genes relating to menarche (onset of female puberty) and the other was traces of oxygen found on Saturn’s moon Rhea.
Yesterday I spoke with Richard Glover on ABC 702 Sydney about research that suggests how Moses parted the sea in Exodus 14.
According to the team at the National Centre for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and the University of Colorado at Boulder, a wind of 101 kilometres per hour, blowing steadily for 12 hours, could have pushed back waters 2 metres deep.
You can read more at ABC Science Online, plus you can listen to my interview below.
Australian researchers have unearthed a treasure trove of fossils in outback Queensland. It’s one of the biggest collections of fossils from a single marsupial species ever found and the discovery will allow scientists to see how the animals grew and the similarities between them and their modern day descendants.
You can read the story at ABC Science Online. I also put together an audio version for ABC News: The World Today.
Recently spoke with Richard Glover from ABC702 about a new piece of research that may answer this question.
It’s not 100% solved, but it does provide some intriguing clues. The key seems to be nucleation points within the water, and how they affect the freezing point.
Michael Slezak wrote up the story for ABC Science Online. Another good version appears on Wired Science.