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The Science Show|Science Show - 2009-04-25 Episode
Barry Marshall or Kylie Minogue?
When asked to choose between Australia's latest Nobel Prize winner and our favourite pop star, Asian students can surprise. So who's better known? This will be revealed, together with an assessment of our prospects when faced with the immense resources being provided for science in China. Meanwhile, are we giving full support to Australian-based innovation? One leading economist thinks not.
Generic drug exports
Over the next 10 years hundreds of drug patents will expire around the world allowing pharmaceutical companies to make millions of dollars producing generic brands. One such company is Hospira, who having set up a huge base in Sydney, and are hoping to manufacture generic drugs and export them. One problem. Australia´s patent laws prevent such manufacturing. Dr Nick Gruen, CEO of Lateral Economics, discusses why these laws are preventing an industry that would create jobs in Australia.
Science in China
Every year 1 million students graduate in science in China. George Stewart, Dean of Science at the University of Western Australia, talks about the growing relationship UWA is building with Chinese universities and students to ensure Australia retains its excellence in science.
Beetles
Beetles can be found in almost all environments on the planet and at present scientists have discovered and named about 5 millions species. But that´s only about one quarter of the beetle species that exist. Professor Quentin Wheeler from Arizona State University talks about why we need money and scientists to discover all those other creepy crawlies.
George Frideric Handel
It's 250 years since the death of one of the world´s greatest composers, George Frideric Handel. Alan Saunders, presenter of the Philosophers Zone, looks at whether Handel´s reported lead poisoning and obesity affected the composers' work in his later life.
Mood music
Are you ever in the mood for a specific genre of music- funk, atmospheric, romantic but you can never remember artist or song names? Gert Lanckriet and Luke Barrington from the University of California, San Diego have built a search engine for music that actually analyses the sound files. To help built the search engine the two men developed a game on Facebook that asks players to categorise music using adjectives.
[ Sat, 25 Apr 2009 00:00:00 +1000 ]
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