Beyond Infinity

Live-to-air radio interview with Piers Cunningham and Brendon Telfer. The politics of covid: Federal Opposition on the attack over Australia's squandered victory over covid; vaccine availability and supply issues. Delta variant spreads to Victoria. Mixing and matching vaccine doses. UK set to end covid restrictions from 17th July, while infections increase sharply.

Is Australia's response to the pandemic becoming, as Labour politician Bill Shorten put it, a "sh*t show"? Even though the country mass produces its own Astra Zeneca vaccines, there are vaccine shortages. International borders remain closed to enter or leave, the delta variant is on the loose causing repeated damaging lockdowns and crucially the level of vaccination in the population is stubbornly low.

China has become only the second country after America to successfully land on Mars, at Utopia Planitia. The ambitious Tianwen-1 mission includes an orbiter, deployable camera, lander, drop camera, and the Zhurong rover. Its already sent back images of its entry, descent and landing sequence, recorded the sounds of its operations on Mars and taken a now-famous selfie (and video) of its rover and lander on the surface. Instruments include hi-res cameras, weather station, ground penetrating radar, Mars surface compound detector with laser and a magnetometer.

Live-to-air radio interview with Piers Cunningham and Brendon Telfer. Feds finally get urgent about vaccine rollout, but their messaging is mixed and confusing for Aussies weighing the jab. Shortages don't help either. If astra zeneca isn't supplied to locals, CSL says it will happily sell supplies overseas where demand remains high. Big business enlisted to help Fed rollout, as doctors administering vaccines are guaranteed indemnity. Treasury's 2021 Intergenerational Report paints a concerning ecomomic future.

Live-to-air radio interview with Piers Cunningham and Brendon Telfer. British medical journal 'The Lancet' reports up to a third of people infected with covid develop brain disease and psychological disorders; problems emerge with Chinese vaccine; vaccinating under-18s; Australia's slow roll out draws criticism; Clive Palmer's anti vax campaign.

A look at how great NASA is at solving problems with its spacecraft over vast distances. From saving the Apollo 13 astronauts to deliberately ripping a rover wheel off on a sharp rock on Mars, the space agency's 'tiger teams' have superb form when it comes to finding creative solutions to otherworldly threats.

As Melbourne's 4th economically devastating lockdown draws to a close, we discuss the political fallout and changing attitudes to compliance with government health directives. Also: vaccine shortages and supply issues in Australia, which lags behind many other developed countries in number of people who've had the jab; more on the Wuhan leak with the G7 and WHO demanding more info from China; illogical lockdown restrictions; convalescing Premier Andrews reappears on Twitter after 3 months' silence.

Live-to-air radio interview with Piers Cunningham and Brendon Telfer. As Melbourne emerges from 2 weeks of stage 4 lockdown, attention returns to the origins of the virus. Did the pandemic result from animal to human transmission of covid or was it a leak from the secretive Wuhan Institute of Virology? And to complicate matters further, was the US involved in funding some of the Chinese 'gain of function' research looking at ways to make naturally-occurring corona viruses even more deadly?

Live-to-air interviews: Nasty mucormycosis fungal infections wreak havoc in India; Victoria's 4th hard lockdown extended; limits of quarantine hotels; QR codes finally unified; highly contagious Indian (Delta) variant; Melbourne's 350+ exposure sites; comparing States performance against outbreaks.

A chat with veteran broadcaster Brendon Telfer of RPPfm about the introduction of CD quality music streaming. It's welcome news for audiophiles, but what are the costs and advantages? And what will the impact be on the overall media landscape, including FM and AM radio services.

We talk with Geoff Wells, medical specialist and founder of the Covid Doctors' Network, about the latest outbreak of the Indian covid variant and the stage 4 lockdown ordered by the Victorian Labour Government. We discuss how to convince the community of the urgent need for mass vaccinations, effective contact tracing, safe quarantining, the dire economic fallout and why lockdowns just keep happening in Victoria.

A wide-ranging chat on live-to-air radio with bee activist Simon Mulvany. We cover fast and cheap covid testing using bees, honey (and money) on tap from the Flowhive and Elon Musk's extraordinary Neuralink technology helping the blind and handicapped.

Piers hears from Dr.Tony Heyes, retired physicist and inventor, about what he calls the Adams Event, a time 42,000 years ago when the Earth's magnetic field flipped. During this period, our magnetic shield dropped to below 6% of its current level exposing surface life to dangerous radiation from space and auroral activity so bright that night turned into day. He suggests the extinctions of Australia's megafauna and neanderthals may have been caused by this apocalyptic environmental crisis, as revealed in the rings of an ancient Kauri tree, preserved in a swamp in New Zealand.

Dr. Ian Storey, mathematician and lecturer in information systems and Guy West, professional share market investor and chess master, continue the discussion of different kinds of risk. Here the focus is on gambling and insurance. Which games are best avoided at casinos and why. Is insurance always worth the premiums? Both Ian and Guy agree that mathematical literacy is sorely lacking in the general population and needs to be emphasised more in school. Part 2 of a 2 part interview.

In Part 1 of a wide-ranging discussion, Piers asks Dr. Ian Storey, a mathematician and lecturer in information systems and Guy West, a professional sharemarket investor and chess master, why it's so vitally important to understand risk. Like what you hear? Check out our searchable backlist of over 800 science and technology podcasts, complete with show notes and other resources at beyondinfinity.com.au

Activist Simon Mulvany of Save the Bees Australia discusses a new way of tackling mosquitos which spread bacteria causing buruli ulcers. Instead of gassing large areas with harmful insecticides, traps are used to attract mosquitos. This environmentally-friendly approach to a serious health problem has recently attracted government funding.

NASA hits the bullseye with the successful deployment of its autonomous Ingenuity drone at Jezero Crater on Mars. This 'tech demo' paves the way for future drone missions where vast distances can be easily covered and previously inaccessible terrain studied from the air.

Live-to-air radio interview with beekeeper, environmentalist and potential councillor Simon Mulvany. Simon gives his view on how and why the crowd can harness social media to take on powerful Wall St interests. We discuss GameStop, Robin Hood, Dogecoin and insider trading.

Since the April 2019 release of the first ever image of a black hole - the 6.5 billion solar mass beast at the heart of galaxy Messier 87, astronomers at the Event Horizon Telescope consortium have delved deeper into their petabytes of data. The latest images show polarisation, a signature of magnetic fields, close to the edge of the black hole and its 6000 light year long jet extending far beyond the galaxy. These images show spectacular details, unlike the blurry orange donut seen a year ago.

Guy West, professional share market investor and a world chess master and Dr. Ian Storey, mathematician and information security expert share their thoughts on the extraordinary times we find ourselves in. Are we heading for a big collapse - in equities, cryptos and property? Will we face hyper-inflation as governments crank up the money printing presses? What about GameStop and the Reddit group 'Wall Street Bets', which took on the big hedge funds? Is capitalism broken? Intrigued? Keep us talking by supporting us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/BeyondInfinityRPP?fan_landing=true