Beyond Infinity

How sophisticated disinformation campaigns muddy the waters and make it harder to understand the truth about Covid-19 vaccines. Research at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute and the EUvsDisinfo Project sheds light on false narratives seeded through news channels and social media. Like this story? Keep us talking by supporting us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/BeyondInfinityRPP?fan_landing=true

A look at the very ambitious plan for NASA and its international partners to land people at Shackleton Crater at the moon's South Pole in 2024. Project Artemis includes the deep space Gateway space station in lunar orbit and a lunar surface base with in-situ resource utilisation. Eventually the technology and skills learned at the moon will enable a manned mission to Mars. Like this story? Keep us talking - Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/BeyondInfinityRPP?fan_landing=true

Live-to-air radio interviews on RPPfm. Weekly covid reporting from Piers Cunningham with Brendon Telfer. 16/10/20: Tough questions for the Premier from Peta Credlin. COVID-19 Hotel Quarantine Inquiry. Unrealistic elimination policy. Analog Vs digital contact tracing. 26/10/20: Endless lockdown. Northern metro outbreak. Government messaging. Asymptomatic spreading. Acceptable risk management. Comparison with NSW covid approach. Mounting pressure on Victorian government. Mornington Peninsula lockdown. Paralysis in decision making. Like this story? Check out our searchable backlist of over 750 science and technology podcasts, complete with show notes and other resources at beyondinfinity.com.au

In September 2020, the internet exploded with news of life existing at the Earth's twin planet. The James Clerk Maxwell telescope in Hawaii and the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array in Chile found the biomarker phosphine - a phosphorus and hydrogen molecule - high in the Venusian atmosphere. But there are deep doubts about how life could exist at Venus, given its hellish surface temperature and crushing noxious atmosphere. Scientists admit there will need to be corroborative measurements and that phosphine can exist without any connection to life. Spaced Out by this story? Check out our searchable backlist of over 750 science and technology podcasts, complete with show notes and other resources at beyondinfinity.com.au

John explains why he didn't buy a new Pixel 5 (he bought an Oppo Find X2 Pro instead). But he's still a fan of this mid-range smart phone from Google. He likes the OLED screen, great battery life (with shared charging capability), advanced camera system and 5G connectivity. He reckons for many people it's a perfectly good alternative to some of the high-end, uber-exxy phones out there. Like this story? Check out our searchable backlist of over 750 science and technology podcasts, complete with show notes and other resources at beyondinfinity.com.au

Live-to-air radio interview on RPPfm. Weekly covid reporting from Piers Cunningham with Brendon Telfer and Shivani Pillai. 9/10/20: Melbourne GPs dealing with much higher incidence of mental illness, especially among young patients and new mums. Anti-depressants prescribed to 12 year olds. Dr. Stacey Harris's open letter to Premier Andrews. Doctors meeting with new health minister Martin Foley. Great Barrington Declaration signed by leading epidemiologists.

Piers talks with busy Melbourne GP Dr. Stacey Harris about the disturbing incidence of mental health issues among her young patients and new mothers. Dr. Harris says lockdowns do more harm than good and have caused a mental health crisis in Melbourne. She insists we can open up safely, with an emphasis on more robust contact tracing and that the huge cost of striving for corona virus elimination is too high and may not even be achievable. Like this story? Check out our searchable backlist of over 750 science and technology podcasts, complete with show notes and other resources at beyondinfinity.com.au

Live-to-air radio interviews on RPPfm. Weekly covid reporting from Piers Cunningham with Brendon Telfer and Shivani Pillai. 25/9/20: How good is the covid modelling? Alternative views on lockdown from Irish Youtuber Ivor Cummins who says masks are useless and lockdowns are a "medieval" solution. Lessons from Sweden. 2/10/20: Growing frustration from senior Melbourne doctors. Why won't the Victorian government listen to their serious concerns over the handling of the coronavirus pandemic? They say outdoor exercise and sport is safe and should be allowed; that we need to open up.

Live-to-air radio interviews on RPPfm. Weekly covid reporting from Piers Cunningham with Brendon Telfer and Shivani Pillai. 11/9/20: The Covid Doctors Network open letter to Victorian Premier Dan Andrews. Bureaucracy not medical experts driving government response to pandemic. Devastation of business from prolonged lockdown. Government in crisis. 18/9/20: Vaccine espionage - all countries are spying on each other. Hacking and biotech companies targeted by hackers. Race for a vaccine. Fast testing options. Early vaccines in Russia and China.

Box Hill Hospital urologist Geoff Wells says Melbourne's prolonged hard lockdown is causing depression and elevated anxiety, especially among adolescents. Citing unjust discrimination against young people, he says schools should open and people should be allowed to play sport and exercise outdoors. Geoff is critical of the Victorian government's disproportionate approach to the pandemic; the virus does discriminate between young and the elderly with pre-existing illness. He calls for more open dialogue between the government, medical experts and the community and reckons Premier Daniel Andrews "is not prepared to learn from us (doctors), which is extremely worrying and extremely disappointing". Like this story? Check out our searchable backlist of over 750 science and technology podcasts, complete with show notes and other resources at beyondinfinity.com.au

Resident techie John Young recently took possession of a pair of Jabra Elite 75T in-ear buds and he's pretty impressed. He says they're comfy to wear all day, work well for phone calls, "hey google" commands and have particularly good sound reproduction of streaming music. Jabra Elite 75t https://amzn.to/3juI1PQ #ad #CommissionsEarned Like this story? Check out our searchable backlist of over 750 science and technology podcasts, complete with show notes and other resources, at beyondinfinity.com.au

Piers talks hacking with Dr. Ian Storey, lecturer in information systems at RMIT. Ian continues the discussion of a range of different hacking methods, including backdoors and trapdoors, logic bombs, man-in-the-middle attacks, trojans, malware and viruses. Part 2 of a 2 part interview. Like this podcast? Donate and become a Beyond Infinity Patron. https://www.patreon.com/BeyondInfinityRPP/creators

Piers is joined by Dr. Ian Storey, lecturer in information systems at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. Ian shares his in-depth knowledge from years of teaching data security and anti-hacking courses. Topics covered include information security for businesses, public key encryption, cryptography and various kinds of hack attack. Part 1 of a 2 part interview. **For our complete searchable backlist of over 750 science and technology podcasts, plus show notes and other resources, check out our program website beyondinfinity.com.au

A leaked database known as the Overseas Key Individual Database suggests China is collecting vast amounts of information on millions of prominent people around the world. The leak's source, Shenzhen's Zhenhua Data, stands accused of spreading disinformation and promoting conflict.

Piers talks with digital marketer Michael Simonetti about the Australian Competition and Consumer Commissions's campaign to introduce revenue sharing between local news originators and Facebook and Google. Michael thinks regulators are wasting their time trying to change the media landscape of the digital age.

Piers talks with Robert Millar, general surgeon and transplant specialist at Royal Melbourne Hospital and an original signatory of the Covid Doctors Network's open letter to the Victorian Government, which expressed serious concern with its handling of the covid pandemic. The speed and accuracy of covid testing is discussed, along with the possibility of a nano cellular microscopy test with reliable results in under a minute. Robert thinks covid eradication in Victoria is an unrealistic goal and stresses we need better contact tracing to lockdown specific areas of outbreak, rather than an economically devastating blanket shutdown for everyone. He urges better communication from government and public debate free from fear. Read the open letter to Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews here: https://www.coviddoctorsnetwork.com

Piers talks with Michael Simonetti, the founder and CEO of digital agency Andmine, about what businesses can do to survive Melbourne's severe economic shutdown. Michael says the covid pandemic has accelerated the move to digital by five years and if you're not already doing it, you need to hurry up. He advises people to work out what events they can automate and make digital in their business and says the ones who succeed are the ones who figure this out. Irreversible trends which don't end when the pandemic is over.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission is pressuring Google and Facebook to support locally produced news by agreeing to pay for material that appears on their platforms. The regulator believes there is a significant power imbalance between the American tech giants and news originators. But Google and Facebook disagree. Google is warning users its popular services will be diminished, while Facebook says it will remove all news from its Australian platform. Piers and John examine the utterly disrupted media landscape of the digital age and what's at stake.

On 31st August 2020, a group of thirteen senior Melbourne doctors signed an open letter to Victorian Premier Dan Andrews expressing deep concern with the government's handling of the corona virus pandemic. Five days later, 491 other medical practitioners, mainly from Melbourne, had added their signatures to the letter, which describes the government policy of stage 4 lockdown as “ill-focussed, heavy-handed and unjustifiable”. It calls for a more pragmatic, common sense approach. We talk with Geoff Wells, an honorary consultant urologist at Melbourne’s Box Hill Hospital, who organised the letter. Geoff reckons the effects of prolonged isolation - depression, neglected pre-existing illnesses, increased rates of suicide and devastating financial hardship, could be worse than the corona virus itself. (Correction: Geoff Wells of The Covid Doctors Network advises that “based on overseas studies, if you’re healthy and under 60 you have about a 1 in 150,000 chance of dying if you get Covid”. In the interview, Geof

A look back over 5 years of beyondinfinity.com.au coverage of artificial intelligence. While there are legitimate fears about misuse and abuse of the technology, there are also benefits for all humanity. This compilation includes: discussion of inceptionism and the strange art produced by artificial neural networks; quantum computing and Kurzweil's Singularity; how AI is harnessed for mass surveillance by authoritarian states; how AI "joins the dots" between scientific research papers, making connections humans have missed.