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Promo image for Emerging Writers’ Festival 2020 Programme Launch: Digital Nostalgia

Emerging Writers’ Festival 2020 Programme Launch: Digital Nostalgia / Digital culture

With Millie Baylis, Ruby-Rose Pivet-Marsh, Jamie Marina Lau and 2 others

We often speak of the internet as the Bad Place, but it’s also vital for many people to access resources and services, entertainment and community – perhaps now more so than ever. From discussion forums and MSN crushes to TikTok choreographies and pandemic meetings and parties on Zoom, online spaces continue to offer a gathering place for when we can’t…

31 Mar 2020

Past event

Promo image for Live-stream: State of Emergence

The Fifth Estate

Live-stream: State of Emergence / Bodies

With Sally Warhaft and George Megalogenis

There is little doubt now that the COVID-19 coronavirus will drastically alter our lives, communities and societies for some time to come. Amid confusing, contradictory or misleading information about how we should respond – and how we should protect ourselves and each other – the pandemic has already tested our social fabric. How the crisis will affect our healthcare, economic and…

19 Mar 2020

Past event

Cancelled

Promo image for Live-stream: The Problem of Consciousness

Present Sense

Live-stream: The Problem of Consciousness / Science & technology

With Hilary Harper, Jakob Hohwy, and Olivia Carter

This event has been cancelled. Ticket holders have been contacted directly.

What do we mean when we talk about consciousness? For a long time, many scientists steered clear of the study of consciousness, deeming it impossible to observe and subjective by definition.

But that’s changing, thanks to imaginative interdisciplinary research and to new neuroimaging tools that allow scientists to monitor…

22 Oct 2019

Past event

Promo image for Digital Futures: New Media, Storytelling and Disability

Digital Futures: New Media, Storytelling and Disability / Technology

With Adolfo Aranjuez, Erin Kyan, and Eliza Hull

It’s no secret that the digital media industry has been the site of rapid and surprising change in recent decades. The market for screen content of all kinds – as well as screen-adjacent storytelling like podcasts – is hungry for fresh stories and new, authentic voices. And as platforms multiply and consolidate, the boundaries between mass market and niche have softened.

…

Podcast episode

The Wheeler Centre

The Future is Fungal / Science & technology

Vanessa Toholka, Gavin McIntyre and Brian Pickles at the Wheeler Centre

Mushrooms, it seems, have some uncanny properties. Fungi are more closely related to humans than plants, and if we can work with our fungal cousins, we might find a way to reduce waste – and perhaps even salvage our planet.

Gavin McIntyre and Brian Pickles are two ‘bio-neers’ whose work is at the forefront of the new mushroom movement. McIntyre is co-founder and chief scientist at the New York-based biofabrication company, Ecovative, where he’s developing fungal mycelium products to replace plastics, wood, leather and even bricks. Pickles is an ecologist at the University of Reading and part of a pioneering research team that is unlocking the secrets of the mysterious symbiotic system known as mycorrhiza. He has found that trees can communicate, thanks to underground mushroom networks, which connect trees at their roots.

At the Wheeler Centre, Vanessa Toholka joins McIntyre and Pickles to discuss the implications of their discoveries and inventions, as they make the case for a fungal future.

12 Aug 2019

News

Promo image for Working with Words: Rob Morrison

Working with Words: Rob Morrison / Science & technology

Guest post by Rob Morrison

Rob Morrison is a science writer and broadcaster, perhaps best known as a co-presenter of The Curiosity Show. He spoke with us about feral mouse mishaps, doggerel verse and the challenges of writing for kids.

Anything and everything in Science & technology from across our archives.

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Podcast episode

Cover image for of Kyle Wiens: Right to Repair

The Wheeler Centre

Kyle Wiens: Right to Repair / Shopping & consuming

28 Nov 2015

Past event

Promo image for What future do we want – and deserve? Questions for the places, politics and pleasures of the hereafter

The Interrobang: A Festival of Questions

What future do we want – and deserve? Questions for the places, politics and pleasures of the hereafter / Technology

With Cory Doctorow, Adam Liaw, Kristin Alford and 2 others

23 Sep 2011

Man Macmillan Signs Up First Title for Ebook Imprint / Editing, publishing & book design

By Alex Landragin

An Australian writer is seeking to become a pioneer of digital publishing with a venture that’s making the most of new publishing technologies. Nathan Farrugia has an ambitious project in mind - in fact, he’s calling it ‘the future of story-telling’. The Chimera Vector is, according to its author, “a conspiracy techno-thriller of unusual depth, snappy dialogue and edge-of-your-seat action”. Farrugia has turned to…

18 Jul 2013

Past event

Promo image for Beautiful Books: Rare Book Week Launch

Beautiful Books: Rare Book Week Launch / Books, reading & writing

With W.H. Chong, Virginia Murdoch, and Des Cowley

3 Jul 2012

News

Promo image for Science!: It's A Girl Thing

Science!: It’s A Girl Thing / Sexual & gender politics

By Jo Case

13 Dec 2011

Dymocks Opens the Floodgates / Books, reading & writing

By Alex Landragin

A leading Australian book retailer is getting into the publishing business with the launch of an online self-publishing service. Dymocks is the first major Australian book retailer to have entered the online publishing fray with the D Publishing Network. The service offers a fully-functional suite of services for turning a standard Word document into a book and/or ebook. The service can print colour images…

13 Aug 2012

News