Shirtloads of Science

Shirtloads of Science, produced by the University of Sydney, runs on a simple frame: Dr Karl welcomes a researcher or specialist to the microphone and asks them to explain their work. That frame barely changes. Episodes typically open with an acknowledgement of the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation and close on a laundry pun, with the sign-off that the show is washed, spun and aired by the university. What happens in between depends on the guest, and the guests cover a lot of ground. Hannah Gould talks about death cafes, informal meetups in cafes, funeral homes and local libraries where people get to ask the questions about dying they never had a chance to raise. Her framing is disarming: talking about death will not make anyone die, any more than talking about sex makes anyone pregnant. She admits she still grieves her first pet, a rabbit, and the conversation ends with a cheerful 'have a good death.' The forensic conversation with Linzi Wilson-Wilde and Hannah Jarman starts from Dr Karl's impatience with television crime labs and their magic 'enhance' button. From there it moves to two pairs of gloves, hoods and masks, the constant fight to keep a DNA lab free of human DNA, and a case in which 40 matches turned out to be contamination. Kate Thomas, trained as a pharmacist, is asked about the supplement industry and about how differently drug companies deal with prescribers in America. The same conversation draws a confession: Dr Karl once bought a 50-kilo drum of vitamin C after reading Linus Pauling, then sold it to friends in smaller lots. With Michaela Lucas, an immunologist, the question is how much plastic ends up in a human body. He pushes for a number, the estimate drifts toward a gram or less, and she stresses that most research in the field consists of association studies, not randomized trials. A story about the James Webb telescope, told with Peter Tuthil, Louis Desdoigts and Max Charles, went horribly wrong, then right, and by Dr Karl's account ended in tattoos. The feed also carries repeats marked RPT, one introduced with a note that Dr Karl is on sabbatical overseas, working on a strategy that uses artificial intelligence against climate change disinformation. In that repeat, Marcus Atlas discusses chronic middle ear infection with a perforated eardrum, a condition whose complications can reach the brain and which is described as a real problem in developing parts of the world. Dr Karl's habits give the show its texture. He asks what epistemic means and what CSOM stands for. Names get spelled out letter by letter, and one guest is thanked by each of her titles in turn. The result is specialist knowledge that has been stopped, questioned and translated along the way. For a first listen, the death conversation is a warm way in, and the James Webb story has a genuine turnaround.