Big Ideas ABC listen

It's only eight years until the torch will be passed on to Brisbane. The countdown is on: Are we prepared? What are the challenges? What is the politics involved? And how important is children participating in sport to ensure that the games have a future?

Presented at the Bond Business Leaders Forum, Bond University.

Speakers

Ian Chesterman
President of the Australian Olympic Committee

Pat Howard
Former rugby international player and coach for the Leicester Tigers; Executive General Manager of Strategy, Insights & Innovation at the Australian Sports Commission

Patrick Johnson
Kaanju man from Far North Queensland, Olympian, Commonwealth Games Bronze Medallist in the 4x 100 metres relay; board member for the Brisbane 2032 Organising Committee; Chair of Australian Olympic Committee Indigenous Advisory Council

Elia Hill
Director, Commercial Opportunities and Investment, at the Queensland Department of Tourism and Sport

William Tuffley (host)
Partner, Business Services at the audit and accounting consultancy BDO Australia

Join a full house at the Sydney Opera House with Nobel winning scientist Jennifer Doudna and Big Ideas' host Natasha Mitchell to discuss the huge social, ethical, and scientific implications of the CRISPR gene editing revolution. From curative therapies to gene edited babies - will we use it to hack our own evolution?

This event was presented by the Sydney Opera House, Big Questions Institute (BQI), Sydney Writers’ Festival, UNSW Sydney.

Speaker:

Professor Jennifer Doudna
2020 Nobel Prize for Chemistry co-winner 
Li Ka Shing Chancellor’s Chair
Professor, Departments of Chemistry and of Molecular and Cell Biology
Founder, Innovative Genomics Institute
University of California, Berkeley
Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Senior investigator, Gladstone Institutes

Further information and listens:

Doudna Lab

Jennifer Doudna in conversation with Natasha Mitchell at an event in 2018

World's first CRISPR gene edited babies born - are we ready?(2018 Science Friction episode with Natasha Mitchell)

The CRISPR gene-edited babies and the doctor who made them - what really happened? (2019 Science Friction episode with Natasha Mitchell)

Out of jail, is the CRISPR-baby scandal scientist at it again? (2023 Science Friction episode with Natasha Mitchell)

Feral science or solution? Unleashing gene drives (Science Friction episode with Natasha Mitchell)

Making happier animals? Gene editing in the farmyard (Science Friction episode with Natasha Mitchell)

Hear Natasha Mitchell learn how to do CRISPR gene editing (as part of her 4-part Earshot series The Hidden History of Eugenics (2016))

The science and ethics of genome editing with Jennifer Doudna and Kevin Esvelt (video of event hosted by Natasha Mitchell in 2018)

Natasha Mitchell's review of Siddhartha Mukherjee's The Gene: An Intimate History

Who's watching your local council, keeping you abreast of issues in your neighbourhood, and celebrating your community's achievements? That used to be the role of your local newspaper, but now many of us don't have one.

This event was recorded at the Willy Lit Fest on Sunday 16 June 2024.

Speakers

Margaret Simons Honorary Professorial Fellow, Centre for Advancing Journalism, University of Melbourne
Author, Tanya Plibersek: on her own terms, Penny Wong: Passion and Principle, and others

Josie Vine Senior Lecturer, School of Media and Communication, RMIT University
Author, Larrikins, Rebels and Journalistic Freedom in Australia
Rates, roads and rubbish reporter, The Westsider community newspaper

Alice Pung Author, Unpolished Gem, Her Father's Daughter, Laurinda, Close to Home
Editor, Growing Up Asian in Australia
Adjunct Professor in the School of Media and Communication at RMIT

John Weldon (host) Associate Professor, Victoria University

Moral philosopher and writer Raimond Gaita wrestles with the moral and ethical dimensions of the Israel-Gaza war to try to make sense of the incomprehensible.

The Jim Carlton Integrity Lecture, "The Urgency of Ethical Challenges Facing the World" was recorded at the Melbourne Law School at the University of Melbourne on May 8, 2024.

Speaker

Raimond Gaita Honorary professorial fellow, Melbourne Law School, University of Melbourne
Emeritus Professor of Moral Philosophy, King's College London
Fellow, Australian Academy of the Humanities
Author, Justice and Hope: Essays, Lectures and Other Writings, (and many other books)
Editor Gaza: Morality, Law and Politics

In the shadow of the AI revolution, as the tech giants vie for our data, our attention, and our money, beloved Scottish author Andrew O'Hagan makes an impassioned case for the role of readers and writers as "frontline workers" in the fight for reality.

These events were recorded at the Margaret River Readers & Writers Festival on 17 and 19 May 2024.

Speakers

Andrew O'Hagan Author, Caledonian Road, Mayflies,and many more
Essayist, editor-at-large of the London Review of Books

Gillian O'Shaughnessy (host) Writer, moderator, journalist, broadcaster

Join Natasha Mitchell and guests for a conversation full of surprises on the bonds that make us and sometimes break us. Bad dates, spaceships, surviving cults, the creature within, mother love, loss, and more — how do our attachments shape our minds and lives?

Thanks to Griffith Review and the Brisbane Writers Festival for organising this event.

Speakers:

Anna McGahan
Actor, playwright, screenwriter, Vogel Award winner
Author, Immaculate (Allen and Unwin 2023), and Metanoia: a memoir of a body, born again (Acorn Press, 2020)

Ceridwen Dovey
Author, Only the Astronauts (Penguin, 2024), Only the Animals (Penguin, 2015), and other titles.

Dr Ahona Guha
Clinical and forensic psychologist, writer
Author, Life Skills for a Broken World (Scribe Publications, 2024) and Reclaim: Understanding complex trauma and those who abuse (Scribe Publications, 2023)

Further information:

Griffith Review: Edition 84 Attachment Styles

Griffith Review's editor Carody Culver on getting attached