Life Matters - Separate stories podcast ABC listen

Much of Australia is having a cold snap right now — with sub-zero temperatures in six different states and territories.

And it can be very nice in those times to curl up in a warm room with a hot cuppa, and forget about the world outside.

Unfortunately, many Australian homes barely keep the cold outside, and that affects our energy bills, which are already high.

Professor Emma Baker discusses what can we do to warm up our homes - both this winter and into the future?

Mid-year can be a tricky time: the weather is colder, the days are shorter, and the summer holidays can feel like they're a long way away. Is there a way we can better support ourselves and those around us from burnout?

Dr Charlotte Keating is a clinical psychologist with a PhD in Neuroscience and she joined Hilary Harper to discuss the evolving field of research around what constitutes burnout, its impact and what we can do to protect ourselves from getting it.
 

Parisa Sekandari came into the world under Taliban rule in Afghanistan.

Some two decades later, the second time they rose to power, her life would dramatically change overnight.

Now a Refugee Advocate and co-creator of the collectives 'Amplify Afghan Women' and 'Community for Humanity', Parisa is one of the 'refugee heroes' fronting the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre's annual telethon coming up on World Refugee Day, Thursday 20th June.

We often think of placebos in a medical context, as control measures for testing the effectiveness of drugs. But can placebos also influence how how things taste, or even how effective certain over-the-counter medicines are? 

Professor Joel Pearson shares the ways in which placebos harness the power of our brain's own belief. 

A new family of drugs are causing alarm among medical professionals. 

Up to fifty times stronger than fentanyl, nitazenes are synthetic opioids that have been detected in Australia in recreational drugs like MDMA and ketamine. 

Experts are warning harm minimisation policies, including pill testing, need to be put in place now to protect unsuspecting drug users. 

As the world becomes increasingly digitised, writing by hand can seem totally archaic. But research shows that, putting pen to paper brings far more cognitive benefit than is often assumed. What might happen if handwriting becomes a lost art?