Minions and physics; hold a megalodon tooth; CSI e-DNA; Tasmanian tigers; can nature aid concentration?
National Science Week: Saturday 9 to Sunday 17 August
The national festival that reaches more than 3 million people through over 2,000 events is back from 9 to 17 August. Dozens of stories around Victoria:
- Outsmart AI and see how the stars of Japan’s ‘Cat Heaven Island’ respond to their own video images in Science Gallery Melbourne’s DISTRACTION exhibition
- Meet the legally blind artist behind a multisensory exhibition exploring quantum science
- Deadly pollen: are you at risk of thunderstorm asthma? – Beechworth
- Why birds and humans need to adapt their homes for climate change
- Psychology is a Freud: comedians and scientists debate
- Burning lessons from Country and a VR tour of Melbourne Uni’s fire lab
- Minions meet physics: the science of Despicable Me 2
- Can nature help us concentrate?
- From Antarctic lichens to the oldest hornworts: National Herbarium reveals Von Mueller’s 1.5 million specimens across time
- Tasmanian tiger de-extinction and plants collected by Captain Cook
- Why sharks have been around for 500 million years?
- CSI eDNA: solving eco-crimes with environmental DNA
- Velvet worm vs marsupial mole: vote for Australia’s most underrated animals
- Laser tag, VR, gas car racetrack, flight simulators, butterfly habitats – West Gippsland
- Microscopic beauty of the gut-immune-brain axis
- Meet roving dinosaurs, dig for fossils and explore Land and Sky Country – Bendigo
- Can wearable tech reduce rural/remote health gaps?
- Can you write the future? The facts and fiction of sci-fi writing
More on these highlights below.
Scientists, experts and event organisers are available for interview throughout National Science Week.
Read on for direct contact details for each event, or contact Tanya Ha, [email protected] or 0404 083 863; or Shelley Thomas, [email protected] or 0416 377 444.
Visit ScienceWeek.net.au/events to find more stories in your area.
Media centre here. Images for media here.
Victoria’s launch event 6:30pm tonight at Melbourne Museum
National Science Week kicks off in Victoria with researchers from the Museums Victoria Research Institute, Zoos Victoria and the Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria
Where: 11 Nicholson Street, Carlton
Media enquiries: Museums Victoria Media & Communications team, [email protected] or 0466 622 621.
National Science Week in Victoria: highlights
Artists find meaning in digital distraction – Melbourne
See how Japanese cats respond to videos of their own image on ‘Cat Island’.
Outsmart AI in ‘Deviation Game’, drawing things that only humans understand.
Join a comedic televised set, ‘Pledge Drive for Attention’.
University of Melbourne’s Science Gallery explores how we can ‘harness the cacophony of digital content and find meaning within it’ through interactive games, play and technology in its free ‘DISTRACTION’ exhibition.
Highlights include:
- Deviation Game, by UK-based Studio Playfool, invites you to draw things that humans can understand but an image-recognition AI can’t.
- Cat Island, by Jen Valender, merges animal colour perception research from University of Melbourne’s Stuart-Fox Lab with technology that explores how cats on Japan’s Ainoshima Island (aka ‘Cat Heaven Island’) respond to digital stimuli, such as screen videos of their own image.
- Melbourne artist Xanthe Dobbie’s Unoriginal Sin focuses on the concept of ‘mean images’ (coined by artist Hito Steyerl) in an immersive video installation.
- US artist and Institute for Comedic Inquiry founder Laura Allcorn’s Pledge Drive for Attention opens the door to a comedic set based on a televised pledge drive, exploring how our attention spans are zapped by digital distractions.
From Saturday 26 July. Event details: www.scienceweek.net.au/event/distraction/parkville/
Media enquiries: Katrina Hall, [email protected] or 0421 153 046.
Deadly pollen: are you at risk of thunderstorm asthma? - Beechworth
Thunderstorm asthma, a condition triggered by high levels of pollen during a storm, can cause severe asthma attacks, even in people who have never had asthma. People who get hay fever might be at risk.
Allergy sufferer, scientist and Superstar of STEM Dr Kira Hughes is bringing asthma education to regional Victoria – a place where high grass pollen levels make it vitally important.
While thunderstorm asthma events are rare, around 40 per cent of all worldwide events happened in Australia and have resulted in hospitalisations and even deaths. Kira will share why Australia is a hotspot and innovative solutions in development in a free presentation at Beechworth Library.
Saturday 9 August. Event details: www.scienceweek.net.au/event/thunderstorm-asthma/beechworth/
Media enquiries: Martyn Pearce, [email protected] or 0432 606 828.
Kira Hughes is available for media interviews.
Legally blind artist and musician collaborate in multisensory science exhibition to celebrate Quantum Year – Melbourne
Designed by legally blind artist Dr Erica Tandori, from Monash University’s Rossjohn Laboratory, and designer/musician Dr Stu Favilla, from Swinburne University of Technology, it explores hidden atomic structures and protein formations revealed through X-ray crystallography in a series of 10 multisensory science books.
Showcasing accessible and inclusive science during Quantum Year, the exhibition enables blind, low vision and diverse needs audiences to connect with cutting-edge Australian science and scientists (past and present) – including Nobel Prize winners Henry and Lawrence Bragg, the Australian father-and-son duo who pioneered X-ray crystallography.
It also features interactive mock-ups of the Braggs’ X-ray crystallography machines from the early 20th Century, image and data sonification, science inspired electronic music, and tactile artworks and graphics that represent atomic structures, diffraction patters and protein formations.
Saturday 9 August. Event details: www.scienceweek.net.au/event/a-different-light-rsv/melbourne/
Media enquiries: Dr Erica Tandori, [email protected] or 0407 806 733.
Dr Erica Tandori and Dr Stu Favilla are available for media interviews.
Birds and humans need to adapt their homes for climate change? – online via Melbourne
Why are bird nests so diverse, and what can we learn from nature’s architects?
Meet University of Melbourne’s Dr Iliana Medina Guzman, who has studied hundreds of nests around the world. She showcases innovative construction techniques that illustrate the evolution of animal behaviours and tackles the question: ‘Will birds successfully adapt their nests as the climate warms?’.
Monday 11 August. Event details: www.scienceweek.net.au/event/bird-nests-around-the-world-natural-wonders-with-climate-clues/
Media enquiries: [email protected] or (03) 8344 4123.
Psychology is a Freud - Brunswick
Is psychology a science, art, pseudoscience or potato? Or an ink blot of your parents fighting?
Sci Fight Science Comedy Debate brings together scientists and comedians ‘to debate serious issues in a ridiculous manner’ on the topic: Psychology is a Freud.
The showdown, hosted by Sci Fight co-founder/comedian/science communicator Atlanta Colley, features comedians Jude Perl and Martin Dunlop; magician and doctor Vyom Sharma; psychologist Kathryn Kallady; neuroscientist Elyas Arvell; and writer/editor Elizabeth Flux.
Tuesday 12 August. Event details: www.scienceweek.net.au/event/sci-fight-science-comedy-debate-psychology-is-a-freud-5/brunswick
Media enquiries: Alanta Colley, [email protected] or 0478 143 905.
Comedian and science communicator Alanta Colley, who co-founded Sci Fight in 2017, is available for media interviews.
Burning lessons from Country – online via Melbourne
Take a virtual tour of University of Melbourne’s fire lab and meet two researchers studying wildfires and learning from Indigenous fire management practices:
- Dharug woman, Maddison Miller, who explores ways of bringing non-Indigenous and Indigenous sciences together.
- Trent Penman, a bushfire risk modeller.
Tuesday 12 August. Event details: www.scienceweek.net.au/event/burning-lessons-from-country-ancient-and-new-understanding-of-bushfires-2/
Media enquiries: [email protected] or (03) 8344 4123.
Minions meet physics: the science of Despicable Me 2 – Melbourne
Melbourne scientists are using Despicable Me 2 to explore the physics of everyday life.
They’re inviting the public to a special screening of the movie, followed by a Q&A with scientists from the RMIT Centre for Applied Quantum Technologies.
They explain principles like motion, energy and forces, illustrated by the Minions’ interactions with the world around them.
Wednesday 13 August: www.scienceweek.net.au/event/the-science-of-despicable-me-2/melbourne/
Media enquiries: [email protected] or 0439 704 077.
Can nature help us concentrate? - North Fitzroy
Melbourne researchers say looking to nature can improve your attention span.
University of Melbourne Psychology Professor Katherine Johnson discusses related findings about staying focussed.
Her research in the field of developmental cognitive neuroscience involves children and adults with developmental disorders including attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and autism spectrum disorder (ASD).
Thursday 14 August. Event details: www.scienceweek.net.au/event/the-science-of-attention-how-nature-can-help/north-fitzroy
Media enquiries: Katherine Johnson, [email protected] or 0406 780 657.
Professor Katherine Johnson is available for media interviews.
From Antarctic lichens to the oldest hornworts: Von Mueller’s 1.5 million specimens across time – Melbourne
How can lichen survive the Antarctic landscape while also growing in the hottest deserts?
Scientists from Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria will tell their favourite stories about some of the 1.5 million specimens of plants, algae, and fungi at the National Herbarium of Victoria.
Learn about the founder of the herbarium, Baron Ferdinand von Mueller, on his 200th birthday and discover how these historic collections continue to inform science today.
Thursday 14 August. Event details: https://www.scienceweek.net.au/event/specimens-across-time/melbourne
Media enquiries: Tanya Hendy, Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria, [email protected], 03 9252 2300.
Tasmanian tiger de-extinction, Captain Cook’s plants, and more – Parkville
Melburnians have the rare opportunity to step inside labs and museums normally off limits to the public at the University of Melbourne’s Parkville campus, including:
Flora, fauna and TIGRR: the past and future of biology – visit the Herbarium, the Tiegs Museum and Thylacine Integrated Genomic Restoration Research Lab. Discover plant specimens collected by Captain Cook’s crew, a chimpanzee skeleton signed by Dr Jane Goodall, and pioneering efforts in marsupial conservation and de-extinction of the Tasmanian tiger.
Thursday 14 August. Event details: https://www.scienceweek.net.au/event/flora-fauna-and-tigrr-the-past-and-future-of-biology/parkville/
Media enquiries: [email protected] or (03) 8344 4123.
Why sharks have been around for 500 million years? – Ballarat
A 30-foot shark with a saw blade of jagged teeth protruding from its lower jaws. Sharks fossilised during mating. And new insights into the megalodon, the largest shark that ever lived, measuring 66 feet.
Flinders University palaeontologist Professor John Long reveals how sharks have outlasted multiple mass extinction events to remain at the top of the ocean’s food chain. The author of The Secret History of Sharks: The Rise of the Ocean’s Most Fearsome Predators will also showcase ancient fossils, including a megalodon tooth.
Friday 15 August. Event details: www.scienceweek.net.au/event/the-secret-history-of-sharks/ballarat-central
Media enquiries: Professor John Long, [email protected] or 0408 148 660.
What is Australia’s most underrated animal? – online
Do weird and wonderful Aussie creatures get the attention they deserve? For Science Week 2025, ABC Science wants Australians to cast their vote for Australia’s most underrated animal.
Not the usual cuddly crowd-pleasers, but the ugly, the annoying and the lesser-known critters that are often over-looked, under-conserved and underrated.
“We are trying to do the impossible here and rate what may be unrateable, vote on what may be un-findable, but most of all, find out as much as we can about animals which live their entire lives outside the spotlight of popular consciousness,” says Dr Ann Jones from ABC Radio National podcast What the Duck?!
The search for Australia’s most underrated animal will be decided on Friday 15 August. Images here.
Friday 1 August – Friday 15 August: To find out more and vote, go to www.abc.net.au/underrated.
The shortlist (those found in Victoria indicated with bold text):
Palm cockatoo
Dugong
Short-fin eel
Great desert skink
Ghost bat
Rakali (native water rat)
Marsupial mole
Turtle frogs
Giant cuttlefish
Velvet worm
For interviews with Dr Ann Jones, contact Amy Reiha, ABC Publicity, [email protected] or 0404 026 039
For interviews with other animal experts and science communicators, contact:
Tanya Ha, [email protected] or 0404 083 863
Shelley Thomas, [email protected] or 0416 377 444
Microscopic beauty of the gut-immune-brain axis – Melbourne
Some 90 per cent of chronic health conditions are influenced by how cells and neurons communicate across our gastrointestinal, immune and nervous systems.
Researchers from Monash University’s Gastroenterology, Immunology and Neuroscience (GIN) program have captured the gut-immune-brain axis in stunning imagery, as documented in the curation of a free public exhibition ‘Big Microcosmos’.
Their research focuses on gastrointestinal, immune and nervous systems as one interconnected system, recognising that single organ/system investigation often falls short in addressing complexities of widespread health issues from allergies to diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancer and neurological conditions (autism spectrum disorders, chronic pain, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease).
Friday 8 August – Friday 15 August. Event details: www.scienceweek.net.au/event/big-microcosmos/melbourne/
Media enquiries: Monash University media team, [email protected] or 03 9903 4840
Researchers available for media interviews:
- Immunologist Prof Benjamin Marsland, neuroscientist Prof Richelle Mychasiuk and gastroenterologist/dietitian Dr Emma Halmos – GIN co-heads
- Dr Juliana Silva – GIN program manager
- PhD students and researchers whose microscopy images feature in the exhibition are also available on request.
Pictured: Mucus: the first gatekeeper of the gut, captured by Aidil Zaini.
Join the real-world cast of CSI: eDNA - solving eco-crimes with environmental DNA – Melbourne
Think David Attenborough meets CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. Don your lab coat, safety goggles and gloves and help a team of scientists solve eco-crimes by collecting and analysing environmental DNA (eDNA).
Step into a mock crime scene full of physical evidence, environmental samples and contextual clues that need to be deciphered. The eco-crime could relate to water pollution, endangered species trafficking, biodiversity loss, climate change or deforestation.
Learn how to collect environmental samples from water, soil and air, avoiding crime scene contamination with scientists including ‘eDNA Detective’ Mariea Pacheco (applied field ecologist), and 'FungiGirl' Ema Corro (mycologist). Then, conduct eDNA extraction and analysis using the world’s first portable DNA laboratory, the ‘Bento Lab’, before crunching genetic data and using DNA barcoding.
Friday 15 August – Sunday 17 August. Event details: www.scienceweek.net.au/event/csi-edna-solving-eco-crimes-with-environmental-dna/brunswick/
Media enquiries: Mariea Pacheco, [email protected] or 0422 114 795.
Mariea Pacheo (project lead and applied field ecologist) and Emma Corro (mycologist and neurodivergent scientist) are available for media interviews.
Get in the STEM Zone – West Gippsland
Visit a STEM extravaganza in West Gippsland, bursting with more than 25 stalls for the public to perform experiments with microscopes, delve into forensics, chemistry, propulsion and more. Activities include laser tag, VR experiences, a gas car racetrack, engineering challenges, flight simulators, microplastics investigations, forensics and butterfly habitats.
Local scientists will be available on stage for participants to ask burning questions they’ve always wanted answered.
Saturday 9 August. Event details: www.scienceweek.net.au/event/the-stem-zone-experiment-2/lardner/
Media enquiries: Carissa Kelly, [email protected] or 0428 275 623.
Meet roving dinosaurs, dig for fossils and explore Land and Sky Country – Bendigo
Designed for children aged 3 to 11, the event at Bendigo’s Discovery Science and Technology Centre features ‘life-sized roving dinosaurs that stomp, roar and interact with the crowd’, cultural storytelling and a planetarium show focused on Indigenous archaeology. It also includes Auslan interpretation for children with low or no hearing.
Saturday 16 August. Event details: www.scienceweek.net.au/event/jurassic-wonders/bendigo/
Media enquiries: Alissa Van Soest, [email protected] or 0413 947 850.
Can wearable tech reduce rural/remote health gaps? – Bundoora
Find out in workshops, talks and demonstrations. The program showcases how innovative technologies can reduce health disparities and improve access to preventative care. It includes stories from people in places like regional Australia, Nepal, India, and Africa, showing how technology is helping their communities stay healthy.
The project will foster healthier lifestyle practices by equipping participants with the knowledge and resources to utilise health technologies effectively.
Smart Health Global Australia is a not-for-profit organisation based in Melbourne and Nepal with an aim to act as a catalytic driver to promote easy access to quality health in hard-to-reach areas.
Thursday 14 August. Event details: www.scienceweek.net.au/event/empowering-health-through-science-and-technology/bundoora/
Media enquiries: Manoj Khadka, [email protected] or 0426 086 532.
Fact or fiction: can you write the future? – Melbourne
Join ‘Writing the Future’ workshops to create extraordinary futures for real and fictional worlds with science communicator Steve Mushin and sci-fi author Amie Kaufman, who will also reveal how science shapes her story plots.
This and more at Celebrating Science events for children, young people and families organised by Moonee Valley City Council at Flemington Library. The program extends to STEM Storytime for preschoolers, STEM challenges for primary students, and intergenerational science trivia.
The council works closely with families from culturally diverse and refugee backgrounds and aims to boost participation of historically underrepresented or low socio-economic groups.
Media enquiries: Mark Kearney, [email protected] or 0447 198 653.
About National Science Week
National Science Week is Australia’s annual opportunity to meet scientists, discuss hot topics, do science and celebrate its cultural and economic impact on society – from art to astrophysics, chemistry to climate change, and forensics to future food.
First held in 1997, National Science Week has become one of Australia’s largest festivals. Last year about
3 million people participated in more than 2,000 registered events and activities.
The festival is proudly supported by the Australian Government, CSIRO, the Australian Science Teachers Association, and the ABC.
In 2025 it runs from Saturday 9 to Sunday 17 August. Event details can be found at www.scienceweek.net.au.
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Fire Lab at University of Melbourne - part of National Science Week
