The Science Show

It is estimated that we are more likely to die from a catastrophe than in a car crash. A catastrophic events are a nuclear war, bioterrorism, or before too long, out-of-control artificial intelligence. And the chance of these taking someone’s life is estimated at 1 in 6. That's many times more likely than a fatal car crash.

Robyn Williams: Last week we heard briefly from the Reith Lectures, just ended, on RN, presented by Stuart Russell of Berkeley. He talked of artificial intelligence and how it could give us colossal wealth if handled properly. Here's a brief reminder: Stuart Russell: If all goes well, it will herald a golden age for humanity. Our civilisation is the result of our intelligence and having access to much greater intelligence could enable a much better civilisation.

Cecilia Tomori grew tired of lies and distortions which too often swirl around as scientists seek the truth. The doubt machine has been around for years. The strategies and patterns have been documented and recur across industries such as tobacco, fossil fuels, pharmaceuticals, food and more. Tomori has come up against the doubt machine in her own work in false claims that undermine breastfeeding to increase sales of formula milk.

Robyn Williams: The Science Show. And let's start with a love song. [Whale sounds] The biggest animals on Earth and in the sea, feature today. When did they leave the land and become eventually baleen whales or toothed whales? And what are the secrets of their lives in the deep, now rudely revealed by scientists. [Whale sounds] He doesn't seem to be too pleased, does he. Nor is the nation, specifically regarding our physiology on being told that federal parliament will not be sitting next week.

Robyn Williams: Roger Allebone, Roger Grant, Darren Osborne, Andrew Olle, all ABC journos who have died of brain cancer. And this week Sara Chivers spoke on 7.30 about her diagnosis and that of her baby. This is The Science Show. [Music] And that's Shalom Andrews playing at the Andrew Olle event last Friday. She too has brain cancer. And here is Associate Professor Kerrie McDonald talking to the audience of the dinner before she introduces Shalom.

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He imagined the atomic bomb, he believed in a world government, he wrote books about science and science fiction and was the first popular communicator of scientific ideas. Today we commemorate the life and achievements of Herbert George Wells. HG Wells changed the way science was understood by the public, his writings and his warnings are part of the way we think today.

Matthew Bailes: It's the most incredible thing I've ever seen. We saw two neutron stars, each probably 20 kilometres in diameter and weighing half a million Earths complete the last 4,000 orbits of a death spiral over the course of about 100 seconds. They travelled around each other so quickly that when we lost sight of them they were completing a whole orbit in just 2.5 milliseconds. These are staggering numbers. They tore each other apart.

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Robyn Williams: Big science. We end the year on The Science Show with a stellar panel, including a new Nobel prize winner, with the shape of things to come. Big things. We’re at the World Festival of Science in Brisbane. Montage of voices: In exploration there needs to be the set of people who have no rules, and they are going into the frontier.