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Issue 9: Entwined 28 October 2025 This issue takes a moment to revel in the science that surrounds us. Come walk the tangled paths less followed, who knows what you may come across! Editorial Unravelling the Threads: From the Editors-in-Chief & Cover Illustrator by Ingrid Sefton, Aisyah Mohammad Sulhanuddin & Anabelle Dewi Saraswati A word from the Editors-in-Chief, and fascinating insights into this issue's cover. Knot theory Knot Theory and Its Applications. Why Knot? by Ryan Rud Untangle the knot theory with Ryan to reveal the role of this mathematical marvel in our everyday life. Hugging Entwined: A Hug Story by Elise Volpato Embrace the physiology, psychology and cultural complexities of hugs, as Elise opens us up to their undeniable benefits. Geological time periods Enter . . . the Anthropocene? by Rita Fortune Rita digs into questions of how and where we can draw a line in the sand, in attempts to disentangle a new geological time period. Cosmic matter The Cosmos in Our Palms: A Reflection of Our Cosmic Origins by Mishen De Silva Gain a new appreciation with Mishen of how the beauty and mystery of the cosmos is not just among us, but within us. Humans of UniMelb Rewilding Our Cities with Dr Kylie Soanes by Ciara Dahl Uncover life behind and between the concrete jungle, as Ciara talks all things urban ecology with Dr Kylie Soanes. Brain connectome Conferring with Consciousness by Ingrid Sefton Me, myself and my brain - Ingrid traverses the neural paths that comprise the conscious experience. Journey of food The Life of Matcha by Kara Miwa-Dale Delicately grown, globally consumed: Kara evaluates the intersection of matcha's deep-rooted social importance with physical health and current trends. Gunpowder Ancient Asian Alchemy: Big Booms by Isaac Tian Aiming for immortality, landing at gunpowder? Isaac explores how a quest for life is fundamentally entangled in the alchemy of gunpowder. Classical biology Eyeballs, a Knife, and No Fear of God by Jess Walton Travel back in time with Jess to meet the early anatomists who helped pioneer the arduous and neverending human quest to seek answers from deep within ourselves. Literally speaking, that is. Axolotls Axolotl: The Little God of the Lake by Danny He Dive into the history, habitat, and hardhsips of your favourite frilly friends. Axolotls are so much more than a cute face, and time may be running out to save them. Camouflage Living Pixels by KJ Srivastava Uncovering the science behind camouflaging creatures that have no eyes makes this trick no less magical, as KJ reveals. Pacific Island futures Human-Cetacean Relations by Andrew Irvin Taking us to Tonga, Andrew tells a tale of a musician swimming between the worlds of communication, marine science and a future for Pacific Islands. Philosophy of science It’s Dangerous to Go Alone by Julia Lockerd Join Julia to debate the importance of epistemic and social relationships in the development of modern science. Perceptions of time Time Perception – The Chaos Binding Your World Together by Furqan Mohsin Spend a moment with Furqan considering how our perception of time strings us together, yet fundamentally pulls us apart.

Issue 8: Enigma 3 June 2025 This issue unspools the long-hidden threads in science. Come make sense of the puzzles and mysteries with us! Or perhaps, leave just as addled. Editorial Cracking the Code: A Word from the Editors-in-Chief by Ingrid Sefton & Aisyah Mohammad Sulhanuddin A word from our Editors-in-Chief. Facial recognition Friend or Foe?: The Mechanisms Behind Facial Recognition by Mishen De Silva What's in a face? Mishen walks us through the ingenious ways our brains make meaning of the faces we see everyday. Human evolution The Lost Link: A Mystery in Evolution by Eymi Gladys Carcamo Rodriguez The theory of human evolution conjures textbook timelines of ape to man, but as Eymi explores, biology has never been that simple. Celebrity culture Glowing Limelight, Fashioned Stars by Aisyah Mohammad Sulhanuddin Chronically online or not, society sure loves its stars. Aisyah investigates the messy sociology behind our relationships with celebrities in past decades. Astronomy Why Are We So Fascinated by Space? An Exploration of Human’s Fascination with Outer Space by Emily Cahill What make the night sky impossible to ignore? Emily uncovers how culture, commercialisation and science have fuelled our cosmic curiosity. Prehistoric predators Terror Birds: The Discovery of Prolific Hunters by Jason Chien Giant, flightless and carnivorous - Jason pieces together the rise of terror birds as fearsome apex predators Psychology A Psychological ‘Autopsy’ of Ludwig van Beethoven: Dissecting Genius and Madness by Kara Miwa-Dale Elusive and erudite, even beyond the grave. Dissect the inner world of Beethoven with Kara - when can we call genius, madness? Fungi Fungal Pac Man by Ksheerja Srivastava No matter how good of a gamer you are, Ksheerja proves why biosensensing fungi should be crowned as our worlds best Pac-Man player. Dreams In Your Dreams: Unpacking the Stories of Your Slumber by Ciara Dahl Where do our minds go every night? Ciara explores the mysterious science best theories behind dreaming Neurology Functional Neurological Disorder by Esme MacGillivray What if your nervous system just stopped working? Esme explains FND, and how it affects someone, beyond symptoms. Slime moulds Thinking Outside the Body: The Consciousness of Slime Moulds by Jessica Walton I think, therefore I am... a slime mould? Jess ponders whether this humble, single cell protist may exhibit conciousness without a brain. Psychadelics Life Story of a Drug by Elijah McEvoy From 'Bicycle Day' to brain receptors, Elijah takes us on a trip through the enigmatic origins, uses and psychadelic effects of LSD. Gut microbiome Microbic Mirror of The Self by Sarah Ibrahimi Microbes: Humanities greatest enemy or our best friend? Sarah explores the relationship between the gut microbiome and our health. Infantile amnesia Mental Time Travel: How Far Can I Remember? by Sophie Potvin Step inside the hippocampus, as Sophie illustrates the mechanisms of memory formation and our power to make the past come alive again. Consciousness A Headspace of One’s Own by Andrew Irvin At what point does a computer become conscious? Andrew delves into technology that blurs the line between artificial intelligence and the human brain. Prejudice in Science What Do Women Want? by Madeleine Kelly The question we should be asking is not what we know, but what we don't know about women.

Issue 10: Fact & Fiction 2 June 2026 This issue traverses the boundaries of truth, certainty and fabrication. Join us to illuminate the myriad grey space that lies in between. Editorial Shining Light on the Grey by Ingrid Sefton, Kara Miwa-Dale and Anabelle Dewi Saraswati A word from the Editors-in-Chief and some enlightening insights from this Issue's Cover Illustrator Biological evolution That Protein is AI, Dude by KJ Srivastava Move over nature, is artificial intelligence the new apex predator of protein evolution? Determinism and indeterminism Contingent Realities - the (Ph)ailure of a (Ph)act by Edmond Sim From Plato to quantum mechanics, Edmond muses whether objective facts truly exist — or if reality depends on who's observing it. Climate change To Prevent Climate Catastrophe, Keep Reading by Madeleine Kelly Madeleine argues its time to rewrite the landscape of climate fiction from one of impending doom into one of hope and action. Paleontological reconstructions Terrible Lizards and their Terrible Reconstructions by Kaya Czerwinska A flying Stegosaurus, upside-down Hallucigenias: Kaya revisits palaeontology's most delightfully bizarre mistakes. Traditional Chinese medicine The Human Body: A Portrait Painted by a Thousand Minds by Isaac Tian Isaac examines how different cultures have attempted to answer the same timeless question: how does the human body truly work? Neuroscience When Fiction Feels Real: How the Brain Builds Reality by Terra Gi Where does reality exist: in the world, or in our mind? Terra probes how the brain blurs the boundaries of perception and experience. Genetic engineering The Predictions of Genomics: Fictions Once Called Fact by Scarlett Yang Beyond mere educated guesses, precision in scientific prediction is paving the way forward in genomic innovation. Little scientists Young Scientists in the Making by Kacy Toombs Cultivating curiosity in children is not only considerate, but fundamentally scientific, Kacy posits. Biobanks How Population Biobanks Shed Light on Disease by Jason Chien Jason unlocks how biobanks are helping researchers probe new insights into human health and disease. Sex differences Unpacking Myths: Distortions of Sex Differences in Popular Culture by Vicenta Wheatley From dating podcasts to TikTok algorithms: how science on sex differences is simplified, sensationalised, and sold. Time travel Reimagining Time: From Relativity to Wormholes by Zahra Halela If time is relative, bending the bounds of physics and reality, Zahra considers how far-fetched the notion of time-travel really is. Truth under AI Are Truths Possible Under AI? by Vanessa Cheng As AI blurs the line between truth and deception, Vanessa considers how it is changing the way we see the world. Opposites attract Dating Isn’t Physics – Opposites Don’t Attract by Elva Assisan Elva repels the theory that our magnetic pull towards the trope of "opposites attract" is founded in science. Misinformation Fiction Disguised as Fact: The Cost of Scientific Misinformation by Kara Miwa-Dale Vaccines save lives — but as Kara explores, misinformation can undermine them just as powerfully.

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< Back to Issue 4 Echidnas: Gentle Courters In The Competitive Animal Kingdom by Emily Siwing Xia 1 July 2023 Edited by Maddison Moore and Arwen Nguyen-Ngo Illustrated by Christy Yung When we think of animals or nature in competition, we picture aggression and savagery over resources such as food, territory and mates. Beyond aggression, however, the variety of animal behaviour associated with competition for resources is immense. A gentle form of competition is the bizarre mating ritual of our own unique Australian fauna: the echidna. Known as Tachyglossus Aculeatus and spiny anteaters, echidnas are quill-covered animals living in Australia and New Guinea. Since Australia is so isolated from other continents, our fauna has often been regarded by outsiders with an air of mystery and awe. To start with, echidnas are in the same family as the famed platypus, called monotremes (egg-laying mammals). Surviving monotreme species can only be found in Australia and New Guinea. The four species of echidnas, along with their duck-billed cousin, are the very few surviving members in this classification. Despite the similarities in their name and appearance in both being covered with hollow, spiny quills, these spiny anteaters are not actually closely related to the more well-known anteaters in the Americas on a genetic and evolutionary basis. Echidnas feed on a diet of ants and termites, using their electroreceptive beaks to find burrowing prey digging them out with their hind claws. These powerful claws are long and curved backwards, specially designed for digging. Funnily, when the British Museum received an echidna specimen, they switched the backward claws frontwards thinking that it was a mistake. As mentioned before, mating rituals can be a violent (even bloody) ordeal in nature. From barbed penises in cats and deadly fights for females in elephant seals, straight to sexual cannibalism in praying mantises, there seems to be endless examples of brutality in the animal world. However, behind these brutal images is another side of nature that seems gentle and even humorous at times: for example, the ritual of our spiny suitors. Echidna mating rituals begin with the formation of a mating train. From June to September in Australia, male echidnas mate by lining up — from their beak tips to their spiny bottoms — to follow behind one single female. These trains can have more than 10 males in line and last for days, even weeks, at a time. During the mating season, male echidnas may leave a train to join or form a different train behind another eligible female. Their mating efforts often lead males to travel for long distances, even beyond their own home ranges. If the males get interrupted and lose track of the female, they reform their train by picking up her scent with their snouts in the air. They are such determined suitors that it is extremely difficult for a female echidna to evade them. Usually, there is one male that remains through the long-winded process, and they get to mate with the female. The reason behind forming echidna trains is unknown, but scientists generally agree that it is correlated with some type of selection process. One theory is that it aids the female in weeding out all the weaker males by tiring them out until the last one remains. Another is that the female is waiting for the right male that she is interested in to get behind her. Either way, it is a process of determination and perseverance. In exceedingly rare occasions where there are still multiple suitors left at the end, the males dig a trench surrounding the female and compete through head bumping. Although there is still much not understood about head bumping due to its scarce occurrence, it is generally considered an echidna social behaviour that serves to maintain dominance. Head bumps are generally only given by dominant echidnas to subordinate echidnas who haven’t recognised their dominance status and moved away. This rarely happens and is a relatively peaceful affair compared to conflicts in other animals. The winner of the mating head bumping ritual then digs until the previously mentioned trench is deep enough for him to be below the female so they can mate through their cloacas. 23 days after copulation, the female lays a soft-shelled leathery egg into a temporary pouch where it continues to incubate for 10 more days when a tiny puggle (a baby echidna or platypus) hatches. The puggle drinks milk from the female’s special mammary hairs until it is capable of feeding itself and has fully covered spines and fur. At last, the matured echidna leaves their mother’s burrow to live independently. The mating rules and practices amongst echidnas are a demonstration of patience and courtesy. This contrasts with the general public misconception of nature being merciless, which is characterised by the brutal competition for food, social status and mating opportunities. Although they are in the same competition for a mate, the lines of waddling echidnas are polite, organised and humorous. Behind the mask of brutality, nature continues to have its pleasant secrets. References Morrow G, Nicol SC. Cool Sex? Hibernation and Reproduction Overlap in the Echidna. PLoS One. 2009 Jun 29;4(6):e6070. Echidna [Internet]. AZ Animals. [cited 2023 Jun 22]. Available from: https://a-z-animals.com/animals/echidna/ Anne Marie Musser. Echidna | Britannica [Internet]. 2023 [cited 2023 Jun 22]. Available from: https://www.britannica.com/animal/echidna-monotreme Echidna trains: explained [Internet]. Australian Geographic. August 6, 2021 [cited 2023 Jun 22]. Available from: https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/topics/wildlife/2021/08/echidna-trains-explained/ Lindenfors P, Tullberg BS. Evolutionary aspects of aggression the importance of sexual selection. Adv Genet. 2011;75:7–22. Warm Your Heart With Videos of ‘Echidna Love Trains’ [Internet]. Atlas Obscura. September 1, 2017. [cited 2023 Jun 22]. Available from: http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/echidna-love-trains Previous article Next article back to MIRAGE

By Yvette Marris Behind the Mask By Yvette Marris 23 March 2022 Edited by Tanya Kovacevic Illustrated by Quynh Anh Nguyen It would be hard to write about A Year in Science without the obligatory COVID article. We hear constantly about the stresses of being a frontline healthcare worker, the signs and symptoms of long COVID, and the endless vaccine scepticism. I’d like to tell a slightly different story. During the COVID pandemic, other infections didn’t just take a holiday and cancers didn’t just stop growing. More ordinary illness and injury continued behind the headlines. As a consequence of the pandemic, healthcare workers are additionally dealing with an abundance of patients, delays with diagnosis and some very complex medical cases. Megan Gifford worked in a hospital that didn’t primarily treat COVID-19 patients, but still had to adapt to the constant changing of rules, regulations and policies put in place to protect staff and patients alike from the virus. Now at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre in Melbourne, Gifford spoke to me about her experiences working at Townsville University Hospital in the only bone marrow transplant ward servicing a large population across regional Queensland. Gifford experienced the stress and burden of trying, not only to assuage their own anxieties but to also provide current, up-to-date information to patients and deliver high quality care. There were the frustrations of unavoidable logistical problems like border closures, stay-at-home orders, preventing access to crucial materials and patient transport. There was heartbreak of watching transplant patients deteriorate mentally, as their will to persist with treatments began to fade. Pathologists and haematologists also found themselves facing an unprecedented logistical nightmare, including re-allocation of diagnostic equipment and protective equipment for mass COVID testing. Access to essential biomedical material like blood and plasma became increasingly difficult and many suffered as a result. While pandemic consequences like long COVID and the increased prevalence of affective disorders, like depression and anxiety, are well documented in media and academia, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) hasn’t gotten the same amount of attention. Statistics and anecdotes alike are staggering, both for patients and healthcare workers. With stressors like an unprecedented number of critically ill patients, capricious disease progressions, high mortality, and ever-changing treatment guidelines the world was sympathetic to healthcare workers’ struggles (3). Yet with the lockdowns and restrictions over, it would be naïve to think everything would just return to normal. It was found that 29% of healthcare workers had clinical or sub-clinical symptoms of PTSD (1), and that this figure was significantly higher for healthcare workers directly treating COVID patients (2). Gifford recalled anecdotes of “patients suffering anxiety attacks when they smell the hospital alcohol rub and hear the familiar beeping of the various equipment”. Even beyond the mental health scope, logistical issues like delayed learning for medical students or the backlog of elective procedures is still placing an enormous burden on healthcare workers, despite the immediate threat seemingly behind us. But to say that everything remains in shambles would frankly be insulting to healthcare workers, who are working tirelessly to deliver good quality healthcare. The speed at which pathologists and scientists have adapted to limited resources and supply shortages, and the way in which doctors and frontline workers have shifted their style of care and developed new problem-solving skills, are exceptional and should not go unnoticed or unappreciated. Importantly, the COVID-19 pandemic and its ripple effects have brought centre stage the consequences of under-resourced healthcare centres in a way that affected all people, irrespective of geography, class or reputation. The reality is that the conditions in which many metropolitan hospitals found themselves in, with never enough staff or supplies, is a condition that some hospitals experienced long before COVID-19 ever appeared, particularly in rural settings. To say that every dark cloud has a silver lining would be horribly cliché, but in this case, there may be truth to it. This edition of A Year in Science is a chance for us to reflect on all that COVID-19 has called attention to and decide to do something about it. References Carmassi C, Foghi C, Dell’Oste V, Cordone A, Bertelloni CA, Bui E, et al. PTSD symptoms in healthcare workers facing the three coronavirus outbreaks: What can we expect after the COVID-19 pandemic. Psychiatry Research. 2020 Oct;113312. Janiri D, Carfì A, Kotzalidis GD, Bernabei R, Landi F, Sani G. Posttraumatic Stress Disorder in Patients After Severe COVID-19 Infection. JAMA Psychiatry. 2021 Feb; Johnson SU, Ebrahimi OV, Hoffart A. PTSD symptoms among health workers and public service providers during the COVID-19 outbreak. Vickers K, editor. PLOS ONE. 2020 Oct 21;15(10):e0241032. Previous article Next article

< Back to Issue 7 Fossil Markets: Under the Gavel, Under Scrutiny by Jesse Allen 22 October 2024 edited by Zeinab Jishi illustrated by Jessica Walton At the crossroads between science and commerce, the trade in fossils has "developed into an organised enterprise" over the course of the twentieth century. With greater investment and heated competition between museums and private collectors, fossils increasingly took their place alongside “art, furniture, and fine wine” (Kjærgaard, 2012, pp.340-344). Fast forward to the twenty-first century, and this trend shows no signs of abating. On the contrary: as of 10 July 2024, a near-complete stegosaurus skeleton - nicknamed ‘Apex’ - was discovered by a commercial palaeontologist in Colorado, and was later purchased by “hedge-fund billionaire” Ken Griffin for US$44.6 million (Paul, 2024). This makes it the single most expensive dinosaur skeleton ever sold, eclipsing the previous record set in 2020 for a T-Rex named ‘Stan’, who was snapped up for US$31.8 million (Paul, 2024). These sales came with their fair share of criticism and controversy, reigniting the long-standing debate about how fossils should be handled, and where these ancient remains rightfully belong. Fossils (from the Latin fossilus , meaning ‘unearthed’) are the “preserved remains of plants and animals” which have been buried in sediments or preserved underneath ancient bodies of water, and offer unique insights into the history and adaptive evolution of life on Earth (British Geological Survey, n.d.). Their value is by no means limited to biology, however: they are useful for geologists in correlating the age of different rock layers (British Geological Survey, n.d.), and reveal the nature and consequences of changes in Earth’s climate (National Park Service, n.d.). Though new discoveries are being made all the time, fossils are inherently a finite resource, which cannot be replaced. This is part of what makes the fossil trade so lucrative, but the forces of limited supply and high demand have also led to the emergence of a dark underbelly. Cases of fossil forgery go back “as far as the dawn of palaeontology itself” in the late 18th and 19th centuries (Benton, 2024). The latest “boom in interest" is massively inflating prices and “fuelling the illicit trade” in fossils (Timmins, 2019). Whereas the US has a ‘finders-keepers’ policy, according to which private traders have carte blanche to dig up and sell any fossils they find, countries such as Brazil, China, and Mongolia do not allow the export of specimens overseas (Timmins, 2019). Sadly, this does little to prevent illegal smuggling; the laws are sometimes vague, and enforcement can be difficult when no single government agency is responsible for monitoring palaeontological activities (Winters, 2024). According to David Hone, a reader in zoology at Queen Mary University of London, “not every fossil is scientifically valuable”; but they are all “objects…worthy of protection,” and too many “scientifically important fossils appear briefly on the auction house website” before “vanish[ing] into a collector’s house, never to be seen again” (Hone, 2024). Museums, universities, and other scientific organisations are finding it more and more difficult to “financially compete with wealthy, private purchasers” as they are simply being priced out of the market (Paul, 2024). As sales become less open to expert scrutiny, the risk of forgery and price distortions become greater. It also has negative implications for future research. Private collectors might give access to one scientist, but not allow others to corroborate their findings. If the fossils aren’t open to all, many institutions simply won’t examine the items in private collections as a matter of principle. (Timmins, 2019). The general public also loses out in a world where dinosaur fossils are reduced to expensive conversation pieces. As Hone writes, “we might never dig up another Stegosaurus, or never find one nearly as complete as [Apex].” Having waited 150 million years to be unearthed, this latest fossil is one of many that may not see the light of day for a very long time. Bibliography Benton, M. (2024, September 5). Modern palaeontology keeps unmasking fossil forgeries – and a new study has uncovered the latest fake . The Conversation. https://theconversation.com/modern-palaeontology-keeps-unmasking-fossil-forgeries-and-a-new-study-has-uncovered-the-latest-fake-223501 British Geological Survey. (n.d.). Why do we study fossils? British Geological Survey. https://www.bgs.ac.uk/discovering-geology/fossils-and-geological-time/fossils/ Hone, D. (2024, June 10). The super-rich are snapping up dinosaur fossils – that’s bad for science . The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/jun/10/super-rich-dinosaur-fossils-stegosaurus-illegal-trade-science Kjærgaard, P. C. (2012). The Fossil Trade: Paying a Price for Human Origins. Isis , 103 (2), 340–355. https://doi.org/10.1086/666365 National Park Service. (n.d.). The significance of fossils . U.S. Department of the Interior. https://www.nps.gov/subjects/fossils/significance.htm Paul, A. (2024, July 18). Stegosaurus 'Apex' sold for nearly $45 million to a billionaire . Popular Science. https://www.popsci.com/science/stegosaurus-skeleton-sale/ Timmins, B. (2019, August 8). What’s wrong with buying a dinosaur? BBC News. https://www.bbc.com/news/business-48472588 Winters, G.F. (2024). International Fossil Laws. The Journal of Paleontological Sciences , 19 . https://www.aaps-journal.org/Fossil-Laws.html Previous article Next article apex back to

< Back to Issue 10 Young Scientists in the Making by Kacy Toombs 2 June 2026 Illustrated by Saraf Ishmam Edited by Ingrid Sefton When you look at a baby, a multitude of thoughts might cross your mind, ranging from “aww cute” to “ ew, I’m never having kids” . You might see a baby babbling, screaming, drooling, or giving you that heedless, unwavering stare, and think about how silly that baby is. How socially inept! There’s not a thought behind those eyes! But what if I told you that every single baby is actually a young scientist? That everyday, babies are conducting social and scientific experiments; testing the limits of their understanding and noting down the mechanics of our world? Together, let’s explore how everyday babies are deploying the scientific method to learn about the world around them, and how they use these techniques to navigate life. If you’re at all familiar with this magazine, you’ll most likely know exactly what the scientific method entails. For those of you who haven’t touched a science kit since your Year 9 biology class, I’ll briefly explain. The scientific method (also known as the analytical method) is the use of a series of experiments to test a hypothesis. These experiments are often circular in their function, with the hypothesis modified and further retested until consistent results are achieved (1). It is standard practice within the many fields of science, and can range from wildly entertaining social experiments, to closely controlled quantitative observations. In the most basic terms, the scientific method is the art of asking a question, then seeking an answer. Picture a baby in a highchair. They’re happily wobbling their arms and swinging their plump little legs. Maybe they are even dribbling out the remnants of their mushy lunches. They pick up their spoon, and instead of using the spoon for its intended purpose, they drop it onto the floor. There are a number of things happening in this given scenario. A baby isn’t simply dropping the spoon to be annoying or to make itself laugh; though many babies have in the past, and will in the future, think that this act is very, very funny. The baby is asking a question – creating a hypothesis – and testing a number of variables. What happens when I let go of this spoon? When they drop the spoon, they are observing science in action. Gravity – the spoon falls down. Physics – the spoon spins in the air and bounces on the floor. The energy of sound waves – the clattering of the spoon on tile is loud, versus the soft boff of it bouncing on carpet. There are also the social aspects to consider. How will the people around them react? Will they come pick up the spoon? Is this a good way to get somebody’s attention? Like all great scientists, a baby will need to run multiple tests to come to conclusive results, so they will drop a lot of spoons. Now, am I advocating for us to let children throw their spoons around? Of course not. Part of this experience is for children to also learn that throwing spoons at the dinner table isn’t classified as decent behaviour in our society. But I do believe that it is important to acknowledge what a child is doing here. This action stems from curiosity, and it is important to cultivate that curiosity rather than quash it. Curiosity is a common trait we associate with ourselves as a species, and more often than not, is an intrinsic characteristic of children. Ironically enough, science has a hard time pinpointing the ‘why’ behind our curiosity (2), though many theories on the cognitive development of humans link our need to observe the environment and animal behaviour to survival (3). The power of curiosity is a baby’s best tool in their metaphorical toolkit. As a newly conscious being, there’s a lot about the world that they simply don’t understand. There’s a reason why the phrase, “ a baby’s brain is like a sponge” , is so well known. They absorb everything, and are constantly using any newly acquired knowledge to test the limits of their own understanding. The art of observing the world and the willingness to learn from it can be broken down into four main categories: questioning (the act of verbalising curiosity), physical exploration (bodily curiosity as a sensory experience), philosophising (the act of verbalising wonder) and embodied fascination (bodily wonder that does not seek a cognitive answer) (4). Of course, a baby won’t start verbalising their curiosity until they can speak (at which point you might be forced into the repetitive hell of a child’s never-ending echolalia of “ but why?” ), but instinctually the questions are present. These four categories are not mutually exclusive; often wonder can lead to curiosity and curiosity can lead to wonder. When people are given the room to explore their curiosity in any learning institution, they naturally grasp the concepts taught to them with a better understanding (5). Unfortunately, many modern day schools prioritise academic performance over a child’s own understanding of any given topic. I’m sure we can all relate to being talked at by a lecturer in the classroom rather than being invited to participate in the conversation. It’s a pretty fast way to get your brain to switch off and dull any curious inclination you might have had. It is no secret that some children learn differently from others, and this method of simply giving instruction in class can work for some. But using the broadest methods of engaging in wonder and curiosity will help all students, alongside their relationship with learning as a whole (6). Have you ever wondered why children enjoy field trips so much? It isn’t just the novelty of breaking a set routine and ‘skipping’ a school day; it’s also much simpler than that. Field trips give students a safe space to have fun with their learning and actively immerses them in all four categories of wonder and curiosity. Let’s take the example of students going to a planetarium. A child has the opportunity to physically explore a space; by interacting with planet mobiles or using their hands to feel textures on touchable exhibits, children are engaging in their bodily curiosity. Questions are naturally prompted by these physical explorations – “Is this Mars?”, “Which planet is Earth?” – which can lead to further discussions with their teachers and peers. Through these discussions, children can start philosophising certain ideas based on their newly acquired knowledge: “ These space rocks look like rocks on Earth. I wonder if they are made of the same thing?” . And in the quieter moments, children can idly sit with their own embodied fascination, taking in the atmosphere of the universe from inside the cool dome of the planetarium. There are no examinations or grading on field trips. A child has the freedom to simply be. This cultivation of curiosity at such a young age actively helps aid in the development of more complex and abstract thoughts (7) and leads to children in learning institutions taking more intellectual risks when approaching topics unknown to them. There’s a magic in being curious, in this need to fill in the blanks of their own knowledge. When children are comfortable in their own lack of understanding, they are not only more receptive to learning, but are shown to be more flexible in their beliefs when presented with new ideas (8). They engage more in classrooms, they speak up when they don’t understand, and they embrace the discomfort of not knowing. It all starts with the little, nappy-wearing scientist, sitting in their highchair. These babies are setting up their own cognitive learning systems from the moment they open their eyes. They let their curiosity guide their experimentation, which shapes how they come to understand the world. So what if they’re not making any groundbreaking revelations? They don’t need to be. Give in to your own curiosity next time you encounter a baby in the wild. See if you can observe the little scientist in action as they interact with the world for the first time. And hell, maybe let them drop a few spoons. References Gregersen E. Scientific method. Britannica. 24 April 2026. https://www.britannica.com/topic/empirical-evidence Kobayashi K, Ravaioli S, Baranès A, et al . Diverse motives for human curiosity. Nature Human Behaviour. 2019;3:587-595. doi: 10.1038/s41562-019-0589-3 Del Claro K. It All Began Out of Necessity and Curiosity. Behavioral Ecology . 2026;1-10. doi: 10.1007/978-3-032-13988-7_1 Heggen MP, Lynngård AM. Wonder and curiosity beyond the obvious—a dynamic model of bodily and verbal understandings of these phenomena. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications. 2026;13:167. doi: 10.1057/s41599-025-06467-3 Kidd C, Hayden B. The Psychology and Neuroscience of Curiosity.” Neuron. 2015;88(3):449-460. doi: 10.1016/j.neuron.2015.09.010 Peterson EM. Supporting curiosity in schools and classrooms. Behavioral Sciences. 2020;35:7-13. doi: 10.1016/j.cobeha.2020.05.006 Hall S. The Young Child as Scientist. A Learning Moments Collection. Videatives. 2015. https://videatives.com/node/2117 Jirout JJ, Vitiello VE, Zumbrunn SK. Curiosity In Schools. The New Science of Curiosity . Edited by Gordon G., 243-266. Nova, 2018. Previous article back to Fact & Fiction Next article

< Back to Issue 2 How to use a time machine Whilst time travel is thought to be nothing more than science fiction, the very laws of physics point to its possibility. Physicists have long sought the answer to such a phenomenon using knowledge from rockets to generating wormholes. by Sabine Elias 10 December 2021 Edited by Niesha Baker Illustrated by Quynh Anh Nguyen So you have just entered the TARDIS machine and are trying to work out how to use it to travel to the past to re-write the present and save the future? Well, look no further because you have come to right place. In this article, I will be describing how to jumpstart your time traveling vehicle and by the end, you will be proficient in navigating your way through the universe and evading time. Do be warned however, that batteries are not included and the simulation may crash at times. Now, you are probably wishing that you could travel back in time to have not clicked this article and saved yourself these two minutes of life that you will never get back. But is time travel really a possibility? We often think about the world as a state of order. Social and political constructs generally keep society running in a systematic manner. But what if I told you the entire universe came to exist from disorder? Before we get to logistics, let me introduce you to a little something known as ‘entropy’. Entropy describes the state of disorder (1). Take a closed bottle containing gas. Once you open this bottle, the gas will diffuse out into the open space with no way to retrieve it in the exact same state back inside the bottle. In essence, this gas has become ‘disordered’ and thus its entropy has increased. For years, scientists have understood that the entropy of the universe is always increasing, which means that stars, planets and galaxies are in constant motion away from each other (1). If we wanted to travel back in time, we would essentially have to reverse every single chemical reaction that has occurred from the point in time we currently stand in, to the point in time that we wish to travel to (2). This is theoretically impossible as we would be violating the laws of physics and decreasing the entropy of the universe but we still do not know if it is physically impossible. Let Brain Cox explain: Another problem with time travel would be altering events of the past. Take the Grandfather Paradox: if someone travelled back in time to kill their ancestor, then the possibility of their existence in the future would be zero (3). Thus, they would have been unable to time travel to begin with to have killed their ancestor. This issue of causality is expanded upon through the Novikov Self-Consistency Principle (4). This states that if an event causes a paradox or changes the past, the possibility of this event occurring would be impossible. However, this principle is not widely accepted by time travel enthusiasts. Now, whilst your TARDIS machine may be nothing but a prop at this point in time, it could still help provide evidence on the possibility of time travel. Take this example: you set up two duplicates of the same clock that read the same time and placed one into a rocket that blasts off into space. The rocket orbits around the Earth and then returns and is compared to the clock that remained on Earth. You would find that less time has passed on the clock that was in the rocket. Why? Because moving clocks run slower than stationary clocks. That is, as you move faster through space, you move slower through time. This is known as Time Dilation (5). An example of time dilation is the comparison of time on the International Space Station (ISS) to the time on Earth. Astronauts who have spent 6 months in the ISS have aged 0.005 seconds less than people on Earth (6). This does not seem like much because the astronauts are not traveling close to the speed of light. To see the effects of time dilation multiply, one would need to be very close to the speed of light. If you were to travel in space at 90 per cent the speed of light, whilst everyone on earth would age by 22 years you would only have aged by 9! Speed is not the only thing that affects how fast we age, gravity also affects our experience of time. A stronger gravitational field means that time travels slower in that field. For instance, your feet age slower than your head considering the slightly smaller gravitational pull on your feet compared to your head. Now take a black hole; we know that black holes have immensely strong gravitational fields where one hour near a black hole would equal approximately 100,000,000 years for a person on earth (7). So what would happen if you travelled through a black hole? No one really knows what occurs inside a black hole but we know trying to enter will likely turn you into spaghetti (8). That being said, we can only observe things that go as far as the event horizon of the black hole, so once something has entered it, we do not know what has happened. Black holes have however, been especially useful in theoretically explaining the possibility of time travel. Placing someone in a strong gravitational field or having them experience motions close to the speed of light would have them experience time slower compared to someone on Earth. This brings us to wormholes. Einstein’s theory of general relativity predicts the existence of wormholes which would theoretically permit time travel. To travel to a galaxy that is 2.5 million light years away with the fastest rocket on earth would be impossible as it would take longer than a human lifetime. This is where wormholes come to the rescue. A wormhole would provide us with a shortcut to our location of interest. Imagine folding a paper in half and poking a pen through it to represent your route of travel. You are essentially skipping the length of the paper and traveling from one end to the other. Source: The Independent. (2008). The Big Question: Is time travel possible, and is there any chance (9). You then situate one mouth of the wormhole in a spacecraft traveling close to the speed of light and the other mouth on Earth. If you then went through the mouth on Earth and travelled through to the space craft, you would be traveling back in time. This is because time would be passing much slower at the other end of the wormhole than where you entered from. However, physicists have not yet developed such advanced technology capable of this, but theoretically speaking, this is a possibility if such technology was developed in the future. Whilst you may have thought that time travel was merely based on science fiction, the laws of physics do not forbid its existence. However, here is some food for thought: “If time travel is possible, where are the tourists from the future?” Stephen Hawking Perhaps with time, we may transform this theory into reality. So for the time being, just sit back and enjoy the presence of your TARDIS machine. Perhaps you might even get lost in time from the very thought of time travel. References: 1. Wehrl, Alfred. “General Properties of Entropy.” Reviews of Modern Physics 50, no. 2 (April 1, 1978): 221–60. https://doi.org/10.1103/revmodphys.50.221. 2. BBC. “Brian Cox Explains Why Time Travels in One Direction - Wonders of the Universe - BBC Two.” YouTube, March 10, 2011. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQSoaiubuA0. 3. Smith, Nicholas J.J. “Time Travel (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy).” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, November 14, 2013. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/time-travel/#GraPar. 4. Carlini, A., V.P. Frolov, M.B. Mensky, I.D. Novikov, and H.H. Soleng. “Time machines: The principle of self-consistency as a consequence of the principle of minimal action.” International Journal of Modern Physics, no. 05 (October 1995): 557–80. https://doi.org/10.1142/s0218271895000399. 5. The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. “Time Dilation | Explanation, Examples, & Twin Paradox.” In Encyclopædia Britannica, 2019. https://www.britannica.com/science/time-dilation. 6. Dickerson, Kelly. “Here’s Why Astronauts Age Slower than the Rest of Us Here on Earth.” Business Insider Australia, August 20, 2015. https://www.businessinsider.com.au/do-astronauts-age-slower-than-people-on-earth-2015-8. 7. Gharat, Sarvesh Vikas. “Relativity and Time Dilation.” International Journal for Research in Applied Science and Engineering Technology 7, no. 11 (November 30, 2019): 650–51. https://doi.org/10.22214/ijraset.2019.11103. 8. "Death by spaghettification: Scientists record last moments of star devoured by black hole." NewsRx Health & Science, November 1, 2020, 236. Gale Academic OneFile. https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A639405517/AONE?u=unimelb&sid=bookmark-AONE&xid=6812ee05. 9. “The Big Question: Is Time Travel Possible, and Is There Any Chance.” The Independent, February 8, 2008. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/big-question-time-travel-possible-and-there-any-chance-it-will-ever-take-place-779761.html. Previous article back to DISORDER Next article

< Back to Issue 5 A Message from the Editors in Chief Rachel Ko & Ingrid Sefton 24 October 2023 Edited by Committee Illustrated by Aisyah Mohammad Sulhanuddin “There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know.” - Donald Rumsfeld Science should never be considered as pursuing absolute truth. In fact, more often than not, the deeper we dive into its exploration, the more questions that arise. The world of science affords us choices in how we appropriate the understandings and knowledge gained in its study. Every day, science pushes us to tiptoe this fine line between pushing boundaries and crossing them altogether. It is perhaps this unknown that makes the pursuit of science so wicked in itself, taunting us with the promise of making the next big discovery, or finally finding the cure to cancer. But it is also what drives us, entrances us, and keeps our desire for knowledge burning — it’s edge-of-your-seat exciting. At its onset, we envisioned this issue as a chance to probe the mysterious nuances of science — a peek into the ‘Wicked’ness of the world. Seeking to ask questions of the ethical, the malicious and the unknown, contributors were inspired to delve into the darker sides of science. Each article ventures into the limits of what we do, and, just as importantly, don’t know in this ever-evolving field. The word Wicked in itself is a complex character, begging for ambiguous interpretation. Is there such a thing as pure evil? Are we all, just a bit, inherently wicked? What makes something wickedly cool? (Was Kristin Chenoweth’s Glinda the best portrayal that Broadway could ask for?) And so, in the hands of our creators, something wicked this way comes … As with every edition of our magazine, each piece has been created, edited and illustrated entirely by students. This issue continues to stand true to our aim of providing a platform within, and beyond, the university community for students of all backgrounds to craft their science communication skills in a supportive, creative environment. Countless hours have been poured into the curation of each edition with the hope of making innovative science content easily accessible — so please, enjoy! To all our passionate, dedicated contributors - thank you for the time you have invested in crafting the wonderful, wicked world of Issue 5 of OmniSci. It has been a privilege to watch the collaboration of inquisitive minds, from diverse scientific and artistic worlds, produce this collection of work. We also wish to extend our gratitude to you, our wonderful readers, in your ongoing support of OmniSci. The time you give to reading and engaging with our student-driven magazine does not go unnoticed, motivating and inspiring us for our future endeavours. Now, take a moment, and come venture into the Wicked world of Issue 5 with us… Wicked back to

By Gavin Choong < Back to Issue 3 Love and Aliens By Gavin Choong 10 September 2022 Edited by Khoa-Anh Tran and Niesha Baker Illustrated by Ravon Chew Next Neither Daniel Love nor Brendan Thoms were Australian citizens, but they were both recognised as First Nations Australians by law. Under legislation, “aliens” who commit crimes with a sentence of over a year may be removed from the country. (1) Due to their non-citizenship, the then Minister for Home Affairs Peter Dutton classified these men as aliens and tried to deport them after they were convicted of serious crimes. This attempt failed. The High Court of Australia ruled, in the hotly contested landmark decision of Love v Commonwealth, that Indigenous Australians could not be considered aliens under Australian law because of the “spiritual connection” they hold with the lands and waters of the country we live in. (1) Effectively, this barred the deportation of Love and Thoms but also sent astronomical ripples through the fabric of our nation’s legal framework. This year, major challenges to the decision made in Love v Commonwealth have arisen. Of the arguments put forward, some protest the judicial activism of the judges – that is, them going above and beyond written law to produce a fairer ruling. For example, many contend the term spiritual connection bears no actual legal meaning. However, with a history dating back upwards of seventy-thousand years, two hundred and fifty languages and eight hundred dialects, complex systems of governance, deeply vested religious and spiritual beliefs, and a profound understanding of land, it would be ignorant to argue this rich culture should simply be disregarded in the face of the law. This article adopts a scientific lens and delves into an empirical basis for the spiritual connection Aboriginal Australians share with country, traversing from Dreamtime to spacetime and beyond. THE DREAMING: FROM NOTHING, EVERYTHING From nothing came everything. Nearly fourteen billion years ago, a zero-volume singularity held, tightly, all the energy, space, and time from our current universe. In the moment of creation, temperature and average energies were so extreme all four fundamental forces which shape the universe, as we know it, acted as one. Cosmological inflation followed, allowing for exponential expansion and rapid cooling. Within a picosecond, the four fundamental forces of nature – gravity, electromagnetism, weak interactions, and strong interactions – emerged independently. These forces interacted with matter, resulting in the formation of elementary particles now coined quarks, hadrons, and leptons. For twenty more minutes, elementary particles coupled to form subatomic particles (protons, neutrons) which in turn underwent nuclear fusion to create simple early atoms such as hydrogen and helium. From nothing, came everything. In an eternal present, where there had once been flat and barren ground, Ancestral and Creator spirits emerged from land, sea, and sky to roam the Earth. As they moved, man and nature – mountains, animals, plants, and rivers – were birthed into existence. Once these spirits had finished, instead of disappearing, they transformed into the world they had created, existing in sacred sites such as the night sky, monolithic rocks, and ancient trees. The Dreaming is a First Nations peoples’ understanding of the world and its creation. Importantly, it is an event which cannot be fixed in time – “it was, and is, everywhen,” continuing even today. Countless retellings have caused Dreamtime tales to diverge slightly, leading communities of Aboriginal Australians to identify with different variations of similar stories. (2) These fables refer to natural worldly features and sacred sites, whilst also incorporating favourable values such as patience, humility, and compassion. An example is the tale of the Karatgurk, told by the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin nation, about seven sisters representing what we now consider as the Pleiades star constellation. (3) The Karatgurk These seven sisters once lived by the Yarra River, where Melbourne now stands. They alone possessed the secret of fire, carrying live coals at the end of their digging sticks. (Crow ("trickster, cultural hero, and [another] ancestral being") called the sisters over claiming he had discovered tasty ant larvae. (3) The women began scouring, only to find viscious snakes underneath the dirt which they beat using their digging sticks. As they did so, the live coals flew off and were stolen by Crow who brought fire to mankind. The Karatgurk sisters were swept into the sky, with their glowing fire sticks forming the Pleiades star cluster. In theory, the extreme physical reactions occurring minutes after the Big Bang, paired with hyper-rapid cosmic inflation, should have resulted in a completely homogeneous universe with an even distribution of all existing matter and energy. Cosmological perturbation theory explains, however, that micro-fluctuations in material properties create gravitational wells resulting in the random grouping of matter. These aggregations formed the first stars, quasars, galaxies, and clusters throughout the next billion years. It took, however, another ten billion years for the solar system to form. Similar to Saturn’s planetary rings, the early Sun had its own rotating, circumstellar disc composed of dust, gas, and debris. According to the nebular hypothesis, over millions of years, enough particulates coagulated within the Sun’s spinning disc to form small, primordial planets. Early Earth was a hellish fire-scape as a result of constant meteoric bombardment and extreme volcanic activity. The occasional icy asteroids which collided with Earth deposited large amounts of water, vaporising upon contact – as our planet began to cool, these gaseous deposits condensed into oceans, and molten rock solidified into land mass. In the blink of an eye, early traces of modern humans fluttered into existence at the African Somali Peninsula. They were a nomadic people, travelling westwards and then north through modern day Egypt and into the Middle East. Ancestral Indigenous Australians were amongst the first humans to migrate out of Africa some 62,000 to 75,000 years ago. While other groups travelled in different directions filling up Asia, Europe and the Americas, ancestral Indigenous Australians took advantage of drastically lower sea levels during that time to travel south, as, back then, mainland Australia, Tasmania, and Papua New Guinea formed a single land mass (Sahul) while South-East Asia formed another (Sunda). In spite of this, the wanderers still had to possess the requisite sea-faring skills to traverse almost ninety kilometres of ocean. When the last ice age ended 10,000 years ago, rising waters from melting ice caps covered many of the terrestrial bridges early humans had once journeyed over. This severing allowed Indigenous Australians to foster culture and tradition in their very own passage of time, uninterrupted and independent until a British fleet of eleven ships approached Botany Bay thousands of years later. Significant parts of Australia’s coast were also submerged due to ice age flooding. As coastal Indigenous Australians observed this phenomenon, they recognised its significance through their tales. The Gimuy Walubara Yidinji, traditional custodians of Cairns and the surrounding district, are one of the many groups which reference coastal flooding in their geomythology. Gunya and the Sacred Fish Gunyah, who had lived on Fitzroy Island, went out to hunt for fish one day. Spotting a glimmer in the water, he plunged a spear towards it only to find he had attacked the sacred black stingray. The stingray beat its wing-like fins, causing a great, unending storm. Gunyah fled from the rapidly rising sea and managed to find refuge in a clan living on the cliffs of Cairns. Together, they heated huge rocks in a fire and threw them far into the sea. The pacific was once again pacified, and the Great Barrier Reef created. Isaac Newton proposed, in Principia Mathematica, that the strength of the force of gravity between two celestial bodies would be proportional to both of their masses. At the beginning of the twentieth century, Albert Einstein refined this concept with the theories of Special and General Relativity. His mathematical models suggested time and space were woven into a four-dimensional canvas of spacetime, and the presence of massive objects such as black holes and stars created gravitational wells which distorted spacetime. Within these distortions, bodies closer to large masses would conceive time and space differently than those further away. This unique phenomenon, for example, means astronauts living onboard the International Space Station age fractionally slower relative to us grounded on Earth. Einstein was also able to find that as the velocity of any given body increased to that near the speed of light, it would gain an almost-infinite mass and experience a drastically slowed perception of time relative to their surroundings. These once inconceivable findings had monumental implications in the sphere of theoretical physics, with two examples below. (4, 5) Dark Matter ‘Visible’, baryonic matter humanity is familiar with makes up less than a fifth of the known universe, with a hypothetical ‘dark’, non-baryonic matter comprising the rest. Dark matter lies between and within galaxies, driving baryonic matter to aggregate, forming stars and galaxies. As it cannot be detected using electromagnetic radiation, gravitational lensing provides the strongest proof of its existence. Gravitational lensing occurs when there is an interfering body between us, here on Earth, and a given target. As per Einstein’s relativity, the interfering body has mass which will bend space and therefore distort the image we receive of the target. There exists a mathematically proportional relationship between mass and distortion – the more massive an interfering body, the greater the distortion. Scientists performed calculations but found that the levels of distortion they observed correlated to masses much greater than that of the interfering body. Dark matter accounts for this invisible and undetectable missing mass. String Theory At its core, quantum physics deals with interactions at the atomic and subatomic level. This body of work has borne unusual findings – including that light can act both as a particle and wave, that we may never identify a particle’s position and momentum simultaneously with complete certainty, and that the physical properties of distant entangled particles can fundamentally be linked. On paper, however, there has been great difficulty reconciling quantum physics with relativity theory, as the former deals with interactions which occur in “jumps…with probabilistic rather than definite outcomes”. (4) String theory, however, seeks to settle this tension by proposing the universe is comprised of one-dimensional vibrating strings interacting with one another. This theoretical framework has already bore fascinating fruit – it has been hypothesised that the universe has ten dimensions (nine spatial, one temporal) and during the Big Bang, a “symmetry-breaking event” caused three spatial dimensions to break from the others resulting in an observable three-dimensional universe. (5) On 21 September 1922, astronomers in Goondiwindi, Queensland, used a total solar eclipse to successfully test and prove Einstein’s theory of relativity. Aboriginal Australians present believed they were “trying to catch the Sun in a net”. (6) Western academics were far from the only ones who sought to explain natural phenomena. From the ancient Egyptians to Japanese Shintoists and South American Incas, many civilisations of the past revered the Sun and Moon, having been enthralled by the two celestial bodies. Indigenous Australians were one such people, wanting to understand why the sun rose and set, how moon cycles and ocean tides were related, and what exactly were the rare solar and lunar eclipses. Such occurrences had a mystical property about them, reflected in a rich collection of traditional tales which looked to illuminate these astronomical observations. (7) Walu the Sun-woman Told by the Yolngu people of Arnhem Land, Walu lights a small fire every morning to mark that dawn has arrived. She paints herself with red and yellow pigment with some spilling onto the clouds to create sunrise. Walu lights a bark torch and carries it across the sky from East to West, creating daylight. Upon completing her journey, she extinguishes her torch and travels underground back to the morning camp in the East. While doing so, she provides warmth and fertility to the very Earth surrounding her. Ngalindi the Moon-man Told by the Yolngu people of Arnhem Land, “water fill[s] Ngalindi as he rises, becoming full at high tide”. (6) When full, he becomes gluttonous and decides to kill his sons because they refuse to share their food with him. His wives seek vengeance by chopping off his limbs, causing water to drain out. This is reflected by a waning moon and ebb in the tides. Eventually, Ngalindi dies for three days (New Moon) before rising once again (waxing Moon). Bahloo and Yhi Told often by the Kamilaroi people of northern New South Wales, Yhi (Sun-woman) falls in love with Bahloo (Moon-man) and tries to pursue him across the sky. However, he has no interest in Yhi and refuses her advances. Sometimes, Yhi eclipses Bahloo and tries to kill him in a fit of jealously, but the spirits holding up the sky intervene allowing Bahloo to escape. In 1788, British colonists prescribed the fictitious doctrine of terra nullius which treated land occupied by Indigenous peoples as “territory belonging to no-one,” susceptible to colonisation. (8) It is apparent, however, that Indigenous Australians did and still do belong, having a greater, more unique, and nuanced relationship to our lands and waters than we can ever hope to have. This article shows that as detailed and prescriptive our modern scientific understanding is, First Nations peoples will have an equally if not richer perspective, woven through their stories, languages, and practices. To argue that the spiritual connection Indigenous people share with country is not recognised by law would be wilfully making the same mistake our early settlers made two and a half centuries ago. It would be allowing the continuance of intergenerational trauma and suppression. For those reasons, despite the assertive legal challenges being brought against Love v Commonwealth, its judgement must be upheld. References 1. Love v Commonwealth; Thoms v Commonwealth [2020] HCA 3. 2. Stanner WE. The Dreaming & other essays. Melbourne (AU): Black Inc.; 2011. 3. Creation Stories [Internet]. Victoria: Taungurung Lands & Waters Council [cited 2022 Apr. Available from: https://taungurung.com.au/creation-stories/ 4. Powell CS. Relativity versus quantum mechanics: the battle of the universe [Internet]. The Guardian; 2015 Nov 4 [cited 2022 Apr 17]. Available from: https://www.theguardian.com/news/2015/nov/04/relativity-quantum-mechanics-universe-physicists 5. Wolchover N. String theorists simulate the Big Bang [Internet]. Live Science; 2011 Dec 14 [cited 2022 Apr 17]. Available from: https://www.livescience.com/17454-string-theory-big-bang.html 6. Hamacher DW. On the astronomical knowledge and traditions of Aboriginal Australians [thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy]. [Sydney]: Macquarie University; 2011. 139 p. 7. Mathematics, moon phases, and tides [Internet]. Melbourne: University of Melbourne [cited 2022 Apr 17]. Available from: https://indigenousknowledge.unimelb.edu.au/curriculum/resources/mathematics,-moon-phases,-and-tides 8. Mabo v Queensland (No 2) [1992] HCA 23. Previous article Next article alien back to

Curious what an OmniSci Editor-in-Chief actually does? We spoke to Rachel about drawing anatomy, interviewing a med student hero, and helping build the the science communication universe! Rachel is a writer and Editor-in-Chief at OmniSci, now in her first year of the Doctor of Medicine. For Issue 4: Mirage, she is writing an interview with science communicator, Dr Karen Freilich. Meet OmniSci Writer and Committee Member Rachel Ko Rachel is a writer and Editor-in-Chief at OmniSci, now in her first year of the Doctor of Medicine. For Issue 4: Mirage, she is writing an interview with science communicator, Dr Karen Freilich. interviewed by Caitlin Kane What are you studying? I am currently studying a Doctor of Medicine and I’m in my first year. Before that, I was studying a Bachelor of Biomed. What first got you interested in science? Exposure through education, stuff I’d studied in school. It sparked interests outside of school and I realised it was something that I wanted to pursue as a career. Something that really reinforced my love for science was doing a major in human structure and function, so anatomy. I really enjoyed that I could weave it in with my other passions in things like art and drawing and painting. I was able to look at science in a way that was really the artsy side of science. It's something I’ve tried to pursue with OmniSci as well. Do you have any advice for younger students? Don’t be afraid of trying all areas of science. Because I loved a specific area of science so much, I wanted to make sure that was what reeled me in as compared to other things. I tried a bunch of research projects, some of them I didn’t really love and I had to stick it out to the end, but then I could tick that off my list as having done that, and never have to do it again. But then I did another project which was 3D modelling a bone. It was just me sitting there for hours with a pen, drawing the bone in 3D space, which was very much up my alley. Don’t be afraid of trying everything, even if it feels like a waste of time in the moment. It isn't, it’s the process of filtering out and finding out what you love. And I’m still in that process. I have no idea what kind of medicine I want to go into, but I’m going by process of elimination and finding where I fit in the realm of science in that way. How did you get involved with OmniSci? Like I said, I like the artsy side of science. I actually sought out a few non-science related magazines at uni. I’ve always been into journalism and I love writing as well, so it made sense for me to look into that in my undergrad years. OmniSci emerged during those undergrad years and I thought, “Perfect!” I was a columnist first and I started doing some illustrations as well. Then I dropped my role at Farrago completely just to concentrate on this because I found it was a really nice intersection of what I love to do. My column was about vestigial features, like useless body parts, which I thought would be a fun, light column–I just wanted something cute and fun. So I started that, and now… I’m in the committee. What is your role at OmniSci? I am an Editor-in-Chief at the moment, and I have also written one of the pieces for Issue 4, purely because of my love for writing and contributing. I might step in as an illustrator at some point… I’m hoping in this break I can sit down and draw a little more than I used to. As Editors-in-Chief, we work with the committee to coordinate the things being published and try to envision what role OmniSci plays within the science communication universe. And whilst figuring out what we’re publishing and putting out to the world, we’re also trying to include the rest of the student community. We also have social events so that we can share our love for…whether it’s science or art or writing… any of the parts that OmniSci encompasses. We're there to keep everything chugging along!. What is your favourite thing about contributing at OmniSci so far? The people that you meet along the way. I do eventually want to pursue science communication myself, alongside medicine. I don’t know what that will look like, but I know that the people who will be involved in that space are the people you meet at the moment. Even with the committee, chatting about things and discussing interests has been super enlightening. When you expand that to the rest of the OmniSci community, I think it’s super super rewarding. Also seeing something tangible come out of it all… I just love seeing the magazine come together. When we printed it—though not ideal for the environment for every issue—to have the paper magazine in our hands from last year was super rewarding to see. Can you give us a sneak peak of what you're working on this issue? Well as Editor-in-Chief, the whole issue is kind of our collective baby! Personally I interviewed Dr Karen Freilich, a GP specialising in sexual health and working in education as well. I was lucky enough to have her as one of my sexual health elective tutors. She also started a podcast when she was in medical school called Humerus Hacks. It is basically super famous within the med student community. It sounds like such a simple thing, but just to hear her and the friend she started the podcast with talk things through and make things entertaining… it was such a fresh way of getting the information out. It’s kind of what we do at OmniSci: make science more accessible to people who might feel intimidated by those bigger, wider topics that they might never have ventured into. And the whole point of a magazine is to get information out to more people, and to spark interest, and show people that these things exist. As a med student, I kind of came across it as naturally as you could have. And as she was my tutor, I thought it was such an important opportunity to talk to her about why she did it and where she sees science communication going. What do you like doing in your spare time (when you're not contributing at OmniSci)? Well, there’s the anatomical art. I haven’t had a lot of time to do that… and I’ve been really wanting to try and incorporate it into my study but I spend a lot of time on one painting so it wouldn’t have been time efficient. But my plan for this break is to go to a bar, get myself a drink and just paint on my own… relax in that way. Otherwise, I play the violin, something I like to destress. It’s actually been a surprisingly big part of my life in med because there's a medical student orchestra. The rehearsals are quite long but it’s actually quite worth it to be sitting there not thinking about medicine. And yeah, just catching up with friends, going cafe hopping, bar hopping, that’s what I like to spend time doing. Which chemical element would you name your firstborn child (or pet) after? Let me pull up a visual aid. I actually don’t mind chemistry, but after year twelve I’ve kind of put a line between myself and it. Have you seen that trend online where people are pulling up words that would be really pretty baby names if they didn’t mean what they meant? Ooh, I’m going to go with Livermorium, Liv for short. Element 160. There’s some good ones—you could go Rutherfordium, Ruth for short. Read Rachel's articles Silent Conversations: How Trees Talk to One Another Wiggling Ears Our Microbial Frenemies Hiccups The Evolution of Science Communication Law and Disorder: Medically Supervised Injection Centres “Blink and you’ll miss it”: A Third Eyelid? Mighty Microscopic Warriors!