When you think about a driverless car future, perhaps your mind goes to being driven around, watching movies from the backseat and drinking martinis. For over a decade, perfect driverless cars have seemed only a few years away. But in reality, they were nowhere close. Now, driverless cars are finally being rolled out in some cities. But (like humans) they're crashing and causing chaos. So are driverless cars finally here? Or is teaching a car to drive simply too difficult?

As ChatGPT shows us, AI can do some amazing stuff. But it does some creepy stuff as well. And it's already been responsible for locking up innocent people. The story of how AI scanned millions of drivers licences and accused Michigan man Robert Wiliams of a crime he didn't commit. When human biases lead to neural networks going rogue.

The world is experiencing a boom in artificial intelligence (AI). It's everywhere. In just a few years, computers have learned to paint a picture, write a novel, translate languages and consume the entire internet. But how we got here goes back decades to two men who couldn't agree on the best way to teach a thinking machine. The AI world was divided. Then a new kind of machine beat a human at Go, a game it was never supposed to be able to win.

2023 has been the breakout year of artificial intelligence. After decades of investment and improvement, the technology suddenly went mainstream.  For many, it was as though a miraculous machine was plonked in our midst. But AI didn't come from nowhere. And it hasn't been a smooth and simple process. It's been a story rife with drama, conflict, and disagreement. So where did it come from? Who made it? Who controls it? Welcome to our new Science Friction series Hello AI Overlords! Across...

Two groups of boys on a camp in the wilds of America are pitted against each other. But the camp leaders have only one thing on their minds. Science. The mind-blowing story of a psychological experiment that crossed a line. Big time.

What family secrets lie deep inside your cells? A story of survival against the odds, hope after the Holocaust, and the eye-opening new science of epigenetics… Can biology help you transcend the traumas of your ancestors, or forever burden you with their legacy?

At the heart of this moving and extraordinary medical mystery is Robbie, a man in a genetic lottery. Two rare mutations made his life uniquely interesting. Then came a third, random event...a chance encounter, a global detective quest and science at the cutting edge.

Tai Poole is a self-described scientist and the teenage star of multi-award-winning podcast Tai Asks Why. Love, climate change, death, dreaming…there is nothing Tai's tenaciously, voraciously hungry mind won't take on. He joins Natasha Mitchell to talk life, the universe, and everything.

When pioneering Australian RNA biologist Archa Fox was a  child, her parents were drawn into the orbit of the guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. Her family packed up their life to join the Orange People communes in India and Oregon as disciples. Archa shares her candid, confronting story of what happened when this spiritual movement morphed into a cult.

Nuclear weapons are not toys. But what happens when children get their hands on nuclear know-how? Two explosive stories of two smart kids — both with a radioactive obsession, but with very different outcomes — one celebrated as a child genius and given his own university lab as a teen; the other dead at age 39. Meet Taylor Wilson and David Hahn.

Natasha Mitchell, presenter and co-producer of Science Friction, has some special news she wants to share with you. Listen in. (Spoiler alert: You can catch her as the new host of the ABC's Big Ideas from April 10 2023. Follow the show on the ABC Listen app or wherever you get your podcasts).

How has fusion inspired the imaginations of science fiction writers? In The Expanse blockbuster book and TV series, fusion energy has changed the course of civilisation in extraordinary ways – for better and worse. Ty Franck, one half of the James S.A Corey writing duo behind The Expanse, and Canadian futurist and science fiction writer Karl Schroeder join Erica Vowles to weigh in on the fantasy and future of fusion.

The promise of nuclear fusion is clean, limitless energy for all. But why do start-up entrepreneurs think they can solve a problem that's perplexed scientists and fuelled the imagination of science fiction writers for decades? Are they kidding themselves, or inching closer to a breakthrough? Big name billionaires like Bill Gates and George Soros are now in the fusion game too.

It started with one post on Instagram. What followed was unimaginable. Scientists turned social media giants Darrion Nguyen (aka Lab Shenanigans) and Dr Cindy Pham (aka The Scholar Diaries) share moving stories of trauma, self-discovery, and growth.  Superficial shiny stereotypes of social media celebrity ... they are definitely NOT.

Chinese scientist Dr Jiankui He flouted the law and bioethics basics to create the world's first CRISPR gene edited babies. Now out of jail, he's back on Twitter recruiting patients and raising funds for more trials, this time in adults not embryos. A dangerous distraction or a cautionary lesson for the world's scientists?  Dr Joy Zhang has an extraordinary insider view after a recent encounter. Dr Katie Hasson is part of a global Coalition to Stop Designer Babies. They join Natasha Mitchell...

Science is political. So let's go straight to the heart of political power in Australia. 10 months into role, the Federal Minister for Industry and Science Ed Husic joins Natasha this week. From the muzzling of scientists to stemming the brain drain, from the corporatisation of CSIRO to connecting science to more people — will the state of play for Australian science change?

Self-proclaimed TikTok mystics, healers, wellness influencers are increasingly turning to quantum physics to give their claims credibility, with potentially dangerous consequences. How do you disentangle the woo from the wow in quantum physics? And can it be deadly?

Chemist Kim Kwan didn’t realise how much they needed to find their queer crew in science until they did.  Rami Mandow threw in a successful career in finance and business to find true love — astronomy.  They share frank, fearless stories about coming out as third culture kids and why bringing their whole selves to science - their queer self and their nerd self - has been transformative.

Australia is hosting the 2023 World Pride festival and queer botanists are celebrating by bringing their full selves to their science. Ryan O'Donnell is an accomplished opera singer and musical theatre performer turned botanist studying orchids and fungi. Botanist Hervé Sauquet is piecing together the evolutionary history of flowering plants – most of which are bisexual.   They're here, they're queer, they're fabulous and join Natasha to discuss why connecting the personal and the...

From the nomadic world of the Sahara Desert to a fantasy wonderland inside a Melbourne industrial warehouse ... meteorites are a growing business and a controversial one. Are the secrets inside space rocks at risk of being lost to wealthy collectors in the West? And, the battle of the Arab world’s first — and first female — meteorite scientist to save her geological heritage.

A rock celebrity with a wild biography.  Saharan nomads, a weight-loss doctor feeding an unusual addiction, scientists seeking the origins of Everything. 'Black Beauty' has it all. The meteorite with a mighty story, with love from Mars.