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The family and the jail sentence — the ripple effect of losing a parent to prison May 11, 2021

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Dennis Van Someren works as a transport volunteer with young people going to visit a parent in the prison system. Dennis does the work because he's been in their shoes (R)

Knuckles, ruffles, flesh-bags and fences: the story of Australia's first dictionary May 10, 2021

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Kel Richards with the story of the gentleman thief James Hardy Vaux, who wrote Australia's first dictionary of convict slang

Inside the world of Australian camel vet Margie Bale May 07, 2021

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Margie's car is loaded with ultrasounds, milk crates and angle grinders: all things needed when tending to seven ft camels in the middle of nowhere (R)

Love and letting go — Sarah, Eric, and Coco May 06, 2021

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When Sarah Sentilles became a foster parent she gave herself wholeheartedly to caring for baby Coco. A year later her understanding of love, motherhood and herself were utterly transformed (CW: Adoption)

Enron, schizophrenia, the Bowls Club and me - the life of Glenn Jarvis May 05, 2021

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Glenn was working at Enron in London when his mental health began to unravel. He was diagnosed with schizophrenia, and lost nearly everything. Then a Bowls Club in Queanbeyan helped him begin again

Kitty Flanagan's unlikely path to comedy May 04, 2021

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Kitty has woven together a series of true stories from her life including being locked in a crayfish freezer for talking too much (R)

Confronting my grandmother the Baba Yaga May 03, 2021

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Krissy Kneen grew up under the strict control of her grandmother, Lotty, who was the eccentric and sometimes cruel matriarch of her small family. Krissy was forbidden to investigate Lotty's past or ask why she'd come to Australia from Slovenia via Egypt. The extraordinary truth of Lotty's life could only be told after Lotty's death

Sarah Dingle — finding my donor dad Apr 30, 2021

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Sarah was twenty-seven when she discovered she had been conceived using a sperm donor. When she set out to find her biological father, she found out the truth about the global fertility business

Hope, hype and exploitation — the wild history of stem cell science Apr 29, 2021

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Physician scientist Professor John Rasko on some of the charlatans and shining lights from the problematic and often tragic field of regenerative medicine. Long regarded as a coming salvation, the full potential of stem cells is yet to be realised. John de-mystifies our understanding of the science and explains why there's reason for hope

The blue budgie in Berlin — Gisela Kaplan's story Apr 28, 2021

Show notes

Animal behaviourist Gisela Kaplan grew up in devastated post-WWII Berlin, forced to eat soap and wild nettles to survive. A brilliant student who loved music, she trained as an opera singer and an academic. Decades later, after adopting a magpie nestling, she began a new chapter as one of the world's leading authorities on the lives of Australia’s native birds

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