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The Pint of Science Australia festival is returning to Glenbrook at the Cafe 2773! Bringing scientists out of the lab and into the pub, we provide a conversational atmosphere where you can hear the latest scientific thinking from the comfort of your local.
This year we have Dr. David Waddington, physicist and cancer researcher at the University of Sydney, Dr. Soumi Mukhopadhyay, a sensory and consumer researcher specialising in testing food products and very, very nearly a Dr., Sophie Moore an urban forestry specialist working to green our city!
This year we have Dr. David Waddington, physicist and cancer researcher at the University of Sydney, Dr. Soumi Mukhopadhyay, a sensory and consumer researcher specialising in testing food products and very, very nearly a Dr., Sophie Moore an urban forestry specialist working to green our city!
MRI could save your life - if we let it.
David Waddington
(David Waddington is a physicist and cancer researcher at the University of Sydney. He works on MRI, the big magnetic tube you've probably been inside, and asks how we can make it smarter, cheaper, and more useful for treating cancer.)
MRI is the most powerful diagnostic tool in medicine. No radiation, no surgery, just magnets and mathematics. We've barely started using it. Today it sits in hospital basements, expensive and immovable. But what if it could guide a cancer treatment in real time, watching a tumour shift as a patient breathes, or reach patients who've never had a scan? David Waddington is building the technology that could finally unlock MRI's potential.
Running Wild/Jody McConaghy Photography
Sticky business: the secrets of honey sensory testing
Soumi Mukhopadhyay
(Dr Soumi Paul Mukhopadhyay is passionate about helping people understand what their food actually is, using the science of the senses. Her work in sensory and consumer science explores how we perceive, enjoy, and judge food, from pulses and honey to dairy, fruits, vegetables, wine, and olive oil (because science is better when it’s delicious). Expect flavour, facts, and a few surprises along the way.)
What do you really know about Australian honey? Spoiler: maybe less than you think!
Honey isn’t always golden-yellow, it doesn’t always stay liquid, and it most definitely isn’t just “sweet.” From pale and floral to dark and bold, silky smooth to delightfully crystallised, Australian honey is a sensory playground shaped by flowers, bees, and place. Join us for a night of myth‑busting, flavour‑detecting, and curiosity‑raising as we explore this sticky wonder food - and yes, there will be tasting. Because when it comes to honey, no two jars (or tongues) ever agree.
Honey isn’t always golden-yellow, it doesn’t always stay liquid, and it most definitely isn’t just “sweet.” From pale and floral to dark and bold, silky smooth to delightfully crystallised, Australian honey is a sensory playground shaped by flowers, bees, and place. Join us for a night of myth‑busting, flavour‑detecting, and curiosity‑raising as we explore this sticky wonder food - and yes, there will be tasting. Because when it comes to honey, no two jars (or tongues) ever agree.
Why Sydney's New Suburbs Will Never Have Enough Shade
Sophie Moore
(Sophie sits at the intersection of academic research and real-world planning practice. By day she's an urban forest consultant at Mosaic Insights, helping councils and state governments across NSW and Victoria figure out where to plant trees, which species to choose, and how to build cities that can actually cope with heat. By night (and most weekends), she's writing papers from her PhD at Western Sydney University doing the rigorous science that underpins that work — measuring trees, modelling canopy growt)
Western Sydney regularly hits 48°C in summer — and it's only getting hotter. The NSW Government has set an ambitious target of 40% tree canopy cover across Greater Sydney by 2036. But Sophie's research reveals a problem hiding in plain sight: the way we're building new suburbs makes that target mathematically impossible. By measuring over 1,000 street trees and modelling how they grow, Sophie found that even our newest housing estates — with trees planted on every verge and footpath — will top out at less than 10% canopy cover. The culprit? McMansions now cover up to 80% of a suburban block, leaving almost no room for trees on private land. Add in planning systems that fund planting but not maintenance, and development pressures that bulldoze trees in favour of density, and you've got suburbs being built right now that will never be cool enough to live in. Sophie's research doesn't just diagnose the problem — it feeds directly into her work helping councils and governments redesign how they plan, plant, and protect urban trees before we run out of time.
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