Making Better Chocolate

Trudy Lin is a dentist but also an activist – and her primary measure of success is ensuring everyone has the capacity to eat, speak and smile.

Trudy is one of only a handful of special needs dentists in Australia but she says the need in this underfunded area is huge.

She makes a compelling case for oral health care as a human rights issue – as she puts it, she wants to create a world where a smile is no longer a barrier to feeling accepted, finding a job, and living to your full potential.

For the 2022 Young South Australian of the Year, her professional passion comes from a very personal place.

She joins us today.

To follow Trudy’s work go to: https://trudysmile.net/

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In 1946, sharp-eyed geologist Reg Sprigg noticed some strange patterns in the rocks of the Flinders Ranges. What he had discovered was a groundbreaking a fossil record of complex creatures dating back 550 million years.

The Ediacara fossils were – and remain – the earliest record of complex multi-cellular animals on the planet.

While the site is world famous with scientists, many South Australians are unaware of its existence, despite a campaign to have Flinders Ranges world heritage-listed.

That could be about to change, with materials about the fossils and their significance being introduced to the Year 8 curriculum for the first time next year. And now – for anyone who is interested – you can do a virtual dive into those shallow, warm ancient sees to swim with the Eediacaran creatures.

On the podcast this week, David Washington is joined by InDaily senior journalist Belinda Willis, and  University of South Australia geology professor Tom Raimondo who has led the project to bring these fossils to virtual life.

Belinda Willis’s reporting for InDaily on this project is here – https://indaily.com.au/news/science-and-tech/2022/12/02/calls-for-more-local-learning-as-sa-fossils-make-the-science-curriculum/

The UniSA team’s virtual reality project can be found here –  https://www.projectlive.org.au/

For more about the Nilpena Ediacara National Park, SALIFE visited earlier in the year - https://salife.com.au/people-places/set-in-stone-nilpena-ediacara-national-park/

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Last weekend was a historic coming together of two key moments in women’s sport. The AFLW premiership was decided, with Melbourne winning its first premiership, and the Adelaide Strikers won its first title in cricket’s WBBL.

It was a weekend of high-profile, nationally televised sport that wouldn’t have seemed likely just a few decades ago, with both sporting codes once entrenched in the nation’s mind as the pinnacle of Australian masculinity.

But women have played both sports for decades – despite little support in the past from governing bodies or the media.

That has changed – seemingly in the blink of an eye.

On the podcast this week, David Washington is joined by Liz Walsh, a journalist who has charted the rise of elite women’s cricket and football to discuss how far we’ve come – and where to next.

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In South Australia's north lies an alien landscape - scarred by more than a century of mining. The huge site desperately needs further rehabilitation but, in this week's episode, we detail allegations of regulatory failure in relation to this and many other mine sites across the country.

For almost 150 years, the hills of Mount Gunson have been mined for copper – a metal integral to South Australia’s modern history and increasingly important for the world’s electrified future.

The huge site – south of Woomera – has passed through many hands over the time, with mining companies riding numerous copper booms, making their money and moving on.

Today, Mount Gunson’s mining past has left huge scars on the country – the legacy of 50,000 trucks’ worth of copper being pulled out of this epic landscape.

We’ve been told this is a classic case study in a worrying phenomenon across Australia – a mining landscape left largely unrehabilitated.

Joining us on the podcast this week is CityMag reporter Angela Skujins and RMIT researcher Gavin Mudd.

Angela Skujins' story on Mount Gunson is in the summer 2022 print edition of CityMag. To find your nearest outlet to pick up a free copy, go here.

To find out more about Gavin Mudd's research, go here.

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The public has spoken and Team Adelaide has been all but vanquished in the city council elections.

This week, we take a closer look at this unusual blip in the history of local democracy in Adelaide.

Team Adelaide – a collection of aligned candidates who essentially took power at Town Hall after the 2018 local government elections – prompts strong reactions.

After four very acrimonious years, we look back on Town Hall’s acrimonious experiment with factional politics.

Joining us first is Bension Siebert, the former InDaily reporter who broke the story.

Later we’ll be joined by InDaily’s Stephanie Richards and CityMag’s Angela Skujins.

For InDaily and CityMag’s coverage of Town Hall, go here: https://indaily.com.au/tag/adelaide-city-council/

For InDaily’s coverage of Team Adelaide, go here: https://indaily.com.au/tag/team-adelaide/

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Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter has focused attention on the social media platform’s worst aspects. But there was a time in Adelaide when the site brought people together.

Musk has one key connection with South Australia – his “big battery” which was the biggest of its kind when installed in 2017.

And it was Twitter that made that happen.

Today, we’re going to travel back to the early days of Twitter – an idea that was spawned by a couple of tech guys working for a podcasting company back in 2006, and which went on to change the world.

To help us through Twitter’s local impact is Michelle Prak. She’s now a writer and university teacher, but was once a social media consultant and one of the most influential Adelaideans on Twitter in its early years.

LINKS

For InDaily’s coverage of Twitter go here – https://indaily.com.au/tag/twitter/

To follow us on Twitter -  https://twitter.com/indaily

For the regional showcase winners - https://indaily.com.au/events/regional-news/2022/11/07/the-spirit-of-rural-south-australia-celebrated-at-regional-awards-night/

Michelle Prak’s forthcoming novel is being published by Simon & Schuster.

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In this week’s episode, we explore how a partnership between Adelaide researchers, Vanuatu cocoa farmers and Australian chocolate makers has turned a so-so crop into one of the best in the world.

While the cocoa bean doesn’t grow in South Australia, we have a powerful connection with chocolate through companies like Haigh’s – for years, one of the only chocolate-makers in Australia that created its products from scratch – from bean to bar.

South Australia also has a great history in agricultural research.

This week, we’re talking about how South Australian expertise is helping one of our South Pacific neighbours improve the quality of their cocoa from unusable by high end chocolatiers, to being judged as among the best in the world.

Joining us this week are Professor Randy Stringer from the Centre for Global Food and Resources at the University of Adelaide, and Sandrine Wallez, the manager of Activ Association – a not-for-profit organisation facilitating fair trade for local producers in Vanuatu. She also runs her own chocolate company, Aelan Chocolate.

They’re joined by InDaily senior journalist Belinda Willis.

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This week, we explore the implications of rising River Murray water levels in this wet and wild spring. It’s a time of trepidation for river communities, but the environmental impacts could be profound.

Floods in Victoria and some historic dumps of rain on this side of the border have authorities rushing to shore up levees and provide sandbags for river communities.

What does it all mean for water levels in the River Murray – and what about the environmental consequences?

Joining David Washington on the podcast this week is InDaily senior journalist Belinda Willis, an experienced writer on the River Murray, and Environment Department water expert Chrissie Bloss.

To read InDaily’s reporting on the River Murray, go here: https://indaily.com.au/tag/river-murray/

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They’ve been called Nimbys and park narcs, but those who devote themselves to protecting and celebrating Adelaide’s park lands say they are involved in an essentially democratic project – to keep the city’s unique green belt open to everyone in the community.

The State Government’s proposal to bulldoze the heritage listed Thebarton police barracks to build a new Women’s and Children’s Hospital has caused uproar in heritage circles.

But behind this debate is something deeper, more quintessentially South Australian – a profound disagreement about the piece of urban design that defines how our capital city looks, feels and operates – Colonel Light’s celebrated park lands.

To gain some insight into the passion of our park lands purists, this week we speak with Shane Sody – a former radio journalist, sometime audio book narrator, and president of the Adelaide Park Lands Association.

For InDaily’s reporting on the new Women’s and Children’s Hospital, go here - https://indaily.com.au/tag/womens-and-childrens-hospital/

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One of the themes of state politics this year has been a relentless focus on jammed hospital emergency departments, with ambulances ramped outside.

The new Labor Government promised to fix the ramping crisis. It hasn’t done that – if anything, things are now worse.  

What this political imperative means is that hospitals remain under the political spotlight and the focus of government health spending.

But what about the mental health crisis that has been building for years? This month is Mental Health Awareness Month and advocates are using the occasion to argue for a shift in investment beyond hospitals – a ‘traumatised system’ that is struggling.

The Mental Health Coalition, which represents non-government organisations in the field, says they want to see more investment in community-based mental health support. Geoff Harris, the executive director of the coalition, joins the podcast in this episode.

Links:

InDaily’s mental health coverage, including Geoff’s recent opinion piece

More information about psychosocial support

If this episode has raised issues for you, call LifeLine on 13 11 14. Beyond Blue and headspace are other national organisations that offer comprehensive mental health support.

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