All That We Touch... at the pub

What would it take to keep hold of what makes us human, when the machines around us are doing so much of what only humans could once do? All That We Touch returns with a conversation recorded live at Gleebooks, where pianist, educator and writer Anna Goldsworthy joins Princeton scholar Sophie Gee discuss some of the ideas explored in Goldsworthy's new Quarterly Essay, The God We Made: the threat and promise of artificial intelligence. Goldsworthy and Gee talk through why friction and difficulty might be essential to human meaning rather than problems to engineer away, what it means that some people are forming relationships with AI companions built to please rather than push back, and what could really be at stake if the current trajectory carries us toward artificial general intelligence and beyond. The conversation ranges over the bias embedded in models trained on centuries of scraped human writing, the invisible labour and environmental cost the technology depends on, and the inequality it risks deepening both within societies and between them. An audience Q&A pushes further still, ranging from machine consciousness to the lessons of computer chess, and closing on a question that lingers well past the room: what can the humanities still offer a field being shaped mostly by engineers and capital? Voices Anna Goldsworthy is a concert pianist, chamber musician and author of several books, including the novel Melting Moments, the memoirs Piano Lessons and Welcome to Your New Life, and the 2013 Quarterly Essay Unfinished Business. She is Dean of the Elder Conservatorium of Music at the University of Adelaide and incoming Artistic Director of the Australian National Academy of Music. Her most recent Quarterly Essay is The God We Made: the threat and promise of artificial intelligence. Sophie Gee is Professor of English at Princeton University and Vice Chancellor's Fellow at the University of Sydney. She is the author of scholarly monographs and an historical novel, co-host of the Secret Life of Books podcast, and her latest book, The Barbarous Feast: Eating and Writing in the Eighteenth-Century World, is published by Princeton University Press. Credits This episode of All That We Touch was recorded live on Gadigal Land, at Sydney's Gleebooks. For more literary events like this one, see the Gleebooks events page. The episode was edited and mixed by Daniel Wiggins. All That We Touch is a UTS Impact Studios podcast. Executive producer is Sarah Gilbert.

What would it actually take to build a functioning circular economy in nutrients, starting with recycling human urine? That's the question driving this bonus episode of Liquid Gold, recorded live at South by Southwest Sydney 2025. UTS researcher Dana Cordell chairs a panel that pushes past the novelty of "wee as fertiliser" into the harder territory: phosphorus scarcity, wastewater emissions, contamination risk, and who should be paying for pollution in the first place. The conversation moves from Django Seccombe explaining why Sydney Water spends up to two billion dollars a year dealing with nutrients it could be recovering instead, to organic garlic grower Dr Michelle Zeibots on the practical "yuck factor" of getting farmers to actually use urine-derived fertiliser, to policy expert Liana Downey on why consumers so often end up carrying the cost of decisions made further up the supply chain. VOICES Kerry Tozer is a doctoral researcher at the Institute for Sustainable Futures, UTS Jordan Roods is a doctoral researcher at the Institute for Sustainable Futures, UTS Associate Professor Dana Cordell is a Research Director at the Institute for Sustainable Futures where she leads the Food Systems research group. Dana works with stakeholders across Australia, EU, UK, Sweden, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, India, China, Malawi and the U.S. to identify how food systems can transform and circularise in response to a range of sustainability challenges, from climate change to urban sprawl, to the global phosphorus challenge. Django Seccombe is an environmental engineer who splits his time between establishing and embedding circular economy practice in Sydney Water and developing cross industry circular economy projects in the private sector. His projects cut across water, energy, food and waste systems. Dr Michelle Zeibots is a garlic farmer and a researcher with UTS’ Institute for Sustainable Futures, specialising in the analysis of sustainable urban passenger transport systems. Liana Downey is an experienced strategic advisor who helps leaders change the world. As Executive Director of Liana Downey & Associates, Liana and her team work with nonprofits, governments and social enterprises globally to increase impact. She is the author of Mission Control: how non profits and governments can focus, achieve more and change the world (Routledge, 2016). Have your say Jordan and Kerry have put together a short anonymous survey to hear what listeners think about urine recycling – "peecycling"! – and the problems it could solve. The survey link is in the show notes on the episode page. Participants who share their contact details go into a draw to win one of three $50 AUD Visa gift cards. Please make sure you read the participant information sheet and complete the consent requirements before completing the survey or uploading any audio or video that could identify you. Try it for yourself You can purchase your own bottle of eco-friendly urine-derived fertiliser to sprinkle on your plants via this link: https://www.nicegreentech.com/products Further reading Turning food waste into taste From flush to fertiliser, urine is liquid gold You can find plenty of fact sheets and articles about the future of urine recycling and a circular nutrient economy at the NiCE Hub website. Credits Producer: Celine Teo-Blockey Sound Engineering: Melissa May Additional Music: Om Bhandari Cover Art: Alexandra Morris Executive Producer, Impact Studios: Sarah Gilbert All That We Touch is an Impact Studios production, made on Gadigal land in Warrane/Sydney.

Every time we flush, we send a valuable resource down the drain: phosphorus, one of the essential building blocks of life and a key ingredient in the fertiliser that grows the world's food, along with nitrogen and potassium. Meanwhile, we mine phosphate rock and potash, and generate climate pollution to manufacture ammonia (rich in nitrogen) to produce industrial fertiliser - essential for growing food to feed a hungry planet But what if, instead of extracting our fertiliser in ways that damage the planet, we harnessed the waste our own bodies produce, feeding it back into the food chain, where it belongs? In this episode, host Angelica Ojinnaka-Psillakis traces how humans went from managing waste locally to flushing it away without a second thought. And with researchers Jordan Roods and Kerry Tozer, she explores the growing movement to recover nutrients from urine and turn them back into fertiliser — from university labs in Sydney, to a redesigned toilet prototype, and to a community-scale ‘peecycling’ program in Vermont. Voices Angelica Ojinnaka-Psillakis — host; health and social researcher Nicola Cama — historian, City of Sydney Michelle Maloney — legal scholar, advocate for earth-centred governance Kerry Tozer — doctoral researcher, Institute for Sustainable Futures, UTS Jordan Roods — doctoral researcher, Institute for Sustainable Futures, UTS Dana Cordell — associate professor, UTS; research supervisor to Kerry and Jordan Cara Beal — professor of environmental science and health; director, Cities Research Institute, Griffith University Abe Noe-Hayes — Rich Earth Institute, Vermont Have your say Jordan and Kerry have put together a short anonymous survey to hear what listeners think about urine recycling – "peecycling"! – and the problems it could solve. The survey link is in the show notes on the episode page. Participants who share their contact details go into a draw to win one of three $50 AUD Visa gift cards. Please make sure you read the participant information sheet and complete the consent requirements before completing the survey or uploading any audio or video that could identify you. Try it for yourself You can purchase your own bottle of eco-friendly urine-derived fertiliser to sprinkle on your plants via this link: https://www.nicegreentech.com/products Further reading You can find plenty of fact sheets and articles about the future of urine recycling and a circular nutrient economy at the NiCE Hub website. You can learn more about the Rich Earth Institute here. Credits Host: Angelica Ojinnaka-Psillakis, with Jordan Roods and Kerry Tozer Producers: Britta Jorgensen and Celine Teo-Blockey Sound Engineering: Melissa May Additional Music: Om Bhandari Cover Art: Alexandra Morris Editorial Support: Jane Curtis, Michelle Ransom-Hughes, Tamson Pietsch, Rachael Cusick Executive Producer, Impact Studios: Sarah Gilbert Thanks also to: Professor Ho Kyong Shon, Dr Ibrahim El Saliby, Associate Professor Jan-Olof Drangert, Professor Cara Beal, Dr Michelle Maloney, Dr Haley Joyell Smith, Gary Leeson, Mark Dunn, and Ed Hickson. Liquid Gold is an Impact Studios production, made on Gadigal land.

How can Wikipedia editors work with Indigenous content in a responsible way? Hear a panel discussion with Indigenous lawyers Dr Terri Janke, Shavonne Wright, and Matilda Langford on the new Wikimedia Australia guide to respectful, accurate engagement with Indigenous knowledge. Oral knowledge can't be referenced under Wikipedia's own rules, and that hits Indigenous knowledge hardest. Most Australian editors are non-Indigenous, and our research found their confidence with Indigenous content varies widely. Hear how a new practical guide, developed with Wikimedia Australia and led by Dr Terri Janke, will support you to include and edit First Nations content on Wikipedia. Recorded live at WikiCon Australia 2026. Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property (ICIP) and Indigenous Data Sovereignty Guide Wikimedia Australia has adopted the Guide as organisational practice for our Board, staff and funded projects. We are also pleased to share it as recommended good practice for editors and contributors who want to engage responsibly with Indigenous content across Wikimedia projects. It's grounded in a set of clear values: Valuing relationships and accuracy over quantity Respecting Indigenous cultural authority and protocols Being transparent about what is shared on Wiki platforms Supporting Indigenous agency and authorship Avoiding harm

Every student uses Wikipedia. Some schools and teachers still tell them not to. This episode asks why, and explains how to teach Wikipedia literacy to primary and secondary school students, instead of banning it outright. Researchers Heather Ford and Simon Knight answer questions and hear advice from teachers Ben Lawless, Marty Douglas and David Boon, and librarian Michelle Sadler. Hear what good, critical Wikipedia use looks like in the classroom or library: questions to ask before even opening Wikipedia; checking the Talk page; and lateral reading. Teachers: Using Wikipedia in the Classroom A set of resources from the Wikimedia Foundation: Using Wikipedia to foster media and information literacy skills: Teachers Introductory booklet PDF (2020, 10 pages) Teachers’ Guide Module 1 PDF (2021, 72 pages) Teachers’ Guide Module 2 PDF (2021, 65 pages) Teachers’ Guide Module 3 PDF (2021, 56 pages) Reading Wikipedia in the Classroom (All languages) PDFs