For more than half a century, the fragile and frozen continent of Antarctica has been protected by ‘post-sovereign’ governing arrangements that are unusual by global standards. There are now clear signs of their breakdown. State rivalries, environmental damage and a dash for resources, including tourism revenues, are pushing the continent towards a highly uncertain future. This public forum tackles the pressing questions: What do scientists working in Antarctica have to teach us? Are military and commercial adventures becoming a reality and does Australia have a ‘national interest’ in the continent? What are the chances of reforming and strengthening the Antarctic Treaty System? Can citizens play a role in shaping its future?

Professor Sabine Lee, the University of Birmingham. Starting from a drawing ‘Schattenkinder ‘ by the Dutch painter Knut Weise, whose half-sister is a Russenkind (child of Russian soldier fathered during or after Second World War in Germany) this paper explores the integration of children born of war into post-conflict societies by investigating children fathered by foreign soldiers in several conflicts spanning much of the 20th and 21st centuries: the Second World War, the Vietnam War, the Bosnian War and the sub-Saharan African conflicts. Using these case studies as anchors, the presentation will shine a light on the challenges faced by the children themselves and their mothers within their post-conflict receptor communities by looking at the development of experience over time and across different geographical regions. It contextualises historically the conflict and post-conflict policies towards children born of war and their families and discusses the consequences of such policies. In particular, it analyses comparatively childhood adversities and psychosocial challenges as well as changes to the legal and political environments.

This panel considers the diverse cultural expressions of mosque design, past and present, in areas where Muslim populations are both minorities and majorities. It explains the history and reasons behind traditional gender segregation in mosques and how this segregation plays itself out in mosque architecture and affects ultimately the spiritual experience of the community. Panellists Dr Sam Bowker and Reem Sweid discuss the arabisation of mosques and the extent to which contemporary Australian approaches to 'sacred space' might offer a distinctive contribution to the wider Islamic global heritage.

The Holocaust is one of the most researched events of the twentieth century. Yet it continues to spark popular interest and scholarly controversy. In this lecture Professor Michael Berenbaum, former Project Director of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and internationally renowned Holocaust historian will reflect on the current state of research. Challenging prevailing scholarly consensus, he will revisit the unfolding of events that culminated in the genocide of European Jewry and shed new light on its historical and contemporary significance. SPEAKER: Professor Michael Berenbaum, Sigi Ziering Institute , American Jewish University in LA

Since they were first revealed in 1863, the casts from Pompeii which preserved the forms of the victims in their moment of death have generated huge interest. Stories of their supposed lives and deaths have proved to be persistent not just in novels and movies, but also in some academic treatments of the site. As part of the Great Pompeii Project of 2015, the Superintendency organised the restoration of 86 of the 103 casts. Estelle Lazer and her team were given the opportunity to generate CT scans and x-ray analysis. For the first time, it was possible to carry out a scientific analysis a number of the casts and the remains embedded within them. The results were unexpected. Yes, there were new insights into the victims, their lives and their deaths, but, as this lecture will show, there was also much to learn about archaeological practices at Pompeii in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. A Sydney Ideas lecture co-presented with the Department of Classics and Ancient History and the Nicholson Museum at the University of Sydney

Drawing from his new book - part historical detective story, part family history, part legal thriller - Professor Philippe Sands QC, explains the connections between his work on 'crimes against humanity' and 'genocide', the events that overwhelmed his family during the Second World War, and the remarkable, untold story that lay at the heart of the Nuremberg Trial: how Rafael Lemkin and Hersch Lauterpacht - the two prosecutors who brought 'genocide' and 'crimes against humanity' into the Nuremberg trial and international law - discovered that the man they were prosecuting - Hans Frank, Hitler's personal lawyer and Governor General of occupied Poland - had murdered their own families. Sydney Ideas event information http://sydney.edu.au/sydney_ideas/lectures/2016/professor_philippe_sands.shtml

Professor Mark Dadds from the Sydney Child Behaviour Research Clinic at the University of Sydney covers some of the current scientific evidence behind the building blocks of evidence-based parenting interventions: including rewards, punishment, and attachment. A Sydney Ideas event for Sydney Science Festival 2016.

Politics at the End of the World: A Public Forum on the Future of Antarctica A panel of experts and those passionate about preserving Antarctica give a fascinating overview of both the history of Antarctica, especially around the legal questions of sovereignty, and progress on the lobbying for a marine park and ultimate preservation of the environment. Speakers include Professor Gillian Triggs, Greens leader Bob Brown and Jeff Hansen of theSea Shepherd Conservation Society, THIS LECTURE TOOK PLACE AT THE UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY 13 SEPTEMBER 2012 AS PART OF THE SYDNEY IDEAS PROGRAM. For more info and speaker's biography see this page: http://sydney.edu.au/sydney_ideas/lectures/2012/antarctica_politics_at_the_end_of_the_world_forum.shtml

The most common causes of death in Australia are chronic non-communicable diseases related to lifestyle. Despite great improvements in treatments and outcomes, more Australians are developing diseases like type 2 Diabetes than ever before, and the total cost to the health system of diabetes alone is around $15bn per year. How do these illnesses interact? What are the factors associated with increased risk of chronic illness, and what can we do to reduce our risk? And what can scientists, health care providers and our community as a whole do to reduce the risk, and the cost, for the benefit of everyone? For our second Sydney Ideas, Westmead we brought together a panel of leading Westmead researchers to discuss the latest science of this healthcare crisis. Listen to Professor Jacob George, Associate Professor Germaine Wong and Professor Ngai Wah Cheung in conversation with Professor Chris Liddle, as they discuss their research and take audience questions on chronic non-communicable diseases related to lifestyle. Co-presented with the Westmead Institute for Medical Research for Sydney Science Festival 2016.

The Grandmother Hypothesis aims to explain why increased longevity evolved in humans, while female fertility still ends at the same age it does in our closest evolutionary cousins, the great apes. Beginning with ethnographic surprises that drew us to pay attention to grandmothering in the first place, Kristen Hawkes will show how, in addition to human life history, grandmothering can help explain the precocious sociality of human infants and our distinctive appetite for mutual understanding as well as patterns of male competition and pair bonding. Crucial evidence about human evolution continues to come from the expanding fossil and archaeological records, paleoecology, and increasingly genomics. But comparisons between us and our primate cousins, coupled with formal modelling by Peter Kim and his mathematical biology group at the University of Sydney, are proving to be an especially valuable way to explore evolutionary connections between grandmothering and an array of distinctive human features. ABOUT THE SPEAKER: Professor Kristen Hawkes is a Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at the University of Utah. Her principal research interests are evolutionary ecology of hunter-gatherers and human evolution. She is a member of the Scientific Executive Committee of the Leakey Foundation, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the US National Academy of Sciences.