Memory, it turns out, is less like a flawless recording and more like a game of telephone played with your own brain. New research from the University of Sydney's Helen Paterson confirms that recollections of single events - a purse being snatched, say - differ from those of repeated or ongoing events, such as domestic and family violence. Groundbreaking, we know.

Paterson, an associate professor in forensic psychology, found that repeated-event witnesses tend to report more 'gist-like details' - the overall gist of what typically happens - while sometimes confusing one episode with another. 'Sometimes they confuse one episode with another,' she said, which is a polite way of saying our brains aren't great at filing recurring trauma.

This has serious implications for victim-survivors in court. Defence lawyers often pounce on inconsistencies: 'If they're saying this in trial, it's defence 101 to say … they've made this inconsistency, therefore their whole memory is unreliable,' Paterson said. But her research shows that what repeated-event witnesses do report tends to be highly accurate - they just might mix up which episode it happened in. So, the more you're victimized, the less credible you appear to others. Charming.

For her work in helping police and courts understand this, Paterson was awarded a prestigious Eureka prize on Thursday night at Sydney Town Hall, one of 19 categories. Established in 1990, the Australian Museum Eureka prizes honor Australian scientists and science communicators. Paterson hopes the award will elevate victim-survivors' voices: 'Often we don't give them the support and encouragement, and we don't believe them and see them as credible as we should.'

Also among the winners was Assoc Prof Jane Tiller of Monash University, who drove legislative change banning life insurers from discriminating based on genetic test results. Passed into law in April, the ban takes effect on 8 October, removing a 'critical barrier' that prevented people from getting genetic testing for fear of insurance discrimination. 'The biggest reason that people don't want this testing is because of fear of insurance discrimination,' she said. Now, scientists can use genomics to prevent conditions like cancer and heart disease, and perhaps even find young people at high risk before it's too late.

Prof Georgina Long, who alongside the late Prof Richard Scolyer was named Australian of the Year in 2024, won the Eureka prize for scientific research for her pioneering melanoma work. She joins an illustrious list of Australian of the Year Eureka winners: Prof Tim Flannery, Prof Ian Frazer, Prof Michelle Simmons, and the late Prof Alan Mackay-Sim.

Other Thursday night winners included Australia's marine heatwaves forecasting tool (developed by CSIRO and Bureau of Meteorology), the Women's Microbiome Innovation Group (a Melbourne collaboration that discovered bacterial vaginosis is sexually transmitted - a fact that will surprise exactly no one who's been paying attention), and Prof Yansong Shen at UNSW, who developed a low-cost process to recover valuable metals and silicon from used solar panels - because recycling is cool, even in science.

Kim McKay, Australian Museum director and CEO, summed it up: 'This year's winners are tackling some of our greatest challenges: protecting our environment, advancing healthcare, informing public policy and inspiring the next generation of scientists. World-changing discoveries do not happen overnight. They are built on years of dedication, collaboration and sustained investment.' Indeed, they're also built on the occasional 'I don't remember which episode that was, but it definitely happened.'