Our Changing World

Welcome to Antarctica - a land of ice, extremes, and ambition. From historic expeditions to modern day science projects, Antarctic exploration is a unique, and dangerous, experience. We meet one researcher involved in an epic journey across the largest ice shelf in Antarctica, mapping a safe route through a crevassed landscape for others to follow. Plus, we learn about the different types of ice f...

Using acoustic tags and a network of receivers attached to the seafloor, researchers are tracking the movements of sevengill sharks in Fiordland. They want to understand how these apex predators adjust to changing ocean temperatures, particularly during marine heat waves. Plus, an international collaboration involving a high-tech German research vessel is exploring New Zealand’s deep-sea realm. Gu...

People with ADHD often fidget more than those without. Why might this be? Does it help them focus? Or distract them further? An Auckland Bioengineering Institute researcher has teamed up with the Mātai Medical Institute in Gisborne to investigate this using advanced MRI techniques. And at Waikereru ecosanctuary, local birds are being enlisted in a trial to help speed up the regeneration of native...

The Eastern Whio Link project has been working to restore the whio or blue duck population in the rivers of the Waioeka Gorge. Sam Gibson, aka Sam the Trap Man, explains why he thinks the project has been so successful, and what he loves about these scrappy little ducks. Then, Professor Matthew Stott speaks to Claire Concannon about the complexities working on an active volcano in Antarctica, and...

All around New Zealand, people are trying to make things just a little bit better for their communities. The 22 Environment Centres, or Hubs, found throughout the country aim to help with this. Claire Concannon visits the Tairāwhiti Environment Centre to learn about their three pou of waste minimisation, education, and biodiversity, and about the environmental projects they support. She also meets...

Trapping is hard mahi, especially on rugged terrain thick with vegetation. If you need to check a trap frequently to clear it and refresh the lure, the kilometres of bush bashing quickly add up. Plus, in areas where kea are found, trap options are limited by concerns for these curious and intelligent parrots. A team in Queenstown are investigating if the latest ‘smart’ traps – equipped with camera...

The summer science series continues with an episode from RNZ podcast Country Life. From a block of gorse-infected scrubland on Banks Peninsula, renowned botanist Hugh Wilson has spent half a lifetime growing Hinewai Reserve into a 1600-hectare paradise of regenerated native forest by leaving nature to it. Cosmo Kentish-Barnes visits to learn more. The Country Life podcast takes you all over the mo...

The summer science series continues with an episode from RNZ podcast Black Sheep. Freddie Angell was New Zealand's most notorious wildlife smuggler. His repeated attempts at stealing and exporting native wildlife in the 1990s, including kea and tuatara, made him all but a household name. William Ray speaks to documentary-maker Andy MacDonald about his extraordinary story. Black Sheep is an RNZ pod...

The summer science series continues with an episode from Tune into Nature, a podcast about New Zealand wildlife and wild places, and the people who look after them. Independent producer Karthic SS visits the Mokomoko Dryland Sanctuary Central Otago. Here, a team is working to bring back endangered lizards – Otago skinks and grand skinks – to the drylands wilderness they once lived in. These specie...

The summer science series continues with an episode from RNZ podcast Here Now. A love for tropical plants united Canterbury-based botanists Dr Julie Barcelona and Dr Pieter Pelser in the mid-2000s. The pair are renowned for their work on the large and unusual flower Rafflesia, which smells like a rotting carcass. They have found at least three new species on their adventures in the Philippines. Ka...

Welcome to the summer science series! We're kicking off with two stories made by local podcast producers. First, on New Zealand's quest to become predator free by 2050, are we forgetting about mice? Dan Moskovitz, a student at Victoria University of Wellington, investigates what might happen to mice – and ecosystems as more areas become predator free. Then, a story from Xanthe Smith's Catch On pod...

New methane seeps are being discovered in Antarctica, some now appearing in areas that researchers have been monitoring for years. These are areas on the seafloor where methane gas escapes out from under the ground through fissures or cracks. What is the extent of the seeps? How large is the gas reservoir they are being fed from? How much methane is escaping from the sea into the air? Why now? And...

New Zealand’s tuatara are the last remaining species of an order of reptile that was alive alongside the dinosaurs 240 million years ago. The rest died out about 65 million years ago, but in Aotearoa the tuatara live on, found on 32 offshore islands and in a small number of ecosanctuaries and zoos on the mainland. Now one researcher is investigating the microbial community that lives inside their...

Dive under the Antarctic sea ice near Scott Base into the weird world of cold-water life. Pink sea angels, worms that look like intestines, ocean creepy crawlies that get as big as your hand... and mysterious giant glass sponges. These sponges are one of the strangest, and oldest, animals on Earth: surviving without light, eating bacteria and viruses, and making themselves out of silica they absor...

For centuries Samoa's traditional healers have harnessed the power of the country's native plants as remedies for village ailments. Now scientists at the Scientific Research Organisation of Samoa are putting those plants under the microscope to unlock and understand how this traditional knowledge works. In this episode of Pacific Scientific from the ABC, tour the labs and lush gardens filled with...

Ngutukākā, or kākābeak, is a popular garden plant in Aotearoa. But in the wild, it is now rarer than kākāpō, with only about 100 individual plants surviving on steep, inaccessible cliffs. The East Coast is one of its remaining strongholds and the Tairāwhiti Ngutukākā Trust is on a mission to bring the taonga back. Veronika Meduna joins the inaugural Tairāwhiti Ngutukākā Festival to find out more a...

Invasive redback spiders are highly venomous, threatening both people and New Zealand’s native species. A team of scientists is developing a cunning tool to trap male redbacks, by concocting an irresistible spiderweb perfume. We visit 800 captive redback spiders in the lab, learn about their wild mating habits, and check out the “spider arena” where the redbacks’ signature scent is put to the test...

The MRI technique advances coming out of the Mātai Medical Research Institute in Gisborne have been described as ‘pioneering’, ‘groundbreaking’ and ‘world leading’. Claire Concannon speaks to chief executive and research director Dr Samantha Holdsworth to learn why, and about their big plans for the future. Guests: Dr Samantha Holdsworth, research director and chief executive of Mātai Medical Rese...

About two hours south of Dunedin, in the Catlins, the Tautuku and Fleming rivers flow into the sea at Tautuku beach. Covered in native bush from headwaters to the ocean, this special catchment is home to many native, and some threatened, plants and animals. But there’s an ongoing battle. Browsing animal such as deer and pigs are destroying the undergrowth, while feral cats and stoats are predating...

Every year in New Zealand, recreational hunters shoot more than half a million wild game. Most are shot with lead-based ammunition. Now, researchers are investigating what happens to that lead, and how much of it is getting into the food chains of humans and the endangered kea. Alison Ballance speaks to scientists at Nelson-Marlborough Institute of Technology, and kea conservationists and predator...

To keep their eggs safe, some birds build simple cup-shaped nests. Others craft elaborate fully enclosed domes, with porches, fake entrances and ledges. But is this intricate construction of nests a set, encoded behaviour? Or can birds adapt in different conditions? Researchers are keen to learn about flexibility in nest design, to better understand how different species might be able to respond a...

Almost 40 years on from the first reports of the Antarctic ozone hole, and 35 years since the Montreal Protocol to ban CFCs came into effect, what’s going on with the ozone hole? How does it form? How do we measure it? And having solved the CFC problem, why are we still monitoring ozone so closely? Claire Concannon heads to NIWA's Atmospheric Research Station in Lauder, Central Otago, to find out....

We love our four-legged friends. It’s estimated about a third of New Zealand households share their home with at least one dog, and two thirds of dog owners consider their furry friends to be family members. Some dogs work, others keep us company, make us laugh, get us walking twice a day, and shower us with unconditional affection….. But are we looking after all their needs? Claire Concannon spea...

We all experience anxiety – when our brains look into the future and imagine bad things happening. It’s normal and has helped keep us alive as a species. But levels of anxiety are rising, particularly in young people, and at the severe end of the spectrum clinical anxiety prevents people from going about their lives. This Mental Health Awareness Week we meet a team of researchers at the University...

It’s been almost 30 years since a team joined forces to investigate a particularly aggressive form of stomach cancer that was afflicting one Tauranga whānau. Kimi Hauora Health and Research Clinic in Tauranga and University of Otago geneticists together found the cancer-causing genetic change, helping save thousands of lives worldwide. Justine Murray is at Mangatawa Marae with Maybelle McLeod and...