Our Changing World

What are the risks of head injury for players of contact sports such as rugby? Research is increasingly linking head knocks with neurodegenerative diseases later in life. Claire Concannon meets a research team analysing every rugby training session and match across an entire season with high-tech mouthguards. Grace doesn't think about head knocks when she plays rugby: "If you see your te...

Meet the winners of the 2022 Prime Minister's Science Prizes! We go behind the scenes with the Emerging Scientist, Science Teacher and Future Scientist winners to learn about cutting-edge research, inspiring teaching and intriguing mahi worthy of these prestigious awards. It's time for the Prime Minister's Science Prizes! Every year, five prizes are awarded to emerging and established re...

Tropical cyclones can cause rampant destruction, but sometimes, these wild weather systems can seed life at sea too. This week we meet a storm-chasing researcher in search of phytoplankton blooms like one that formed in the wake of 2019 Cyclone Oma. Dr Pete Russell is a storm chaser. But that doesn't mean he's driving new-fangled-looking machinery into the path of tornadoes or sailing sh...

Grab your gumboots! Alison Ballance squelches out into Nelson's mudflats with a team of Cawthron Institute researchers in search of cryptic seagrass flowers and their seeds. Collecting the seeds is step one in an ambitious project to restore Aotearoa's ailing seagrass meadows. Nelson's Haven is an 8-kilometre expanse of mudflats. If you don gumboots and squelch your way out at low tide, you&#...

The birds are back. After a long absence, 11 kiwi have returned to the outskirts of Wellington with a little help from some human friends. Veronika Meduna heads into the field to see how the work of the Capital Kiwi Project is paying off. Imagine taking an evening walk around the fringes of the capital city and hearing the call of the kiwi. Well, you no longer need to imagine. Follow Our Changing...

The Rotopiko peat wetlands are a haven for rare and threatened wildlife. But when a flock of introduced birds numbering in the hundreds of thousands moves in - threatening the very nature of this special place - a group of people come up with some crazy-but-genius ideas to protect the wetlands and wildlife. Claire Concannon investigates. Half an hour south of Kirikiriroa Hamilton, the Rotopiko wet...

As mountains get warmer with our changing climate, what will happen to the iconic alpine plants that live at high altitude? Claire Concannon visits the moonscape slopes of Mt Ruapehu with a team of researchers using an experimental set-up that's part-greenhouse, part-UFO. It looks like the work of a small alien race. On the moonscape slopes of Mount Ruapehu, hexagon shapes enclose small patches of...

This week, Claire Concannon returns to the Noises Islands in the Hauraki Gulf. While conservation action on the islands has led to thriving terrestrial ecosystems, under the water, it's a very different story. Listen to learn how the marine environment has declined around the Noises, and what might be done to reverse it. Lifting the burden of rats in the forests of Ōtata Island has allowed life to...

The Noises are a conservation success story in the Hauraki Gulf. Claire Concannon joins a team surveying the wētāpunga, seabirds, and other flora and fauna that now thrive on these predator-free islands. On the small island of Motuhoropapa sits an old hut. Once it housed researchers who spent three years studying Norway rats, before dealing to them. Today new residents have moved in: giant wētā no...

We all get some - but are you getting enough? Claire Concannon investigates the science of sleep and meets a pilot-turned-sleep-researcher helping the aviation industry ensure crew on long-haul flights get some shut-eye. Sleeping isn't clever, evolutionarily speaking. We spend a third of our lives in an extremely vulnerable position, unaware of our surroundings, exposed to threats of predator...

New Zealand's native long-tailed bat, pekapeka-tou-roa, is going strong in Franklin, south of Auckland. But these tiny mammals are threatened by introduced predators, especially cats. Producer Liz Garton goes on a bat hunt and learns about locals' efforts to keep their pekapeka neighbours safe. A recent survey of the long-tailed bat population in Franklin, south of Auckland, showed there were many...

Not everything goes to plan on research trips. And when the trip is to a remote island aboard a navy ship designed to help with disaster relief, and happens to overlap with one of the worst weather disasters in New Zealand... well, things are going to change. Claire Concannon tells the story of Operation Endurance 2023 on Campbell Island. We thought this episode would be different. Maybe filled wi...

This week we're travelling back in time 66 million years ago with producer William Ray, to a time when dinosaurs roamed. Join William as he meets two Tyrannosaurus rex fossils at the Auckland Museum and uncovers the story behind the bones. In 2022 Auckland War Memorial Museum received two new guests: a pair of gigantic fossilised Tyrannosaurus rex skeletons. Join producer William Ray as he meets t...

They can hunt, they can fish, they build little nurseries for their babies. Oh and some of them also engage in a bit of sexual cannibalism. Claire Concannon goes on a nighttime stroll in Kirikiriroa Hamilton to meet some fascinating spiders, and learn all about the weird world of spider reproduction. Simon Connolly has watched around 1100 hours of footage of male spiders being placed into plastic...

With the Bug of the Year 2023 competition coming to the closing stages, it's not surprising that things are getting heated. In this breaking news story we learn how voting preferences have caused a rift in the Painting lab. With the inaugural Bug of the Year competition coming to the closing stages, it's not surprising that things are getting heated in some corners. Follow Our Changing World...

What do marine biologists get up to? Some Evans Bay Intermediate school students are learning all about it at the Victoria University Coastal Ecology Lab. Claire Concannon tags along to listen in, and to catch up with Professor James Bell to learn more about his research on sea sponges. Shouts of surprise and excitement ring through the foyer of the Wellington University Coastal Ecology Lab. Four...

Claire Concannon investigates how luminescence and specialised materials could be key to our growing data storage needs, and visits a test site for native vertical gardens that could cloak the walls of Wellington's city buildings. More of us are making use of 'the cloud': we press save, and our precious photos, documents and data are stored, somewhere. But behind this ethereal shopfront...

In the final instalment of our summer science series, we bring you two stories from the ocean. First we have a story on marine noise pollution from Victoria University of Wellington Centre for Science in Society student, Xanthe Smith. Then, we have an episode on pāua from RNZ podcast Voices, presented by Kadambari Raghukumar. In the final instalment of our summer science series, we bring you two s...

We continue our summer science series with an episode from RNZ's The Aotearoa History Show. In the first episode of season two, the show burrows into the story of rabbits and other pests introduced to New Zealand. We continue our summer science series with an episode from RNZ's The Aotearoa History Show. In the first episode of season two, the show burrows into the story of rabbits and other...

As part of our summer science series we bring you an episode of The Otago Chronicles podcast, hosted by Max Balloch. In this episode, Max talks to Associate Professor James Scott from the University of Otago Department of Geology about looking up at the night sky and the hunt for what would've been New Zealand's 10th meteorite. Our summer science series continues this week with an episode of The O...

Two stories about genetics produced by students at the University of Otago's Department of Science Communication. Amanda Konyn investigates whether gene editing has a role in future pest control, while Richard Marks explores why the "eat less, move more" approach to weight loss isn't really working. Each year, science communication students at the University of Otago's Department of Science C...

MethaneSAT is the first New Zealand government funded space mission. A joint project between the United States' Environmental Defense Fund and New Zealand, the project will see a methane sensing satellite launched into orbit. Science journalist Peter Griffin finds out why and how. MethaneSAT - the first NZ-government-funded space mission - is launching a satellite that will detect emissions leakin...

The kākerōri or Rarotongan flycatcher is a South Pacific conservation success story. Once reduced to just 29 birds, it has been rescued from the brink of extinction by a rat control programme managed by the land-owners of the Takitumu Conservation Area in the Cook Islands. Alison Ballance visits to find out more. The delightful little kākerōri, or Rarotonga flycatcher, has been brought back from t...

If the future of healthcare is personalised genomics, how can we ensure that it is used to lessen inequities, rather than strengthen them? This week, Our Changing World speaks to two of the co-leaders of the Rakieora programme - a pilot to develop a New Zealand-specific national database for genomic research. If the future of healthcare is personalised genomic medicine, how can we ensure that geno...

Genome sequencing has become a household term during this pandemic. This week, we explore how it became an important tool in the fight against Covid-19. We've become familiar with a whole suite of words and their meanings over the last three years of this pandemic - coronavirus, variant of concern, mutation. There is one term in particular that many of us probably wouldn't have come acro...