Afternoons for Tuesday 28 June 2022

 

1:20 How to combat plant blindness 

Now we're looking at improving conservation by combating plant blindness.

We're not talking about plants' eyesight, but about how people tend to ignore plants, which can be harmful to the efforts of plant conservation.

Dr Jason Low is an Associate Professor in Psychology at Te Herenga Waka - Victoria University of Wellington, and is here to talk to us about about this psychological occurence.

1:30 Collaboration with NASA for Rocket Lab launch

The University of Canterbury is leading a research collaboration with assistance from NASA's CAPSTONE mission team, which Rocket Lab is launching tonight. 

CAPSTONE is a miniaturised satellite about the size of a microwave and will embark on a four-month journey to orbit around the Moon for at least six months to understand the characteristics of the orbit. 

The University of Canterbury is leading the research collaboration to track the spacecraft and space junk

To tell us about the University of Canterbury's role Wallace Chapman speaks Electrical and Computer Engineering academic Associate Professor, Stephen Weddell.

1.40 Matariki payments mooted by Bernard Hickey

Bernard Hickey wants the Government to introduce a helicopter payment system through what he is calling a 'Matariki account."

The Editor of economic and political newsletter, The Kaka,  is urging against printing more money to benefit wealthy asset owners and instead argues money should be distributed into a separate Reserve Bank account for every resident.

These Matariki accounts would be topped up with a new digital currency called the e-tāra, which is pegged to the regular New Zealand dollar.

The idea is that this would fairly and cleanly distribute Government payments, run monetary policy and back up the existing banking system in the next crisis. Bernard explains his idea to Wallace.

1:50 Tech Tuesday with Daniel Watson

Today owner and managing director of Vertech IT Services talks to Wallace about drones and their rise in popularity and incidents in the civilian world as well as their use in warfare.

2:10 Book Critic: Catherine Ross

This week librarian at Diocesan School for Girls, Catherine Ross, looks at books for younger readers with an LGBTQIA+ theme. The theme coincides with the past fortnight when libraries have been running their 'Out on the Shelves' campaign, which also coincided with Pride in Schools week (13-17 June) and the runaway success of the recent Netflix series, based on the hugely popular Graphic Novel series by Alice Osman.

You can find a list of her books and thoughts on each one on her blogsite here. 

2:20 Music feature: Comedy songs 

For today's music feature we're looking at Comedy songs.

These tunes not only feature hilarious lyrics, but are often real ear-worms.

For whatever reason they hold a special place in our hearts, and today's playlist has been specially curated from audience suggestions so we're going to try to fit in as many as possible.

3:10 Fighting misinformation online, the experts leading the way 

When misinformation about the coronavirus is spreading like a virus, who you gonna call? The Virality Project. This group of research organizations led by the Stanford University Internet Observatory organized a Rapid Response team to help health departments and government agencies combat misinformation about COVID 19 on social media.  We'll talk to Assistant Director Elena Cryst about worked to stop rumors and outright lies about vaccines and other misinformation.  

3:30 Spoken Feature: BBC Witness

It's 20 years since Omar Bongo, the president of Gabon, set up a network of national parks to protect the country's rain forest from logging and help save its population of forest elephants. He was responding to pressure from campaigners worried by a surge in logging over the previous decade. Among them was a British biologist called Lee White, who went on to become Gabon's Minister of Forests and the Environment. Lee White talks to Laura Jones.

3:45 The Panel with Anna Dean and Christopher Finlayson