Our Changing World

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 plants that could hold the secret to battling diabetes, HIV, and cancer.

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 about the community’s efforts to turn State Highway 35 into a Crimson Highway by rewilding this iconic native.

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.

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 on critters such as the mātātā, the South Island fernbird. We meet some of the people fighting back.

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 control experts at the Department of Conservation to learn more.

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 as the climate changes.

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 speaks with a dog welfare expert about the science behind how we know our dogs love us, and what to do to make sure we are looking after them.

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 of Otago investigating the brain-body connection in anxiety, and how different potential treatments might help.

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 Erin Gardiner to reflect on that time, and Professor Parry Guilford discusses those first formative years.

This week, we’re hanging out in the terahertz area of the light spectrum. Sandwiched between infrared light and microwaves, terahertz has been the long-forgotten cousin of the light family. But no longer! At the Australian Synchrotron, intense and focused beams of terahertz light are used to test new materials for carbon capture, clean energy applications, and the next generation of computing.

Electrons! High speeds! Intense beams of light! Claire Concannon takes a tour of our nearest particle accelerator – the Australian Synchrotron in Melbourne. Designed to create high-energy x-ray light useful for science, the synchrotron enables an incredible diversity of research. And, because of long-standing funding support, New Zealand scientists can also use it. Claire finds out what interesting research questions some visiting New Zealanders are shining a light on.

Advances in the field of genomics (the study of DNA and genomes) have meant big leaps in our ability to sequence, understand and manipulate the genomes of living things. Damian Christie explores research happening now in New Zealand in this area. Plus, with a recent announcement that the government is introducing new legislation, what’s next for the regulation of gene technologies in Aotearoa?

Wastewater testing became part of our daily lives during the Covid-19 pandemic, but what else can it tell us about what’s happening in our communities? From looking for illicit drugs, to monitoring alcohol consumption and health biomarkers, Claire Concannon meets scientists tapping into the rich research potential of what’s in our pee.