Sunday Morning for Sunday 22 December 2019

7.10 Breakthrough study highlights true dangers of vaping 

Dr. Stanton Glantz has been tracking e-cigarette users for the last three years as part of the first study on the long-term effects of vaping, and the results are troubling, with vapers about 30% more likely to have developed a chronic lung disease like asthma or emphysema. And the news is worse still for 'dual users' who both smoke and use e-cigrarettes. If you're a smoker who is also using e-cigarettes, you more than triple your odds of developing lung disease. 

7.26 3MM: Chris Clarke on those we've lost in 2019 

New Zealanders share brief thoughts on important topics to them. Here's the former CEO of World vision, Chris Clarke on a high number of prominent Kiwis who sadly left us in 2019. 

7.45 Mike Anstis: Calling Home from Al Ain, United Arab Emirates  

Mike Anstis might just take the cake as the Calling Home candidate with the most obscure vocation we've detailed this year. He's a cloud seed pilot in the United Arab Emirates and his role sees him intentionally seek out turbulence and cumuliform clouds so he can 'seed' them with chemical flares. He's Calling Home from Al Ain. 

08:12 Time's up for volunteering

Insight - Volunteering is facing a crisis. Insight's report Teresa Cowie investigates how essential services can survive as more and more people decide they can't make on going commitments to help out.

Participants: Teresa Cowie, zoe hector, Katie Bruce, Michelle Stronach-Marsh, Patrick Holmes, Peeni Henare, Keith Manch

8:41 Taming chronic inflammation may reduce illness, save lives

Systemic chronic inflammation is causing health systems all around the world to buckle, but there are ways we can lower the stresses and damage that come with age-related inflammation. Professor Judith Campisi is an expert on ageing and inflammation at the Buck Institute for Research on Ageing. 

9:05: Mediawatch

Mediawatch talks to a former journalist turned novelist now in the inner circle of national intelligence. Also: a provocative political policy on cycling called out on talkback radio, and personalities who proved the media wrong in 2019. 

 

9:45 The 50 best good news stories of 2019 

Los Angeles-based illustrator Mauro Gatti was growing sick and tired of the continuous stream of bad news stories and fake news he was reading. So he started putting together a list of the best news stories of the year -- paired with his excellent, original illustrations. And the response has been phenomenal. 

10:04 Heatwave hell in Australia 

Temperatures soared throughout Melbourne this week as catastrophic bushfires continue to rage across the country, with the weather bureau bumping up its forecast maximum from 41 degrees to a scorching 43 on Friday. Rebekah Holt will join the show from Melbourne for an update on what is expected to be the city's hottest December on record.

10.15 Vanessa Baxter's top Christmas tips 

A new survey shows that lamb has moved ahead of ham as New Zealanders' favourite meat choice on Christmas Day. The poll had lamb closely followed by traditional favourite ham and with beef a very distant third. Chef Vanessa Baxter joins the show with a few expert tips to help make your Christmas meal something to remember. 

10.25 Hamimah Tuyan: 'We need to learn to embrace our differences' 

She moved her family back to Singapore in the wake of the Christchurch mosque tragedy that claimed the life of her husband, Zekeriya, the 51st and final victim, but Hamimah Tuyan remains committed to 'walking the talk' when it comes to helping Kiwis recover from the deadliest mass shootings in modern New Zealand history.  

10:35 Is it time to revive The Society for the Prevention of Useless Giving? 

It's Christmastime and that means the large majority of us will receive gifts we neither wanted nor needed. Writer Livia Gershon has been looking at the history of giving Christmas gifts and what inspired actress Eleanor Robson Belmont and J.P. Morgan's daughter, Anne Morgan to form the Society for the Prevention of Useless Giving (SPUG) in 1912. 

11:05 Baldwin St back in the running to be world's steepest 

Dunedin surveyor Toby Stoff recently undertook a fact-finding mission to Wales, where he visited Ffordd Pen Llech in Harlech, which dethroned Dunedin's Baldwin St as the world's steepest street in July. His findings backed up his claim that Baldwin St is steeper than its Welsh rival. Now he's putting together a new application to Guinness World Records. 

11:17 'More violence in Hong Kong could be on the horizon' 

A recent op-ed piece in the South China Morning Post suggested that Hong Kong was descending into terrorism, with protesters now reportedly making homemade bombs. Christine Loh is a former undersecretary for the environment turned scholar. She says more violence is inevitable if dialogue isn't settled on as an alternative. 

11.30 Catherine Robertson and Stephen Franks' Year in Review 

It goes without saying that 2019 will be a year that few Kiwis will forget in a hurry. Author Catherine Robertson and lawyer Stephen Franks join Jim to cover off the highlights and lowlights of what has been a completely unforgettable 12 months in New Zealand, and share their hopes and wishes for 2020 and beyond.