Sunday Morning for Sunday 24 September 2023

8:10 Anna Kornadt: Why we rarely feel our age 

The quote attributed to American Baseball plater Satchel Paige, goes “How old would you be if you didn’t know what age you were?” 

Most of us feel an age that bears no relation to our physical age. 

Anna Kornadt is a professor in psychology at the University of Luxembourg with a focus on aging and lifespan development and head of their Institute of Lifespan Development, Family and Culture. 

8:30 Mark Abdelmalek: How much is too much when it comes to showering

Our skin is our first line of defence … and as a culture, we like to keep it clean. But according to Philadelphia dermatologist Dr Mark Abdelmalek a shower a few days a week is probably all we need. He says while long hot showers feel great, they’re stripping our body of its natural oils, “Culturally, we are over-showering”.

Mark is a prominent skin cancer surgeon and also the go-to health correspondent for ABC news in the United States, he joins Jim to discuss how much is too much when it comes to showering.

8:50 Jack Chen: Do we still need to separate laundry? 

Most of us learned to do laundry from our parents, and at some point we were told the story of the red sock making the laundry pink. But according to some, we don’t need to separate laundry anymore. 

Jack Chen, Senior Lecturer in Chemistry at Auckland University of Technology joins us. 

9:10 Mediawatch 

Mediawatch looks at the latest from the election campaign in the media - as party leaders lined up on live TV for the first time.  

Also: what the future holds for New Zealand's biggest news publisher - and some overdue good news for Dunedin. 

9:30 Calling Home: Brett Sargon in Calgary, Alberta 

A curling team from New Zealand have been ‘adopted’ by a retirement home in Calgary, Alberta. 

In return for four months of accommodation, the team integrate with the residents; similar to an intergenerational scheme ran in the Dutch city of Deventer 

They’re in Calgary to practice with their eyes on qualifying for the World Men's Curling Championship 2024 in Switzerland, and eventually the 2026 Olympics. 

Vice-skip Brett Sargon joins us. 

9:45 Mark Reason: Rugby World Cup Update 

As two of the favourites for the Rugby World Cup – South Africa and Ireland – go head-to-head at the Stade de France in Saint-Denis, we go live for the latest from Mark Reason, Stuff’s senior sports columnist.  

10:10 Arthur C Brooks: Understanding Happiness 

How can we bring more happiness into our lives? How do we translate a yearning for happiness into the sort of action that will enable us to grasp it? How do we live, now, in a less-and-less happy world. 

A Professor at Harvard Business School, best-selling author of 13 books and writer of the Atlantic Monthly’s How To Build a Life column, Arthur C. Brooks joins us. 

His new book, written in tandem with Oprah Winfrey, is called Build The Life You Want.  

11:10 Ali Hill: The Nutrition Edition  

Dr Ali Hill from Otago University's Department of Human Nutrition joins us once again. This time we find out if eating eggs can really make us happier. 

11:20 Lavina Good: The Asian Games 

Sports journalist, Lavina Good joins us from Hangzhou, China with the latest from the 19th Asian Games. 

11:40 Dr Sam Parnia: Life, death and in-between 

We may never solve the question of what happens when our hearts stop and electrical activity in our brain flatlines, but science is giving this a good go now.  

Dr Sam Parnia is a British associate professor of Medicine at New York University's Grossman School of Medicine, where he is also director of research into cardiopulmonary resuscitation, director of the Human Consciousness Project at the UK’s University of Southampton and author of the book The Lazarus Effect: The Science That is Rewriting the Boundaries Between Life and Death.  

He has been studying the moment of death for more than two decades.