Navigation for News Categories
Our Changing World headlines with summaries.
-
Freshwater friends at Zealandia
18 May 2023Claire Concannon meets the latest addition to the Zealandia ecosanctuary family - toitoi, or common bully. Zealandia CEO Dr Danielle Shanahan explains why these little fish will be an important part…
Audio -
Head knocks in junior rugby
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…
Audio -
Special edition: Prime Minister's Science Prizes 2022
2 May 2023Meet 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…
Audio -
Blooming cyclones
27 Apr 2023Tropical 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…
Audio -
Seeds of hope for seagrass meadows
20 Apr 2023Grab 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…
Audio -
Kiwi return to the wilds of Wellington
13 Apr 2023The 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…
Audio -
The unwelcome visitors
6 Apr 2023The 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…
Audio -
What will happen to alpine plants in a warming world?
30 Mar 2023As 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…
Audio -
The Noises Islands: Part 2
23 Mar 2023This 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…
Audio -
The Noises Islands: Part 1
16 Mar 2023The 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…
Audio -
Sleeping on the job
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…
Audio -
When plans change
23 Feb 2023Not 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…
Audio -
A pair of tyrants
16 Feb 2023This 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…
Audio -
The sex life of spiders
9 Feb 2023They 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…
Audio -
Bonus: Bug of the Year 2023 causing lab tension
9 Feb 2023With 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…
Audio -
The secret life of sea sponges
2 Feb 2023What 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…
Audio -
Green data storage, green walls
26 Jan 2023Claire 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…
Audio -
Summer science: Two stories from the ocean
19 Jan 2023In 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…
Audio -
Summer science: Rabbits and other pests
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…
Audio -
Summer science: The hunt for New Zealand's tenth meteorite
5 Jan 2023As 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…
Audio -
Summer science: Two stories about genetics
22 Dec 2022Two 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…
Audio -
An eye in the sky to detect methane emissions
15 Dec 2022MethaneSAT 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…
Audio -
Conservation successes in the Cook Islands
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…
Audio -
Planning for Aotearoa's genomic medicine future
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…
Audio
Top News stories
- Jimmy Heremaia sentenced to life in prison for murder of Ariki Rigby
- Police Commissioner Richard Chambers on mental health callouts, methamphetamine and recruitment
- Peter Burling parts ways with Team NZ
- Flip-flopping Trump's biggest U-turns, from abortions to Covid-19
- Major traffic disruption as Wellington Water fixes major sewer main
