18 Dec 2023

Best of 2023: Our Changing World

5:51 pm on 22 December 2023

"I love my job. I’m a total science geek so it suits me perfectly to go nerd out with other nerds and then make stories to share with you. Here are a few of the Our Changing World episodes from 2023 that I’ve particularly enjoyed putting together. Load them up in your podcast player and prepare to be intrigued and entertained by Aotearoa’s fascinating researchers" - Claire Concannon, host of RNZ's award-winning science and nature podcast Our Changing World.

Claire is facing away from the camera, wearing a blue rainjacket and a blue beanie with a pompom on top. She is wearing headphones and holding two microphones. Richard is facing Claire and speaking while holding a small rust-coloured bird in his hand. He is wearing a bright orange fleece and a green beanie. The pair are sitting in scrubby flax vegetation.

Claire Concannon interviews DOC principal technical advisor Richard Maloney about tagging southern New Zealand dotterels. Photo: © Oscar Thomas

Positive emotions in animals

How do you know whether an animal is happy? I mean if it’s a dog, sure, they wag their tails. But if it’s a wild bird, or a rabbit, or a rat? Can they even be happy? Professor Ximena Nelson explored this question by studying wild kea. We caught up in her office where she showed me the impressively kea-proofed speaker she and her team had designed, after several prototypes failed the kea-curiosity-test. Listen to find out whether kea might experience joy.

Photo: Karl Anderson/Unsplash

The puzzle of the silent mind

When I first heard about anauralia – the variation of human experience in which people don’t have an inner voice – it blew my mind. I couldn’t stop thinking about it and telling people about it. So, I knew it had to be an episode. It was fascinating to speak to the researchers, but my favourite was talking to anauraliac Sang-Hyun Kim about how he experiences the world so very differently to me. Find out why one particular scene from Friends was totally confusing for him.

A man wearing headphones facing away from the camera, with a moving train blurred in the background.

Photo: Burst/Pexels

Dotterels: The Southland underdog

There are two reasons I made this episode on southern New Zealand dotterels. First, they are one of Aotearoa’s most endangered birds, down to 126 individuals at last count. Second, they’ve got this amazing champion in a young DOC ranger called Daniel Cocker. He’s been fighting in the Southern New Zealand dotterel corner ever since he first came across them on Rakiura’s mountaintops when he was 14 years old. Now he works full-time as a ranger on their conservation team. Plus, I got to learn all about wading birds from another young bird enthusiast Oscar Thomas. Join me and the team for a day in Southland’s beautiful Awarua Bay.

The hands of a person wearing a bright orange fleece gently hold a small bird with mottled brown and white plumage above and rust-coloured plumage on its breast. The bird has a small device attached to its back and blue and green rings around one of its legs.

A southern New Zealand dotterel is equipped with a tag for tracking where it goes during the summer. Photo: © Oscar Thomas

Retraining the tinnitus brain

This story generated the most emails from listeners. Most who got in touch had suffered from tinnitus for many years without being aware of any therapies they could try. I really feel for those who have chronic tinnitus on loud, all the time. It must be tough. In the episode, I played with sound to give the listener an inkling of what it’s like to experience tinnitus. Have a listen.

A portrait of Grant. He is in front of a diagram of the anatomy of the ear. He has a wry smile and is wearing a blue shirt.

Professor Grant Searchfield is head of Audiology at the University of Auckland Photo: University of Auckland

Why are penguins so cool?

Initially I was going to fit two penguin-related stories into one episode. But then I sat down with Dr Daniel Thomas and he spoke in non-stop fascinating penguin facts for an hour! The story of how a bird flying in air evolved into the formally attired sea-flyers we have today is totally enthralling. Keep an eye out for part two about modern-day penguins coming in 2024.

An illustration of a giant penguin with a long beak exiting the ocean onto a sandy beach. It is surrounded by smaller penguins, also with long beaks.

Concept image of the giant extinct penguin Kumimanu fordycei towering over other extinct penguins that were closer in size to modern-day emperor penguins. Photo: Simone Giovanardi

The sex life of spiders

The University of Waikato media release read ‘extreme monogyny with spontaneous male death and sexual cannibalism’, so naturally I had to learn more. Cue a nighttime spider hunt in Hamilton with Dr Chrissie Painting and her enthusiastic PhD student Simon Connolly. Simon is a truly passionate spider nerd (and yes he has a Spiderman t-shirt collection) and this was one of the most fun recordings I did all year. It’s a fun listen too!

Chrissie reaches into a bush with a jar while Simon watches. It's night-time and the pair are lit by torches as they kneel on long grass.

Simon Connolly and Chrissie Painting catching spiders. Photo: Claire Concannon / RNZ.