Afternoons

Last night at Parliament the Prime Minister's Space Prizes were presented. These prizes were established to recognise the talented people working in space and aviation and also to inspire younger people to get into the industry. And it seems like it's working, Sophie Ineson, a Year 12 student from Southland Girls' High School won the prize for Student Endeavour, for her project to design better wound care for astronauts. Sophie's prize is NZ$50,000 for tertiary study; she tells Jesse what she plans to do with it!

The Hawke's Bay East Coast Branch Construction Awards celebrates outstanding infrastructure achievements... and we reckon infrastructure in Hawkes Bay, post cyclone Gabrielle, is something we should all be excited about. Jesse talks to one of the judges Greg Lumsden.

A new report by Netsafe and the global anti scam alliance shows that New Zealand lost a record $3 billion to scams this year, which is up 30 percent from the prior year. In response the Government says it is taking action with a planned law change that it says will see potentially fraudulent ads being taken offline quicker. But is that enough? Jesse talks to former scam victim turned scam rescue adviser Glenn Baker.

It's time for our expert feature and today we're talking about navigating divorce & separation Alongside the death of a loved one, separation and divorce can be one of the most painful and difficult periods of someone's life. Divorce and separation coach Kimberlee Sweeney joins Jesse for the next 30 minutes to answer all your questions

You know it when you see it. An email from a co-worker or marketing pitch from a company that lands in your inbox, but you know it was written by artificial intelligence. AI promised to make work faster, smarter, and more efficient, but sometimes those emails take time to unpick and fix. There's a word for that, "workslop". It's content that masquerades as meaningful but requires others to interpret. Dr. Kate Niederhoffer is a social psychologist and vice president of BetterUp Labs. She co-authored a new study and says workslop is becoming a growing source of frustration in the workplace. Link to the survey here!

We're trying something new here on Afternoons, we've decided Monday is club day, a chance for Jesse to hit the clubs. If you have a club you'd like Jesse to join for the day please get in touch at [email protected] Today, we're starting Jesse's clubbing adventure with Barbs Peterson from Auckland based choir Stimmung.

Let's talk what to watch on the box now and who better to tell us what's good right now, than actor Michelle Langstone. Film Club (Three Now) Educators - Season Four (TVNZ)

Mimiro is an ancient Maori building technique that sees wooden supports fastened together using joints similar to tongue and groove and then the whole structure is fastened to the ground with rope. It's an example of building techniques that architect and academic Professor Anthony Hoete says could and should be used more in construction. He speaks to Jesse.

Last week we spotted an invitation to an event in Hamilton that had us intrigued; it was a conversation about how artificial intelligence can help identify the birds singing around us. We hear so much about how terrible AI is, we wanted to learn about how it could be used for good. Dr Andrew Lensen certainly thinks it can be, he's a computer scientist leading MBIE-funded "AI for good" work, including using computer vision to recognise individual kaka and related projects on kiwi call recognition.

Concern is sweeping the country amid a possible asbestos contamination of coloured play sands, with 120 schools and early play centers having contacted the Ministry of Education on this issue. Asbestos expert and co-director of the Environmental Innovation Centre, AUT Associate Professor Terri-Ann Berry spoke with Jesse Mulligan on just how worried the public should be.