Nights

Four years ago Ranfurly local Michael Johnston was walking his dog by the Kyeburn river, when he spied something in the water. Closer investigation revealed a set of fossilied Moa footprints. The first prints discovered on the South Island. Questions abounded - what kind of Moa was it? what did it look like? And just how long ago, did it leave its now famous footprints? The answers can finally be found in a new reasearch paper published this afternoon in the "Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand". Author of that paper and curatio of natural science at Tuhura Otago Museum Kane Fleury joins Mark.

A spot of technological chaos befell Australia last week, when Optus - the second-largest telco operator in the country - experienced a catastrophic, 14-hour outage, preventing people from making calls or using the internet, and forcing shops to go cash-only for the period More than 10-million Australians and some 400-thousand businesses were affected, and Optus was heavily criticised for its … unforthcoming … response. It's now been revealed the outage was caused by a routine software update gone awry - but does that explanation stack up, and what does it say about the solidity of telco services that something so routine could lead to such calamity? We're joined by technology commentator Bill Bennett.

The Black Caps are looking to pull off one of the great cricketing upsets over the next few hours, as they take on hot favourites India in their World Cup semi-final in Mumbai ... The match should be starting RIGHT about now and we're lucky enough to have someone on the ground, it's Michael Appleton, Michael is New Zealand's high commissioner to Sri Lanka and Maldives, he's also a mega-cricket-fan ... he joins us now from inside Wankhede Stadium.

A Whanganui musican is hoping to inspire the next generation of New Zealand's music talent. James Paul has launched a charity called Community Music Aotrearoa, with the aim of offering music recording and tuition in small rural schools across the country.

An unlikely collaboration between a sound and video artist and a mechanical engineer has resulted in an exhibition exploring the cross roads of science, art and technology. Depth of Field is video and sound artwork, created by Auckland University of Technology's Dr Clinton Watkins and Dr Yuan Tao.

It's been a tough year for Wellington based Catherine O'Mara. After losing her mum to cancer she faced spending Christmas day alone for the first time. Friends and colleges stepped in, inviting the twenty-two year old to their parties... But Catherine couldn't stop thinking about the other people facing a lonely christmas. She's decided to channel the Christmas spirit, and host her own party. Taking to the Vic Deals Facebook page Catherine's invited anyone who'll be alone this year to lunch at hers.

Stop what you're doing and take a look out your window... What catches your eye? Maybe the neighbours house, or if your lucky some of our spectacular scenery... For NMIT research scientist Dr. Ellen Cieraad the answer is Street lights. For the last decade councils across the country have been transitioning to LED bulbs. They last longer and use less electricity - significantly reducing their carbon footprint. Does that mean they're better for the environment? Well, according to Ellen that depends on what you mean by "environment". She joins us to discuss the new lights unintended consequences on our native wildlife.

Saturn, as we all know, is the coolest planet. And much of its coolness stems from its very sleek, elegant rings. So it was with much alarm that we read a hypothesis: that in 2025, just 13 or so months from now... Saturn's rings may simply... disappear. Imagine that. It'd be like Rome without the Colosseum, or Ohakune without its giant carrot. Unthinkable. So what's going on here, are the rumours true, is this the manifestation of some kind of cosmic climate change writ large? To find out we welcome Ian Griffin. Astronomer and director of Otago museum.

Dr Julia de Bres is a sociolinguist and senior lecturer at Massey. She joins Mark Leishman to tell us how cats use their body language to subtly manipulate us into doing their bidding.

It's time to look at the issues making the headlines internationally with our friends at the BBC Tonight we're joined by Rich Preston.