Nights

Author and hardcore Sydney sider Peter Fitzsimons has returned to the pub for the first time in over three months. He says its chocka with happy people. This is the first time Peter has had to use a vaccination certificate to gain entry anywhere and people are relishing it. He joins Karyn from outside the pub.

The big horticulture news today is that we're having an avocado glut! So if you don't have an avocado pear baby at home chewing through them, what do you do with this wealth of green goodness? Michael Franks is the CEO of Avocado exporter Seeka, so he should have a couple of ideas.

As a nation we're learning to think differently under Covid-19, as the government looks at what a future with covid-19 in our communities looks like. But there are concerns that some communities will bear the brunt of lifting restrictions much more than others. Since the beginning of the Delta outbreak māori health professionals have been calling for urgent measures to be put in place so the weight of the pandemic is not felt disproportionately by māori communities.

Computer simulations of dinosaurs has yielded an accidental discovery ... their tails wagged when they walked. Historically it has been accepted that the giant creatures' tails were a counterbalance, helping to keep them steady. Studying locomotion in fossils has always been tricky .. but a research team at the Royal Veterinary College in London has found dinosaurs' tails actually moved and helped them to walk efficiently. The aim of the study was to find out how they walked and ran and how high they could jump. Dr Peter Bishop, who is currently a research fellow at Harvard University in the US - tells Nine to Noon's Kathryn Ryan high tech simulations revealed their tails could actually swing up and down.

Advice to Dairy Farmers from Ministry of Primary Industries has gone down like a cup of cold sick. Late this afternoon Dairy farmers were told if they get Covid they have to get their neighbour to milk their cows. Jason Herrick is Federated Farmers Southland Dairy chair.

Two sex workers arrested in Blenheim have till 5pm tomorrow to get back to Auckland where they belong. Several other suggestions that sex workers have been breaching borders in lockdown have come to light in relation to Northland's move to Level Three. So how has Covid changed the job of sex workers? And what is forcing them to take risks? Dame Catherine Healy from the NZ Sex Workers Collective discusses this with Karyn Hay.

Our overseas correspondent in Russia, Bryan MacDonald joins us from Moscow.

NIWA marine physicist and Antarctic specialist, Natalie Robinson who will be heading down to the ice in a couple of weeks for the Summer season. She talk with Karyn Hay.

Aleksandra Ilina, PhD student at Victoria University of Wellington give us her scientific take on Hypermatter from Star Wars.

An explosion of fat, venomous snakes. That's how Sean Cade the owner of Australian Snake Catchers in NSW is describing it. At the beginning of October he removed an "extra-large" six foot eastern brown snake from a western Sydney home and says Its body was as thick as a beer bottle. Sean joins us to discuss the reasons behind the increase.