Nights

We catch up with our Overseas correspondent in Scotland, Andrew Learmonth who'll bring us up to date on the Alex Salmond controversy and the impact that's having on the government and independence?

Toxicologist Leo Schep is taking a look at that traditional South Pacific psychoactive beverage used for social and cultural purposes, called Kava.

Find out who is this week's quiz whizz!

Lisa Clunie joins us to talk about her and Thorsten Hoppe's exhibition wet-land - an investigation of the Hikurangi Repo/ Swamp where the artists live, which was once one of Aotearoa's largest wetlands.

Massey University scholar and the co-creator of The Linguistics Lounge podcast, Dr Julia de Bres makes her debut as our latest after dinner speaker. Tonight she takes on the New Zealand accent - which despite making a lot of us cringe was recently voted the sexiest in the world.

Our Sportscaster, Helene Elliot is on the line from LA with news of the ongoing sports seasons in the US and how they are shaping up under covid and she's been thinking ahead to what the Tokyo Olympics might look like with fewer fans and less integration between athletes.

Who is legally responsible for protecting our ice caps? Could a Polar approach to climate change strengthen political and legal responses to climate change and other human activities in both the Arctic and Antarctic regions? We're joined by University of Canterbury Law Professor Karen Scott co- editor of the Polar Law Research Handbook which explores these and other questions of law and policy relating to the Antarctic and Arctic in their new book, published in December 2020.

Reem Abbas joins us once again from Khartoum.

Associate Professor Geoff Willmott, MacDiarmid Institute Deputy Director for Commercialisation and Industry Engagement, and Associate Professor of Physics at the University of Auckland gives us his scientific take on the stillsuit from Dune, the water-saving suit that recycled sweat and other fluids.

To mark World Hearing Day, we talk to Dr David Welch, Head of Audiology, at the University of Auckland about their "Dangerous Decibels" education, screening programmes for hearing loss in New Zealand.