Nights

In 1949 Simone de Beauvior published The Second sex - one of the great philosophical works of the 2oth century. Kate Kirpatrick, who lectures religion philosophy and culture at Kings College in London, and who specialises in the study of de Beauvoir and her partner Jean Paul Satre, has chosen 2019 to launch a biography on the great French thinker - called Becoming Beauvoir - A Life.

New Zealand's way of regulating nightlife often restricts the opportunities for night owls. This has made nights overly tedious without improving issues of public health and security. Natanael Rother is a Research Fellow with the New Zealand Initiative specialising in localism. He joins us to talk about possible solutions.

Nights' friendly mathematician, Dillon Mayhew talks us through perfect numbers.

Monday night sports with Peter Lammp

Stephen Wessel's impending retirement, after 35 years in the business, not only ends a long and illustrious career, but could signal the end of flutemaking in the UK - a proud tradition stretching back to the nineteenth century. The Heritage Crafts Association has set out to save British flutemaking by seeking potential trainees interested in learning this intricate and highly-skilled craft from a retiring master. We talk to Stephen about his career and this fantastic opportunity.

To mark 2019 as the year of the Periodic Table, RNZ Nights has teamed up with the MacDiarmid Institute to bring you Element of The Week. Tonight, Franck Natali, MacDiarmid Principal Investigator and Senior Lecturer in the School of Chemical and Physical Sciences at Victoria University of Wellington, introduces us to the element Nitrogen and the reason for tonight's sonic tonic dedicated to meat and beans.

Motoko Kakubayashi has the latest from Japan. including the historic election of two severely disabled people into government, an arson attack on a famous anime studio and how Japan is preparing for the 2020 Olympics. Motoko also gives us her - very first hand - report on Typhoon Lekima which swept through the middle of her family holiday on the island of Miyakojima.

University of Canterbury Associate Professor Aaron Marshall is developing redox flow batteries as a viable energy storage system that will never wear.

Nights' Electronic Music Cultural Ambassador, Paul Berrington joins Bryan in the studio once again. He treats us to a few tracks from Metro Area - Morgan Geist and Darshan Jesrani.

A new species of giant penguin - about 1.6 metres tall - has been identified from fossils found in Waipara, North Canterbury. Paul Scofield, Senior Curator Natural History, Canterbury Museum joins us.