Nine To Noon

Lucy Cooke is an award-winning zoologist, broadcaster, filmmaker, and author. Her latest book Bitch: A Revolutionary Guide to Sex, Evolution and the Female Animal breaks down "sexist stereotypes" of female animals peddled by the scientific patriarchy for at least 150 years. From polyamorous chimps, to alpha-female hyenas, menopausal killer whales and lesbian lizard, Lucy dismantles the male scientific bias and discovers female animals are just as promiscuous, competitive, aggressive, dominant and dynamic as males.

Oliver Farry is a Hong Kong-based journalist, writer and photographer.

After a two year Covid-19 enforced absence, the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo is returning to the grounds of Edinburgh Castle. The new Creative Director is expat Michael Braithwaite who's promising some innovations as part of the massed bands spectacular. One of the crowd favourites, The New Zealand Army Band, returns this year to join the hundreds of other performers taking part.

A recently formed citizen science project to track down freshly fallen meteorites is deploying specialised night-sky meteor cameras across the motu. Fireballs Aotearoa is a collaboration between the universities of Otago and Canterbury and the astronomy community. Two weeks ago a meteor lit up the sky during the day near Wellington and Fireballs Aeotearoa members swiftly got to work trying to pinpoint where it fell. Kathryn talks to Associate Professor of Geology at Otago University, James Scott.

New Kiwi-led research has looked at what nurses involved in the process of voluntary assisted dying have experienced, and how it could lead to better support - both procedurally and emotionally. Ministry of Health data out last week shows that between November 2021 and June 30 this year,143 people had sought an assisted death in New Zealand, with most - 79 per cent - choosing to die at home. The research, led by AUT, found nurses could benefit from clear policy, psychological support, and specific guidance around difficult end-of-life conversations. Dr Margaret Sandham led the team investigating this, she's a Senior Lecturer of Nursing at the AUT School of Clinical Sciences and joins Lynn to explain what they found.

Film and TV reviewer James Croot looks at the film adaptation of Delia Owens' novel Where the Crawdads Sing (cinemas), a new and controversial adaptation of Jane Austen's Persuasion (Netflix), and seasons four of What We Do in the Shadows (Neon) and Virgin River (Netflix).

Neuroscience educator Deb Rewiri returns with why it has never been so important to get on board with traditional Maori parenting practices, and what help is at hand to support struggling whanau to embrace indigenous parenting approaches.

Tech correspondent Bill Bennett joins Kathryn to talk about new Australian research into how much data is being collected about users of Chinese-owned TikTok and why it's concerning, what's behind a decision by Spark and Vodafone to sell their mobile towers and whether virtual reality actually increases productivity.

Phil Vine reviews No Other Place to Stand: An Anthology of Climate Change Poetry from Aotearoa New Zealand, Edited by Jordan Hamel, Rebecca Hawkes, Erik Kennedy and Essa Ranapiri, published by Auckland University Press.

High Performance Sport has released an action plan following a critical independent inquiry finding the organisation's high performance model is broken and needs to be "reimagined". Commissioned after the suspected suicide of Olympic cyclist Olivia Podmore in August last year, the findings and recommendations of the 104-page report were released in May. Kathryn speaks with Stuff's National Correspondent specialising in sport Dana Johannsen.