Nine To Noon

Val Butcher talks to Kathryn about why she loves her job. The 81 year old has worked at the post office in the tiny historic settlement of Ophir for 20 years.

Women in the United States are being warned against using menstrual tracking apps or even Googling "abortion" in the wake of a leaked opinion which suggests a landmark legal protection could be overturned. Last week an initial draft majority opinion belonging to Justice Samuel Alito was leaked, indicating the Supreme Court had voted to overturn Roe v Wade, the legal precedent guaranteeing American women the right to an abortion. Any decision is not final until it is published, likely to be in June. But it's prompted fears about what such a fundamental legal change would mean - not just in terms of abortion access - but for how technology may come into play. Kathryn speaks to Nikolas Guggenberger is executive director of the Information Society Project at Yale Law School and Daly Barnett, who's a technologist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Film and TV reviewer Chris Schulz looks at whether the final seven episodes of Ozark lived up to the show's hype, new drama series starring Toni Collete and Colin Firth that's based around a high-profile murder trial in The Staircase and the local version of Lego Masters.

New research from the New Zealand Council for Educational Research looks at what gives Māori and Pasifika students the best chance of success at school. Through four studies, the Conceptualising Māori and Pasifika Aspirations and Striving for Success "COMPASS" project has identified critical factors that serve as important punga/anchors in the educational journeys of akonga/students. Senior Researcher at the New Zealand Council for Educational Research, Mohamed Alansari speaks with Kathryn Ryan.

New research from the New Zealand Council for Educational Research looks at what gives Maori and Pasifika students the best chance of success at school. Through four studies, the Conceptualising Maori and Pasifika Aspirations and Striving for Success COMPASS project has identified critical factors that serve as important punga/anchors in the educational journeys of akonga/students. Senior Researcher at the New Zealand Council for Educational Research, Mohamed Alansari speaks with Kathryn Ryan.

Technology correspondent Dr Mahsa Mohaghegh joins Kathryn to look at the role artificial intelligence plays in digital addiction, by doing things like creating immersive and personalised spaces that constantly catch user attention. She'll also look at research into why AI still struggles with the nuances of human language - can studying the human brain help to build AI systems that can learn and reason like people do?

Harry Ricketts reviews Another Beautiful Day Indoors by Erik Kennedy, published by Te Herenga Waka University Press.

If you're a fit 84 year old and you have a heart attack - should you be sent to the cardiologist or a geriatrician? Kathryn's guest Dick Sainsbury argues it should be the former - even though he's spent decades working in geriatric medicine. Based in Christchurch, Dick is a retired geriatrician and emeritus professor at Otago University, who spent 6 years on the New Zealand Medical Council and eight on the Artificial Limb Service. His anecdotes, thoughts, papers and teaching points from his career have formed the basis of an engaging book about aging called "All Experience is an Arch" - in which he infuses his love of literature. A keen cricketer, Dick had his own health scare 25 years ago - going into cardiac arrest on the cricket pitch and being revived by his teammates - who were all doctors.

Hugo Gye is Deputy Political Editor of The i Paper, based in the House of Commons press gallery.

Demand for a local seaweed-based biostimulants jumped 200 percent this autumn compared to the same time last year, partly driven by price hikes for synthetic fertilisers, as the war in Ukraine affects global supplies. AgriSea has been making biostimulant products for 25 years, and says demand is also growing as farmers become more conscious of where farm inputs come from. AgriSea collects seaweed from remote shores of coastal New Zealand and brews the harvest into a nutrient-rich concentrate at a factory in Paeroa. The company is also developing a seaweed farm in the Hauraki Gulf. The final product is a bio-stimulant, which enables farms and orchards to improve outcomes for soil, pasture, plant and animal health. Seaweed is a burgeoning sector in New Zealand, and globally, the seaweed sector is estimated to be worth more than $20 billion. Kathryn speaks to the chief executive of AgriSea, Clare Bradley about the industry. She also speaks with Fonterra's Chief Science and Technology Officer, Jeremy Hill, initiatives Fonterra is exploring to reduce greenhouse gases, including trialling a supplement for cattle containing Asparagopsis seaweed.