Our Changing World

For a long time, nuclear fusion was viewed as a powerful, but unachievable, energy source, because the technological challenges were just too great. But recent advances, particularly in the development of powerful magnets, have reignited the race to create the world’s first efficient nuclear fusion powerplant. Claire Concannon visits one private company just outside Wellington who have joined the nuclear fusion effort, with a unique approach they believe might be the key.

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Guests:

• Dr Ratu Mataira, Founder and CEO of OpenStar Technologies
• Emily Hunter, Lead Engineer Cryogenics and Docking, OpenStar
• Thomas Berry, Deputy Direct of Plasma Science, OpenStar

Learn more:

• Read the article that accompanies this episode: Could a Kiwi company crack nuclear fusion?
• Kim Hill had a lengthy and fascinating interview with Dr Ratu Mataira in 2023 on RNZ’s Saturday Morning show. He also spoke with Alexa Cook on Morning Report in 2024 after OpenStar achieved ‘first plasma’. 
• In 2023 Our Changing World played an episode of the ABC’s Strange Frontiers that went inside the nuclear fusion reactor ITER.
• Learn more about the simplest element, Hydrogen, from RNZ’s 2019 Elemental podcast.
• The Royal Society of New Zealand has a series of videos on Ernest Rutherford’s scientific discoveries including radioactive decay and half-life, and splitting the atom. 

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In May 2024, 100 strange rocky structures were installed along Tauranga's harbour shoreline. These flower-shaped artificial rockpools, nicknamed 'sea pods', provide prime waterfront real estate for marine life – from colourful sea slugs to sneezing sponges. Justine Murray finds out how 'living sea walls' are bringing back biodiversity to urban harbours around the world, and joins a marine scientist to check out what creatures have moved into Tauranga's sea pods.

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In this episode:

00:49 – What is a sea pod?
06:27 – Living sea walls in Sydney with Dr Aria Lee

10:25 – Sea pods around the world and in Tauranga

13:06 – Monitoring marine life in the sea pods with David Culliford

20:50 – Port of Tauranga

21:48 – Looking for critters in the sea pods
…

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Speckled, pencil-thin and sporting an underbite: the lowland longjaw galaxias is New Zealand’s rarest freshwater fish species. With just seven known populations, this species is considered nationally endangered. Join producer Karthic SS at a spring-fed stream in the wild Mackenzie Basin to meet the tiny fish, hear from a researcher studying trout-proof barriers, and chat to a ranger who for 20 years has cared for the little fish he calls 'Jaws'.

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Guests:

• Dean Nelson, Senior Ranger, Biodiversity, Department of Conservation
• Martha Jolly, PhD candidate, University of Canterbury

Learn more:

• Read the article that accompanies this episode: Looking after New Zealand's rarest freshwater fish.
• Otago farmers are looking out for another species of rare non-migratory galaxiid.
• In Auckland’s Lake Rototoa, introduced perch are the problem for the native kākahi.
• Karthic produces the Tune Into Nature podcast about New Zealand’s unique wildlife.

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

Since the 1800s, tuberculosis (TB) has been responsible for an estimated 1 billion deaths. In New Zealand today, we don’t get many cases of TB, but worldwide it is the leading infectious disease killer. In the early 1900s a TB vaccine was developed. Called the BCG vaccine, it’s still used today. While it is the best TB vaccine we have, it’s not actually great at preventing TB infection, only providing some protection for the youngest of patients. However, scientists have discovered that the BCG vaccine can boost people’s immune systems in other ways. Now researchers at the Malaghan Institute in Wellington are investigating these findings further.

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Guests:

• Dr Kerry Hilligan, Malaghan Institute
• Rebecca Palmer, Malaghan Institute

Learn more:

• In 2017, Alison Ballance reported on the looming antimicrobial resistance crisis, with drug-resistant TB part of the problem.
• Other Our Changing World episodes about research at the Malaghan Institute include this 2024 episode on a new way to target rising stomach cancer rates, and this 2022 episode on next-generation cancer therapies.
• In 2021, Claire Concannon covered mRNA vaccine technology.
• The What if...? Genomics in Aotearoa series explores the different ways genomics is transforming different sectors, including infectious disease medicine.

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

2020 saw the start of two global pandemics. Covid-19, of course, but also H5N1 bird flu. The latter has swept around the world leaving millions of dead wild birds and marine mammals in its wake. It has reached everywhere – except Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific. Alison Ballance has been finding out why this strain of bird flu is so deadly, and what we are doing to get ready for its possible arrival on our shores.

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Guests:

• Dr Kate McInnes, Department of Conservation
• Dr Megan Jolly, Wildbase Hospital, Massey University
• Dr Mary van Andel, Ministry for Primary Industries
• Rob Schuckard, Birds New Zealand
• David Melville, Birds New Zealand

Learn more:

• Read the article that accompanies this episode: A deadly bird flu strain is coming. Are we ready?
• Find out about Biosecurity NZ’s bird flu surveillance work and what New Zealand is doing to prepare for the possible arrival of avian influenza.
• The Exotic Pest and Disease Hotline for reporting suspected bird flu is 0800 80 99 66.
• The Department of Conservation is preparing for the possible arrival of H5N1 bird flu in New Zealand.
• Claire Concannon spoke about viruses, including H5N1 bird flu, with virologist Professor Jemma Geoghegan, winner of the 2024 Prime Minister's Te Puiaki Whakapā Pūtaiao Science Communication Prize.

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

If you like Our Changing World, you should find and follow Wild Sounds: RNZ's new podcast feed dedicated to incredible natural science stories from New Zealand!

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In late 2024 a cluster of sick green sea turtles washed up around the Rangaunu Harbour on the east coast of the Far North. It was just another mystery in a long line of all the things we don’t know about these ocean taonga. But a new telemetry study, using these very turtles, could change all that. The study has officially kicked off with the release of five satellite-tagged honu. Liz Garton finds out what secrets the researchers hope to uncover.

From now on Our Changing World will appear on Tuesdays in your podcast feed!

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Guests:

• Dr Karen Middlemiss, Department of Conservation
• Dr James Chatterton, Auckland Zoo
• Celine Campana, Auckland Zoo
• Kim Evans, SEA LIFE Kelly Tarlton’s

Learn more:

• Read the article that accompanies this episode: Solving green sea turtle mysteries.
• Find out more about the honu that visit our shores.
• RNZ’s Peter de Graaf describes the release of the first lot of satellite-tagged turtles in Northland.
• Learn more about the international effort to protect leatherback turtles

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One from the archives! By the 1990s Chatham Island tūī had all but disappeared from the main island. Slightly different to their mainland counterparts, these songbirds had survived on nearby Pitt and Rangatira islands. So a local conservation group decided to try bring them back. In this episode from 2010, Alison Ballance joins the ‘tūī team’ tasked with moving 40 birds from Rangatira island back to the main island.

From now on Our Changing World will arrive in your podcast feed first thing on a Tuesday morning!

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In this episode:

00:00 – 02:30 Introduction and background info
02:30 – 12:14 Catching tūī on Rangatira Island

12:15 – 12:24 Team has caught 40 birds

12:25 – 24:46 Moving the birds to main Chatham Island

24:47 – 25:55 Update on the birds…

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

Smoke explosions. Fire tornadoes. Burning couches. It all happens in the fire lab: a purpose-built facility where researchers can safely set stuff on fire and study how it burns, for science. New Zealand experiences 4,500 wildfires every year, with the risk ramping up due to climate change. We visit the fire lab to watch a large gorse bush go up in flames and learn how this helps us prepare for future wildfires.

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In this episode:

01:54–09:39 – Watching a gorse bush burn in the fire lab
10:45–12:43 – Burning couches, smoke explosions and fire tornadoes
12:44–19:08 – Mini burn experiments and how research is preparing for wildfires of the future

19:08–23:32 – Kate's experience as a wildland firefighter in Canada…

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How do you go about dissecting the world’s rarest whale? In December 2024, images from a concrete room in Mosgiel, just south of Dunedin, spread around the world as a team of people spent a week doing a scientific dissection on a spade-toothed whale that had washed up five months before. Claire Concannon joins them to find out what’s involved, what they have learned, and how the arrangements between local iwi and visiting scientists enabled knowledge sharing.

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Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details