Cultural omen of darkness, reservoir of deadly viruses - bats don't have the best reputation. But they do have some impressive and potentially helpful biological quirks, including the ability to resist the ageing process.

In 1979, inspired by the countercultural movement sweeping the country, teenager Olive Jones embraced rural communal living. By the age of twenty-one she was one of the founders of the Graham Downs farming community in the Motueka Valley. Built on anarchy and idealism, with the aim of self-sufficiency, it was a bold experiment. Olive's book Commune: Chasing a Utopian Dream charts the course of the commune and the highs and lows of living without rules.

Pathologist professor Richard Scolyer's melanoma research is credited with saving tens of thousands of lives, but now he's in a race to save his own.

Nelson designer Gill Saunders is the Supreme Winner at the 2023 World of WearableArt™ show for her garment Earthling. It's Saunders' second Supreme WOW award, and her seventh award win in the show. Earthling is the third and final piece in Saunders wearable art trilogy. It takes its inspiration from the popularity of adult colouring books.

Internationally-acclaimed former principal dancer and artistic director of The Australian Ballet, David McAllister recently completed his tenure as acting artistic director of the Royal New Zealand Ballet. Throughout his career David has made numerous guest appearances worldwide, dancing with the Bolshoi Ballet. McAllister's book Ballet Confidential: A personal behind the-scenes guide lifts the curtain on a world of tutus, tulle and lycra, the pursuit of perfection, injuries and what it was like dancing for the Princess of Wales.

It won't be too long before electronic vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) is helping to treat inflammatory illness, says bioelectronic medicine specialist Kevin Tracey.

Saturday Morning Feedback

Nelson-based author and entrepreneur Peter Butler's fourth book is Night Tribe, a young adult novel set in the Kahurangi National Park. Peter's first job in Golden Bay was working on the Heaphy Track for the Forest Service. Today he's Chair of the Farewell Wharariki Health Post Nature Trust, helping to restore 12,000 hectares at the North West tip of the South Island. Peter lived for many years on a bush block near the Heaphy Track, where he still grows horopito. He is the author of two non-fiction titles: Opium & Gold and Life & Times of Te Rauparaha. His first novel was Gravel Roads.

Long-time bush man, lawyer and historian Ron Crosby's new book Te Kooti's Last Foray re-tells a forgotten period of Te Urewera history. With the help of recently discovered diaries and by tramping the forests with ex-special forces soldiers, Crosby sets the historical record straight about the mass abduction in 1870 of 218 Whakatohea people by prophet-to-be Te Kooti during the New Zealand Wars. Ron Crosby is author of The Musket Wars - A History of Inter-Iwi Conflict 1806-1845; NZSAS: The First Fifty Years, and Andris Apse - Odyssey and Images.

Long or Strong - Get Gone! - most of us know this advice on when to evacuate due to tsunami risk following an earthquake, but if it happened would we actually act? Surveys suggest around a third of New Zealanders would either not evacuate, or not evacuate fast enough in the event of a tsunami. GNS Principal scientist Graham Leonard is in to talk about tsunami risk in New Zealand and what's being done to plan and prepare for one. Research shows that regular drills are key to preparedness, and an opportunity is coming up next month with the Tsunami Hikoi