As of Friday afternoon, more than 70 percent of New Zealanders aged 12 or over had received their first dose of the Pfizer vaccine, or are booked in to receive it. But as witnessed in Israel, where Covid cases have been rising sharply since July despite a high vaccination rate, so-called 'breakthrough cases' are a cause for concern - especially as we grapple with Delta and other emerging variants. Professor David Murdoch is Dean of the University of Otago and co-leader of The Infection Group.

Australian actor Bryan Brown is a familiar face on our screens. Brown is adding another feather to his cap by trying his hand at crime writing.

Listener Feedback for 28 August 2021.

Award-winning Kiwi cartoonist Toby Morris tells Kim Hill working on his latest book Dad Man Walking was "a bit of a reprieve" from his regular gig illustrating Covid-19 explainers for the World Health Organisation.

In her new short documentary Fifty Percent, Lillian Hanly grapples with an agonising decision: should she get tested for Huntington's disease? Her grandfather, New Zealand artist and printmaker Pat Hanly, had the neurodegenerative disease, and her biological mother also has Huntington's - as do other members of her family.

Mycelium, the root system of fungi, has increasingly started to be used as an alternative to plastic, but its uses are also extending into architecture and design as a living, construction material.  The uses depend on the fungal species, says Joseph Dahmen, an associate professor at the University of British Columbia School of Architecture. Dahmen has been working with mycelium-based materials for many years, principally in designing furniture and buildings.

Covid-19 has seen Sydney investigative journalist and broadcaster Dr Norman Swan thrust into a role as arguably Australia's most well-known doctor and a trusted voice in the long pandemic. He joins us to update how thing are in Aiustralia with Covid, in the wake of the recent loss of a Trans-Tasman bubble and as New Zealand and Australia deal with the virus differently.

As many as 170 Afghan people and 13 American troops are being reported as having been killed in a blast outside Kabul's international airport on Thursday night. Dr Srinjoy Bose is a Senior Lecturer in Politics and International Relations at the University of NSW, and is an expert on Afghanistan.

Protein scientist and writer Danyl McLauchlan joins RNZ's Saturday Morning to tackle life's big questions, ideas and thinkers. This week he's discussing the future of the news and how journalism will look radically different after the newspaper. So much so, that media theorist Andrey Mir suggests we refer to the new media product as 'postjournalism'.

Following on from her critically acclaimed 2018 debut Tinderbox, Wellington-based author Megan Dunn has returned with new book Things I Learned At Art School. Billed as part-memoir and part essay collection, Dunn shares vignettes from her early life and coming-of-age during the 70s, 80s, and 90s - from her Smurf collection to working in a massage parlour called Belle de Jour.