A professor of management at San Francisco State University, Ronald Purser is a leading figure in the backlash against the mindfulness movement. He says that while mindfulness is promoted as an antidote to the stresses of modern life, it's actually leading us to an acceptance of our unhealthy capitalist society. He's the author of McMindfulness: How Mindfulness Became the New Capitalist Spirituality.

Professor Raina McIntyre leads the Biosecurity Research Program at the Kirby Institute at the University of New South Wales in Sydney. One of her key research areas is in epidemic responses to emerging infectious diseases. She's been in New Zealand this week leading a University of Otago Public Health Summer School course called 'Responding to a mystery epidemic in the Pacific'. This was organised before the current novel coronavirus/Covid-19 outbreak.

Kim Hill reads listener feedback for 8 February 2020.

The day after Helen Kelly left her job as President of the Council of Trade Unions the terminally ill workers' rights advocate met with film director Tony Sutorius and agreed to let him film the final year of her life. The resulting Documentary Helen Kelly -Together captures her ceaseless efforts supporting those affected by forestry industry deaths, families of Pike River miners, and meatworkers locked out of their jobs, as well as her own journey towards death. Sutorius runs Porirua-based Unreal Films and his previous film include Campaign, the short film The Whirling Man, and dozens of educational and training films. Helen Kelly: Together is on general release throughout New Zealand from February 13.

Rain Dove is a non-binary activist, and 'gender capitalist' model (they work as both male and female) who seeks to actively challenge beauty standards and gender norms. Rain has a large social media following and has become well known for using the platform to support trans and non-binary people and to lovingly engage with "haters". They recently attracted media attention for fabricating parts of their personal and academic history. Rain is in New Zealand in association with The Hello Cup.

Fantasy writer H.G (Hannah) Parry's novel The Unlikely Escape of Uriah Heep imagines what might happen if well-known literary characters broke free from the books they inhabit and invaded everyday life. Her PhD was in children's fantasy; she's a huge fan of C.S. Lewis, Lewis Carroll, Tolkien and, somewhat more surprisingly, Paddington Bear. The Kapiti-based author has just finished her second novel and is about to start work on a third.

Kim Hill meets the hard-working, humble and often hilarious stars of the Kiwi reality TV show The Casketeers. The couple have just realised the book Life as a Casketeer: What the Business of Death Can Teach the Living.

Claudia de Rham's a cosmologist grappling with some of the biggest questions about life, the universe and everything. She focusses on the nature of the universe, how it was formed, and the role gravity's playing as it continues to expand. At the centre of her work is a seemingly counter-intuitive conundrum: that the universe appears to be expanding at an accelerating rate rather than getting slowed down by the effect of gravity (as you might expect). It underpins an influential (and controversial) paper about so-called 'massive gravity' she co-authored in 2011.

It's been an action packed week in US politics. First a debacle over the Democratic results in the Iowa caucuses, where a combination of technical glitches and an archaic voting system meant delays in results being announced and continuing debate about the legitimacy of Pete Buttigieg's slim lead over Bernie Sanders. Then the theatre of President Trump's State of The Union address (and speaker Nancy Pelosi's paper ripping reaction to it). Finally, and as expected, the president was acquitted of the impeachment charges against him, with voting largely along party lines. How will these events impact each party in the race towards the November presidential election? Nicholas Fandos, a reporter based in the Washington bureau for The New York Times, joins us to unpack the week's drama.

Entomologist Neil Birrell's job title is 'maggot wrangler in chief'! His business Hexacycle uses the larvae of the black soldier fly to eat food waste and reduce the amount of food ending up in landfills.