Smart Talk

Kim Hill chairs panel discussion about the measurement of climate change with Prof. Donna Strickland, Dr Thomas Baer and Prof. David Hutchinson.

Listen to Kim Hill chairing a panel discussion with Nobel Laureate Prof. Donna Strickland, Dr Thomas Baer, and Prof. David Hutchinson.

If electronics was the new technology of the last hundred years, it is being replaced in this century by photonics, according to three experts talking to Kim Hill: Donna Strickland, Thomas Baer, and David Hutchinson.

In an event hosted by the Dodd-Walls Centre based in Dunedin, they all discuss this new area of research which involves the manipulation of light at the most fundamental, quantum level, and the control and manipulation of matter at the atomic scale, through the use of light.

Although this description sounds forbiddingly abstract and theoretical, it's the practical application of photonics which animates all three scholars. Their professional focus - and the subject of this panel discussion - is how photonics can assist in the accurate measurement of climate change.

About the speakers

Professor Donna Strickland, Nobel Laureate

Professor Strickland is the third woman in history to win the Nobel Prize in Physics. Strickland, who helped revolutionize laser physics, shares half the $1.4 million Nobel Prize with French laser physicist Gérard Mourou. Together they paved the way toward the shortest and most intense laser pulses created by humankind. The team's research has a number of applications today in industry and medicine - everything from laser eye surgery to laser printers.

Dr. Thomas Baer, Executive Director of the Stanford Photonics Research Center

Dr. Thomas Baer's current scientific research is focused on developing imaging and biochemical analysis technology for exploring the molecular basis of human developmental biology and regenerative medicine, optogenetics, and developing new high-throughput technologies for protein engineering. Before joining Stanford University, Dr. Baer founded Arcturus Bioscience, Inc. which he established in 1996, serving as the company's Chairman and CEO until January 2005.

Professor David Hutchinson, Director of the Dodd-Walls Centre

Professor Hutchinson is a quantum physicist and professor at the University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand. He is the inaugural and current Director of the Dodd-Walls Centre for Photonic and Quantum Technologies, a New Zealand government-funded national Centre of Research Excellence. Hutchinson's research interests are in the areas of quantum biology, Bose-Einstein condensates, and the underlying mathematics of quantum physics.

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An Election 2020 debate on the arts, with MPs from National, Labour and the Greens exploring their policy differences and similiarities. Miriama Kamo is in the chair.

Listen to Miriama Kamo explore arts policies for the election with Chloe Swarbrick, Jonathan Young and Carmel Sepuloni.

Recorded on 24 September, this panel organised by Auckland's arts regional trust Te Taumata Toi-a-Iwi brings together representatives from Labour, National and the Greens to discuss their parties' arts policies.

The speakers are sitting MPs Jonathan Young for National, Carmel Sepuloni for Labour and Chloe Swarbrick for the Greens.

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Nations United explores the significance of the UN's Sustainable Development Goals. In the midst of a pandemic radically transforming our world, it sets out what must be done.

Listen to a group of international celebrities exploring the challenge of the climate crisis, human rights and gender equality.

Read the transcript of the documentary

Julia Roberts:

This is a very important story. The important story.

I'm Julia Roberts and in the midst of COVID-19, we have an historic opportunity to look at the world as it is, the facts of the world as it is, and then to really focus on the solutions to some of our greatest problems. In the 75 years since The United Nations was founded, the human race has never had to face a set of challenges like we do right now. But together, we can overcome them.

Nelson Mandela said, "It always seems impossible until it's done."

This is Nations United: Urgent Solutions for Urgent Times.... and there is still lots to be done.

September 2020, and the world is still in the grips of a global pandemic. There have been more than 27 million confirmed cases and more than 900,000 people have died. Billions of people have been in lockdown for months. Lives and livelihoods have been threatened and lost. As some lockdowns are easing, people are emerging into a different, uncertain world with a new appetite for change.

Antonio Guterres:

Today we feel the weight of history on our shoulders. The COVID-19 pandemic has shown how fragile the world is.

Julia Roberts:

Antonio Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations.

Antonio Guterres:

A microscopic virus has put us on our knees and that fragility should make us humble and should make us recognise that we need solidarity and unity.

Julia Roberts:

COVID-19 has been likened to an x-ray - exposing fractures in the skeletons of the societies we have built. A world with great inequality - which must be righted - and a world which must win the battle against climate catastrophe.

Antonio Guterres:

The whole planet is at stake. So this is a moment to wake up and this is a moment to recognize that the way we have been moving it's nowhere and that we need to change course.

Julia Roberts:

The lockdowns also showed that our environment itself could change. In the Punjab, for the first time in generations, the Himalayas are visible once again. Lions have reclaimed the roads in the Kruger National Park, and in Venice the canals run clear once more.

In the first few weeks of lockdown, Andrea Bocceli stood alone and sang on the steps of the Duomo di Milano.

Andrea Bocelli: …

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Writer John Bluck shares a very personal perspective on how moviegoing in New Zealand reflects our character, history and preoccupations.

Writer John Bluck shares a very personal perspective on how moviegoing in New Zealand reflects our character, history and preoccupations.

John Bluck traces a lifetime in the development of local cinema

A Tikiti to the Pikitea

Episode 1: The Dream Factory

What did everyone do to find their fantasy before films came along, only just a hundred years or so ago?

And each film is a magic journey, as if for the first time. When the house lights go down in the cinema, when those infuriating people in front of you finally turn off their cellphones, and the screen edges slide out to full-size, you know you're about to be taken to a place you've never been before.

It's all trickery of course. An illusion mechanically and electronically fabricated from projecting film but now videotape and digital signals through a process I can't begin to understand, creating images that move and speak like we do, even though they are twice, three times our size.

And so we sit there in the darkness, inside the dream factory, close together but not touching, in a crowd that doesn't talk or move for an hour or two; sometimes laughing out loud, sometimes weeping quietly (though it's bad form for men to look at each other when we do), and finally emerging silently, as different people, sometimes left bewildered by what we've seen.

The movie industry's first mass audiences were found in the industrial cities of Europe and America at the start of the 20th century. Silent films, shown in nickelodeons to poor migrant workers who had limited grasp of the language and couldn't read the subtitles. But the movies worked their magic regardless, giving a brief escape from the drudgery of factory life.

Our forebears in New Zealand started just as early. My grandfather ran a picture theatre during the First World War. I've still got the advertising slide shown at halftime. Bluck's Pioneer Picture Show. In Front All The Time. Watch Out for the Hunchback of Notre Dame.

Sadly the theatre burnt down and the films lying around were destroyed. I remember the charred remains that sat in his garage for years.

One was a film about Captain Cook, locally made as were many productions that celebrated Kiwi life and times. It might even have been a copy of the 1906 re-enactment of Cook's landing in Gisborne.

One of the earliest, made in 1900, is entitled The Departure of the Second Contingent for the Boer War…

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John Bluck explores the past, future, and current state of lawnmowing in a light-hearted but informative talk in six closely-cropped chapters.

Listen to John Bluck's exploration of the past, present experience and ambiguous future of lawnmowing

Chapter 1. An ordinary thing

It is the most ordinary thing anyone can do, next to washing dishes and taking out the rubbish. And much more fun.

And it's the easiest thing to do. Any Kiwi can. No qualifications required. And not much skill. It doesn't earn an NCEA credit.

And no licences needed. There are no government regulations to govern lawnmowing, no agency to promote it or ensure quality control. You're even allowed to do it during pandemics.

The technology you need for it can be sold to anyone. An enterprising twelve-year-old in the village where I live has set up shop as a lawnmower for hire at $12 an hour. There are no electronics to go wrong, nothing to programme. Not that that would be problem for a twelve-year-old.

The basic push mower with cast iron wheels you can still buy is pretty close to the one invented 160 years ago. The model a Mr Shanks perfected back then was one you pushed on foot. Hence the term Shanks's Pony. So think of those humble beginnings on your next walk.

It would be over-egging it to say that wars have been fought over lawns, but they have certainly divided families and broken reputations, made fortunes for some and turned others into paupers, spawned ecological disasters, prompted revolutionary social reforms, measured us morally, inspired poets and woven great romance. We'll look at those themes as we go, all springing from something as ordinary as mowing the lawn.

But before we get too serious, let's just acknowledge the pleasure that lawn mowing can bring.

Once you have managed to start the mower that is. If you flood the motor, if the spark plug is dirty, if the blades are clogged with grass, if someone has borrowed the earmuffs, it's not a good way to start a day.

But when the motor sings and you're rolling across the lawn like a boat through the waves, and the smell of fresh-cut grass fills the morning air, and the controls you clutch respond to your lightest touch; well, that's about as good as it's going to get today.

And with any luck, the mowing experience creates a kind of bubble to think inside. The task itself demands little concentration, once you've established the cutting track to follow, and that takes some time. You plot your course with the care of a harbour pilot. Is it going to be circles or swirls or straight lines today? If so, dead straight, please. Wiggles are unforgivable…

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The University of Auckland's Assoc. Prof. Siouxsie Wiles explains how glowing superbugs help in the development of new medicines to fight infection. From Raising the Bar 2020.

Listen to Assoc. Prof  Siouxsie Wiles on how glowing superbugs can help develop new medicines to fight infection, in the 2020 at-home version of Raising the Bar.

Bioluminescence (which literally means 'living light') allows glow worms to lure food, fireflies to find a mate, and nocturnal squid to camouflage themselves from predators. The light is a by-product of a simple chemical reaction, and only living creatures can glow. But can it be harnessed for new medicines? 

Siouxsie talks about how bioluminescence is used to better understand the infectious microbes that make us sick, and answers a wide range of listener questions in an online at-home version of the Raising the Bar series (which is normally held in front of audiences in bars around central Auckland).

Covid-19 is the focus of a lot of the talk, but it traverses many subjects, and provides an illuminating insight into the work her lab is performing by using glowing bacteria to understand superbugs and find new antibiotics to combat them.

About the speaker

Associate Professor Siouxsie Wiles describes herself as a microbiologist and bioluminescence enthusiast but to many she is "that pink-haired science lady". Siouxsie studied medical microbiology at the University of Edinburgh, followed by a PhD in microbiology at the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology in Oxford.

She spent almost a decade at Imperial College London, before relocating to Aotearoa New Zealand as a Health Research Council Hercus Fellow in 2009. Siouxsie heads up the Bioluminescent Superbugs Lab, where she combines her twin passions to understand infectious diseases and to find new antibiotics.

Siouxsie also has a keen interest in demystifying science; she is a tweeter, blogger, podcaster, and media science commentator (notably on RNZ National's Nine to Noon show), and has worked with artists to make living works of art for various exhibitions in Aotearoa and overseas.

In 2017 she published her first book,'Antibiotic resistance: the end of modern medicine?', and recently collaborated with her daughter to make a kid's show about microbiology.

Siouxsie has won numerous awards for her research and science communication efforts, including the UK National Centre for the Replacement, Refinement and Reduction of Animals in Research (NC3Rs) 3Rs prize, the Prime Minister's Science Media Communication Prize, and Royal Society Te Apārangi's Callaghan Medal…

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An informal talk from Prof. Darl Kolb about the experience of working from home, recorded during 2020's online version of the University of Auckland's Raising the Bar series.

Listen to Darl Kolb how the experience of working from home can be reshaped by the language we use to describe it, in the 2020 at-home version of Raising the Bar.

The Covid-19 lockdown that New Zealand went through was a profound experience for us all. Roads emptied of their usual traffic. The country closed down, and everyone stayed home. But for many people, work went on, on kitchen tables, in laundries or in spare bedrooms as computers were linked into the online workplace.

Everyone, it seems, became expert in Zoom meetings, and the etiquette of purposeful video conversations. Never before has the mute button become more important as way of facilitating effective communication!

The range of responses to this social and organisational experiment was extraordinarily wide, from those who welcomed the chance to abandon the rush-hour commute, to those who felt trapped by the demands of work piling on to those of family living, home schooling and childcare. 

If you're working from home, do you feel like you've hit the jackpot, or is it a punishing marathon that never seems to end? Auckland University's Prof. Darl Kolb has been asking people to describe their working from home experiences using metaphors.

Darl explores how people are coming to grips with the new normal. "Working without seeing my boss is like getting out of prison," says one person, while another says: "The technology I have to work with at home makes me feel like the poorest kid in the class."

Join Darl as he explores how people see and describe the new world of working from home and what might we learn from this grand social experiment. Has it changed the world of work, or will we drift in time back to the old ways of doing things?

For more information about Darl's current research project, check out his Metaphors in Use website.

About the speaker

Dr Darl Kolb is a pioneering theorist on socio-technical connectivity and the first Professor of Connectivity in the world.

Darl received his PhD in organisational behaviour from Cornell University and has been a Visiting Fellow at the University of Cambridge.

His main research interest is in the area of managing personal and organisational connectivity for performance and wellbeing.

Prior to becoming an academic, Darl worked as an Outward Bound Instructor throughout Colorado, New Mexico, Texas and Alaska.

He now works at the Graduate School of Management in the University of Auckland's Business School.

…

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Meng Foon talks with author Chris McDowall, and contributors Nadine Anne Hura and Veronika Meduna about an Atlas of Aotearoa in this highlight from the 2020 New Zealand Festival Writers' programme.

Listen to Chris McDowall, Nadine Anne Hura and Veronika Meduna talking to Meng Foon about the Atlas of Aotearoa in this highlight in this highlight from the 2020 NZ Festival of the Arts writers' programme

We Are Here - An Atlas of Aotearoa is the extraordinary product of years of work that offers an in-depth view of Aotearoa as a place and as a people. It asks you to step back from Google or Apple Maps and take a look at the world around you: your people, your places, your whenua.

Race Relations Commissioner Meng Foon talks with creator Chris McDowall and contributors Nadine Anne Hura and Veronika Meduna about this collision of data, design and heartfelt analysis. What does an atlas allow us to see when it presents information in startlingly new ways?

And why is the word data disliked so much by the editor, given that so much of the book is given over to data visualisation?

About the speakers

Chris McDowall

Chris McDowall trained as a geographer with a focus on cartography and human geography. He has worked variously as a cartographer, environmental scientist and manager at the University of Auckland, Landcare Research, the National Library of New Zealand and Figure.NZ. The common thread through his career is a desire to make the nation's data easier to find and interpret.

Nadine Anne Hura

Nadine Anne Hura (Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Hine) has had essays published in e-Tangata, The Spinoff, The Pantograph Punch and Ora Nui. She grew up in South Auckland and now lives in Wellington with her three children.

Veronika Meduna

Veronika Meduna is an award-winning science writer and broadcaster, with a focus on climate change. She is currently the New Zealand editor for The Conversation, a not-for-profit media organisation providing evidence-based current affairs analysis. Before joining The Conversation, she hosted 'Our Changing World', a weekly science programme on RNZ.

She has written five books on science, most recently Towards a Warming World, published by Bridget Williams Books, and Science on Ice: Discovering the Secrets of Antarctica, published by Auckland University Press. Veronika contributes to other publications in New Zealand and internationally, including the New Zealand Geographic, New Scientist and Deutsche Welle.

Meng Foon…

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12 months after the Christchurch terror attacks, Guled Mire chairs an NZ Festival discussion with Alison Whittaker and Nyadol Nyuon from Australia, and Anahera Gildea and Jack McDonald from Aotearoa.

Listen to Guled Mire, Alison Whittaker, Nyadol Nyuon, Anahera Gildea and Jack McDonald in this highlight from the 2020 New Zealand Festival writers' programme

This panel discussion, recorded on the eve of the first anniversary of the Christchurch Terror Attacks, explores racism in Australasia from immigrant and indigenous perspectives. The role of colonialism is a focus of the talk, which involves a number of community advocates who are seeking change in the norms and behaviour of a dominant white culture.

About the speakers

Alison Whittaker

The poet and essayist Alison Whittaker is a Gomeroi multitasker from the floodplains of Gunnedah in NSW. Between 2017-2018, she was a Fulbright scholar at Harvard Law School, where she was named the Dean's Scholar in Race, Gender and Criminal Law.

Her debut poetry collection, Lemons in the Chicken Wire, was awarded the State Library of Queensland's black&write! Indigenous Writing Fellowship in 2015, and was published by Magabala Books in 2016. Her latest book, Blakwork, was published in 2018.

Alison was the co-winner of the Overland Judith Wright Poetry Prize in 2017 for her poem, Many Girls White Linen. Most recently, she was the Australian Indigenous Poet-In-Residence for the 2018 Queensland Poetry Festival.

Anahera Gildea

Anahera Gildea (Ngāti Tukorehe) is a poet, short story writer, teacher, and essayist. Her work has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies and her first book Poroporoaki to the Lord My God: Weaving the Via Dolorosa was published by Seraph Press in 2016. She has a Masters of Creative Writing from the International Institute of Modern Letters, as well as Graduate Diplomas in Psychology and Teaching, and is currently undertaking doctoral research at Victoria University of Wellington, developing critical literary theory based on Māori intellectual traditions. She lives in Te Whanganui-a-Tara with her partner and son.

Guled Mire

Guled is a former refugee who is passionate about advancing and encouraging the social well-being, inclusion and development of New Zealand's ethnic and former refugee communities. Guled is a writer, speaker, young leader and community advocate. He is recognised as one of New Zealand's most prominent young voices advocating for a more humane, inclusive and welcoming society. He serves on the boards of a number of community organisations, and is the co-founder of Third Culture Minds. …

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Cardiac surgeon Samer Nashef talks with Carl Shuker about risk, mistakes and how heart surgery has changed in this highlight from the 2020 New Zealand Festival writers' programme.

Cardiac surgeon Samer Nashef talks with writer Carl Shuker about risk, mistakes and how heart surgery has changed in this highlight from the 2020 New Zealand Festival writers' programme.

Listen here

Cardiac surgeon Samer Nashef is author of The Naked Surgeon and The Angina Monologues - memoirs that describe life inside the operating theatre: from emergency surgeries to operating in the Palestinian West Bank.

What do you draw upon when faced with life and death situations? What does risk mean? And what advice might a cardiac surgeon give to those going under the knife?

Samer talks illuminatingly about a career devoted to improving clinical practice, and research projects which have sometimes unsettled his colleagues opposed his push towards reporting and transparency.

In this conversation, he speaks with Carl Shuker, whose novel A Mistake explores the story of surgical misadventure.

Samer Nashef:

Part of the reason I write these books is to help people be more informed so they can ask the right questions. The days where medicine was practised along the lines of the kindly doctor putting his arm around you and saying, "I know what's best for you, my good man," and you accept the treatment, have gone.

People have heart operations for two reasons - to feel better, and to live longer. So you need to know what the operation going to do for you in those two respects. So if you're so short of breath you can't climb one flight of stairs and the operation gets rid of these symptoms for you, then you can ask, "Okay, that sounds good, what's the risk of death?" You can measure the risk versus the benefit, and then you can decide whether you want to have the operation or not.

Doctors who do not explain all of that stuff to patients honestly are failing in their duty, and any consent that the patient gives would not be not valid, because it's not properly informed. I think the vast majority of patients are perfectly capable of making decisions. You must have heard the adage "No decision about me without me." You need to have your say in medical treatment. I certainly would want that if I were a patient, so I don't see why other people shouldn't get it.

Carl Shuker:…

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